Amara Havana
Do you truly think yourself my equal, when the blood of warrior gods flows in my veins?
It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever seen: Amara’s ruin smoking in the moonlight, the scent of gun-powder and rock-dust still hanging in the air, thick enough to taste, and beneath that blood and death-ashes. I was numb with exhaustion already, my strength drained to the dregs by nights of battle, and yet the sight struck me, wrung pain from me when I thought I had no more grief left to give. Amara, the heart of my people, lay broken before me, and I knew that the ash I tasted belonged to my sire, and my sire’s sire, and all of my kin, broken along with it. They would not have abandoned the ancient templesanctuary to be defaced and despoiled by foreigners, living or dead. They would not have abandoned our king to be slaughtered by assassins unless they themselves could fight no more. A wrathful madness seized me, and for a searing moment all I wanted was to kill — had anything or anyone been unfortunate enough to come upon me, then, it would have ended the night in bloody shreds. As I came closer, across the fields torn by horses’ hooves and artillery caissons, the furious madness ebbed away and an even more terrible anguish took its place. It was even worse than I had feared, than could be seen at a distance, the whole of the temple’s outer face was simply gone, pummeled to rubble and buried in the landslide caused by thewholesale collapse of the hill’s crown. Beneath my feet, the earth still trembled from time to time and the sound of falling stone echoed out through the wreckage, as the collapse of the temple interior had not yet finished. I knelt in what was left of the outermost court and could not even find in myself the desire to move as the sky slowly paled with oncoming dawn. I wept, and whispered quiet pleas for the souls of my dead, and would have stayed to join them, had not Narayan found me there and forced me to my feet, his hoarse voice insisting that all was not yet lost. It was true, though I did not believe him at that moment. The temple was not wholly destroyed. The deepest chambers survived, and were re-excavated and reinforced in slow and careful stages over many years. We return there now by hidden ways, to take counsel among one another, and to whisper our questions to the ghosts of the warriors who came before us, and to fear for the future of our people. Or, at least, I do.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
History and Culture: The Amara Havana hold themselves to be the literal descendants of gods (or, rather, a goddess) and of demons, the offspring of a war that raged thousands of years before Humanity even possessed the means to record its history. During this dark time, the world was overrun with both asuras (immensely powerful spiritual beings who were neither gods nor demons, and which could be malicious or benevolent and were often both) and demons hostile to both humankind and the gods. These entities were released, from the prisons and vows binding them, by the demon king Ravana, through his own rebellion against the gods and the strictures of the universe’s ordered adherence to dharma. It was a time of great terror and strife in Heaven, Earth and the Underworld, the horror fueled by the fact that many of the mightiest demons were pious enough to have achieved divinely which protected them from death except by specific circumstances. Such was the case of the shapeshifter buffalo-demon Mahishasura, whose piousness and prayers to Brahma had been rewarded with a body that could not be slain by any man or god and who achieved the conquest of Heaven as a result. In order to defeat and destroy him, the three greatest gods — Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma — offered their prayers to the holy river Ganges to bring forth a champion for the gods, and thus was born the goddess Durga, the warrior aspect of the great goddess Mahadevi. The mightiest of the gods gave her their most powerful weapons, the mountains gifted her with a white tiger to ride into battle, and she went forth to destroy the demon that could not be slain by any but a woman warrior.
Unlike several other Indian bloodlines, the Amara Havana do not believe that their patron deity actually incarnated as one of their own in order to found their lineage. Rather, when the blood of the goddess Durga and the asura Mahishasura rained down from their battle in heaven, those who were bathed in that blood were forever transformed by the touch of mingled divine and demonic essence. When the battle between the goddess and the demon ended in her victory, she descended to the ravaged Earth to set in motion its healing. When the first vampires of this bloodline knelt to her in supplication and prayed for her blessing, she answered those prayers with a boon of great power. Mighty and compassionate though she was, even the goddess could not purify them of the demon-taint to their blood, nor could she make them truly immortal. Instead she set forth conditions by which death could claim them, rendering them immune to age or disease, and vulnerable only to fire and the weapons of other warriors. She also decreed that the tainted blood that had so changed them would be the strongest of their weapons, anointing them as her chosen warriors, the rulers and guardians of their people by night as the mortal kshatriya were the rulers and guardians of the day. Thus, the Amara Havana consider themselves, and all other vampires, to be a form of asura, neither god nor man nor demon, but an admixture of all three, who have chosen a way of righteousness and self-sacrifice for the sake of dharma and the life of the universe itself.
This history is recorded in the puranas sacred to the bloodline as a whole and, in general, they do not credit the attitudes of western Kindred concerning the unlikelihood of their origin. If the westerners choose to believe that there are none in the world older than a thousand years, their delusions are of no concern to those who know better. The eldest vampires of the Amara Havana remember Harappa at the height of its power. The eldest of their lineage hand down artifacts, bearing the tongue of the ancient Indus, to the younger generations. They keep faith with the dharma laid out for them in the puranas and vedas and, as far as they are concerned, this is all that truly matters. Some Kindred of this bloodline even go so far as to believe that the western Daeva clan descends from them and not the other way around — with these westerners being the offspring of those too weak to adhere to the demands of rajadharma, who fled the cradle of the blood to hide their cowardice. This attitude naturally does not much endear them to their western cousins. Among the Kindred bloodlines of India, the Amara Havana generally consider only one other bloodline to be their peer in terms of ancient pedigree — the Nosferatu Rakshasa bloodline, with whom they have enjoyed a relationship that has ranged from semi-amicable rivalry to open, bloody warfare — and only one to be their superior, the kshatriya bloodline of the Mekhet, called the Ananta Naga.
In strict truth, no one knows precisely how old the Amara Havana really are, though they, like the Rakshasa, claim a history that stretches back thousands of years beyond the accepted limits of early human history. Certainly, there were vampires present and active within the Indus culture back then, though whether any of the current Indian Kindred bloodlines are direct descendants of those vampires is debatable. In practice, the Kindred of India make those claims and very few in the world could possibly gainsay them — they accept that history as true and teach it to their neonates as fact, admitting very little debate on the issue. In essence, the Amara Havana have retained their own startlingly resilient and contiguous internal culture by virtue of a fundamentalist attitude about their own history, which has admitted no editorial or adjustment by outside social forces. While the Rakshasa were falling under the “civilizing” sway of the brahmins for the first time, the Amara Havana were refining their own understanding of rajadharma to a razor’s edge without the need of such interference in their internal affairs. While the brahmin Kindred would have their own kind and the westerners believe that all the foremost advances of vampire society can be credited to their account, the kshatriya bloodlines in general, and the Amara Havana in particular, know otherwise.
The nocturnal battles, that secured the safety of the brahmin Kindred to practice their sorceries and develop their philosophies, were fought by the kshatriya. The blood that watered the mountains and plains and forests of India flowed from the veins of her warriors, living and dead. The burden of rulership was laid by the decree of the gods on the shoulders of those most fit to bear it, and those shoulders did not reside in the brahmin bloodlines. It became, over a period of some five centuries, a matter of not inconsiderable grievance that the princes of the Amara Havana would take counsel with the brahmin Kindred, would listen to the religious teachings of the brahmin Kindred, and would willingly do the fighting for the brahmin Kindred, but would not permit themselves or their dominions to be governed by a sorcerer-priest from behind their own thrones. Where the Amara Havana held sway, they were the rulers.
Matters stood thus at the dawn of the 19th century, when the great European powers began exerting their colonial influence on the Indian subcontinent. The influx of mortal conquerors brought vampire conquerors in their wake like carrion birds and, in the eyes of many with the kshatriya caste, conflict was inevitable. Unfortunately, malign providence worked against the native Kindred, including the Amara Havana: a number of powerful elders retired their positions, leaving untried successors to navigate the perilous social waters of newly colonial India, and the results were almost uniformly disastrous. The Chhatrapati resisted the siren call of sleep for as long as he could but, in the end, even he needed to lay down his sword. His retirement, and the subsequent internecine quarrel among the kshatriya over who should replace him, led to open bloodshed between all the major bloodlines and most of the minor ones, as well. The Amara Havana and the Ananta Naga joined forces to lesson the Rakshasa, whom they perceived as the lapdogs and puppets of self-serving brahmin manipulators, and then turned upon each other to settle the question of dominance between themselves once and for all. Before either could claim victory, however, the war was joined from another quarter: European vampires beholden to The Invictus and The Lancea Sanctum, as well as native pawns and traitors, attacked the embattled kshatriya bloodlines. Already weakened by the struggle with their traditional rivals, the Amara Havana were hit particularly hard by the European onslaught: whole lineages were wiped out root and branch, and many dozens more were driven into Torpor and exile before the conflict finally ended with much of southern India under the rulership of conquering European princes.
Licking their wounds in exile, the Amara Havana realized the folly of their own actions and moved to correct them. Over the next century and a half they formally sued for peace with the Ananta Naga, who accepted without conditions, and then made similar overtures to the Rakshasa, who were even more broken and embittered than they. As it happened, the Rakshasa were more than willing to make common cause and, together, they made a project of isolating and destroying The Invictus Kindred who laid claim to their former dominions — slowly but surely reclaiming and rebuilding the foundations of their power. Now, the Amara Havana and their Allies are planning to extend their vengeance beyond the borders of India.
Working closely with Rakshasa infiltration specialists, agents of the Amara Havana have assumed an assortment of guises and have begun slowly introducing themselves into western courts in both the Americas and Europe. Frequently, an Amara Havana will travel in a Rakshasa merchant-envoy’s retinue as a bodyguard or other highranking servant whose position would allow for reasonably unfettered access to a western court. More level-headed members of this bloodline are assigned to merchantenvoy missions themselves. Once ensconced in the cities of their unwitting hosts, these infiltration teams gather intelligence, recruit reliable local sources of information, engage in the fundaments of Kindred intercultural commerce, and report their findings back to their superiors. When and if a target is selected for elimination, these teams will often be the means by which an assassin or group of assassins enters and leaves a specific domain; these infiltrators also arrange the particulars of travel and accommodations for missions, as well as providing a readily available source of assistance should greater force be required to complete a given assignment. Lamentably, the Amara Havana themselves are not the best of assassins, being prone to the sort of honorable behavior that would lead them to challenge an enemy instead of simply staking him and leaving him posted somewhere facing eastward five minutes before dawn. When, however, a coterie of kshatriya are assigned a task that involves a high degree of violence to an enemy’s servants — particularly his body-servants or other retainers of a martial nature — the Amara Havana are generally the ones best equipped to dispense it. True elders of this lineage consider vastly uneven odds to be an interesting tactical complication, not an insurmountable disadvantage.
Some members of this lineage, however, have been known to go west, with or without companions, and simply never return. The world outside the rigid social hierarchy of the Indian Kindred is intensely seductive to many young, and no few old, vampires — particularly those whose ability to govern the passions left to them is somewhat chancy. Hot blood and occasionally poor judgment is considered somewhat excusable in youngsters of this lineage and should such an individual choose to abandon his duty to his kin and his dharma to wallow in the heathen fleshpots for a time…well, that can be understood, so long as he eventually returns, makes penance, and has some sort of advantageous connections or bits of information to offer in compensation for his earlier moral failings. This sort of behavior coming from anyone more than 50 years undead, however, is considered significantly worse than a transitory failure of ethics and such individuals can, at the very least, expect harsh penances in order to regain the purity of soul they have willfully defiled. Failure to return home and accept proper chastisement leads to only one outcome, though the Amara Havana are loath to use it. Expulsion from one’s bloodline (the social aspect of it, anyway; obviously one can’t literally have a bloodline removed) is generally construed to be a fate worse than Final Death by all Indian Kindred. Destruction is preferable to a declaration of pariah, outcast and untouchable by all. Only a handful of Kindred have ever suffered this fate in the history of the Amara Havana bloodline, but their lesson stands starkly in the minds of all whose missions take them far from home.
Unlike several other Indian bloodlines, the Amara Havana do not believe that their patron deity actually incarnated as one of their own in order to found their lineage. Rather, when the blood of the goddess Durga and the asura Mahishasura rained down from their battle in heaven, those who were bathed in that blood were forever transformed by the touch of mingled divine and demonic essence. When the battle between the goddess and the demon ended in her victory, she descended to the ravaged Earth to set in motion its healing. When the first vampires of this bloodline knelt to her in supplication and prayed for her blessing, she answered those prayers with a boon of great power. Mighty and compassionate though she was, even the goddess could not purify them of the demon-taint to their blood, nor could she make them truly immortal. Instead she set forth conditions by which death could claim them, rendering them immune to age or disease, and vulnerable only to fire and the weapons of other warriors. She also decreed that the tainted blood that had so changed them would be the strongest of their weapons, anointing them as her chosen warriors, the rulers and guardians of their people by night as the mortal kshatriya were the rulers and guardians of the day. Thus, the Amara Havana consider themselves, and all other vampires, to be a form of asura, neither god nor man nor demon, but an admixture of all three, who have chosen a way of righteousness and self-sacrifice for the sake of dharma and the life of the universe itself.
This history is recorded in the puranas sacred to the bloodline as a whole and, in general, they do not credit the attitudes of western Kindred concerning the unlikelihood of their origin. If the westerners choose to believe that there are none in the world older than a thousand years, their delusions are of no concern to those who know better. The eldest vampires of the Amara Havana remember Harappa at the height of its power. The eldest of their lineage hand down artifacts, bearing the tongue of the ancient Indus, to the younger generations. They keep faith with the dharma laid out for them in the puranas and vedas and, as far as they are concerned, this is all that truly matters. Some Kindred of this bloodline even go so far as to believe that the western Daeva clan descends from them and not the other way around — with these westerners being the offspring of those too weak to adhere to the demands of rajadharma, who fled the cradle of the blood to hide their cowardice. This attitude naturally does not much endear them to their western cousins. Among the Kindred bloodlines of India, the Amara Havana generally consider only one other bloodline to be their peer in terms of ancient pedigree — the Nosferatu Rakshasa bloodline, with whom they have enjoyed a relationship that has ranged from semi-amicable rivalry to open, bloody warfare — and only one to be their superior, the kshatriya bloodline of the Mekhet, called the Ananta Naga.
In strict truth, no one knows precisely how old the Amara Havana really are, though they, like the Rakshasa, claim a history that stretches back thousands of years beyond the accepted limits of early human history. Certainly, there were vampires present and active within the Indus culture back then, though whether any of the current Indian Kindred bloodlines are direct descendants of those vampires is debatable. In practice, the Kindred of India make those claims and very few in the world could possibly gainsay them — they accept that history as true and teach it to their neonates as fact, admitting very little debate on the issue. In essence, the Amara Havana have retained their own startlingly resilient and contiguous internal culture by virtue of a fundamentalist attitude about their own history, which has admitted no editorial or adjustment by outside social forces. While the Rakshasa were falling under the “civilizing” sway of the brahmins for the first time, the Amara Havana were refining their own understanding of rajadharma to a razor’s edge without the need of such interference in their internal affairs. While the brahmin Kindred would have their own kind and the westerners believe that all the foremost advances of vampire society can be credited to their account, the kshatriya bloodlines in general, and the Amara Havana in particular, know otherwise.
The nocturnal battles, that secured the safety of the brahmin Kindred to practice their sorceries and develop their philosophies, were fought by the kshatriya. The blood that watered the mountains and plains and forests of India flowed from the veins of her warriors, living and dead. The burden of rulership was laid by the decree of the gods on the shoulders of those most fit to bear it, and those shoulders did not reside in the brahmin bloodlines. It became, over a period of some five centuries, a matter of not inconsiderable grievance that the princes of the Amara Havana would take counsel with the brahmin Kindred, would listen to the religious teachings of the brahmin Kindred, and would willingly do the fighting for the brahmin Kindred, but would not permit themselves or their dominions to be governed by a sorcerer-priest from behind their own thrones. Where the Amara Havana held sway, they were the rulers.
Matters stood thus at the dawn of the 19th century, when the great European powers began exerting their colonial influence on the Indian subcontinent. The influx of mortal conquerors brought vampire conquerors in their wake like carrion birds and, in the eyes of many with the kshatriya caste, conflict was inevitable. Unfortunately, malign providence worked against the native Kindred, including the Amara Havana: a number of powerful elders retired their positions, leaving untried successors to navigate the perilous social waters of newly colonial India, and the results were almost uniformly disastrous. The Chhatrapati resisted the siren call of sleep for as long as he could but, in the end, even he needed to lay down his sword. His retirement, and the subsequent internecine quarrel among the kshatriya over who should replace him, led to open bloodshed between all the major bloodlines and most of the minor ones, as well. The Amara Havana and the Ananta Naga joined forces to lesson the Rakshasa, whom they perceived as the lapdogs and puppets of self-serving brahmin manipulators, and then turned upon each other to settle the question of dominance between themselves once and for all. Before either could claim victory, however, the war was joined from another quarter: European vampires beholden to The Invictus and The Lancea Sanctum, as well as native pawns and traitors, attacked the embattled kshatriya bloodlines. Already weakened by the struggle with their traditional rivals, the Amara Havana were hit particularly hard by the European onslaught: whole lineages were wiped out root and branch, and many dozens more were driven into Torpor and exile before the conflict finally ended with much of southern India under the rulership of conquering European princes.
Licking their wounds in exile, the Amara Havana realized the folly of their own actions and moved to correct them. Over the next century and a half they formally sued for peace with the Ananta Naga, who accepted without conditions, and then made similar overtures to the Rakshasa, who were even more broken and embittered than they. As it happened, the Rakshasa were more than willing to make common cause and, together, they made a project of isolating and destroying The Invictus Kindred who laid claim to their former dominions — slowly but surely reclaiming and rebuilding the foundations of their power. Now, the Amara Havana and their Allies are planning to extend their vengeance beyond the borders of India.
Working closely with Rakshasa infiltration specialists, agents of the Amara Havana have assumed an assortment of guises and have begun slowly introducing themselves into western courts in both the Americas and Europe. Frequently, an Amara Havana will travel in a Rakshasa merchant-envoy’s retinue as a bodyguard or other highranking servant whose position would allow for reasonably unfettered access to a western court. More level-headed members of this bloodline are assigned to merchantenvoy missions themselves. Once ensconced in the cities of their unwitting hosts, these infiltration teams gather intelligence, recruit reliable local sources of information, engage in the fundaments of Kindred intercultural commerce, and report their findings back to their superiors. When and if a target is selected for elimination, these teams will often be the means by which an assassin or group of assassins enters and leaves a specific domain; these infiltrators also arrange the particulars of travel and accommodations for missions, as well as providing a readily available source of assistance should greater force be required to complete a given assignment. Lamentably, the Amara Havana themselves are not the best of assassins, being prone to the sort of honorable behavior that would lead them to challenge an enemy instead of simply staking him and leaving him posted somewhere facing eastward five minutes before dawn. When, however, a coterie of kshatriya are assigned a task that involves a high degree of violence to an enemy’s servants — particularly his body-servants or other retainers of a martial nature — the Amara Havana are generally the ones best equipped to dispense it. True elders of this lineage consider vastly uneven odds to be an interesting tactical complication, not an insurmountable disadvantage.
Some members of this lineage, however, have been known to go west, with or without companions, and simply never return. The world outside the rigid social hierarchy of the Indian Kindred is intensely seductive to many young, and no few old, vampires — particularly those whose ability to govern the passions left to them is somewhat chancy. Hot blood and occasionally poor judgment is considered somewhat excusable in youngsters of this lineage and should such an individual choose to abandon his duty to his kin and his dharma to wallow in the heathen fleshpots for a time…well, that can be understood, so long as he eventually returns, makes penance, and has some sort of advantageous connections or bits of information to offer in compensation for his earlier moral failings. This sort of behavior coming from anyone more than 50 years undead, however, is considered significantly worse than a transitory failure of ethics and such individuals can, at the very least, expect harsh penances in order to regain the purity of soul they have willfully defiled. Failure to return home and accept proper chastisement leads to only one outcome, though the Amara Havana are loath to use it. Expulsion from one’s bloodline (the social aspect of it, anyway; obviously one can’t literally have a bloodline removed) is generally construed to be a fate worse than Final Death by all Indian Kindred. Destruction is preferable to a declaration of pariah, outcast and untouchable by all. Only a handful of Kindred have ever suffered this fate in the history of the Amara Havana bloodline, but their lesson stands starkly in the minds of all whose missions take them far from home.
Major organizations
Reputation: Among the Kindred of India, the Amara Havana possess something of a mixed reputation. On the one hand, they are undeniably kshatriya among kshatriya: they have refrained, for centuries, from taking the path of least resistance, of allowing foreign influences to mutate their clan culture, to abandon their traditional beliefs and adopt an ethic more suited to the changing face of the world. Traditionalist vampires have long considered them to be the rock to which other, less faithful lineages might cling and be sheltered by their willingness to bleed and kill for the sake of all their kind, keeping faith with their rigid and unchanging dharma even as the rest of the world erodes around them. On the other hand, that unyielding adherence to tradition can, and has, worked against them.When one’s enemy is dishonorable, treating honorably with such opponents becomes a fatal weakness. When the world changes and one refuses to change with itlong enough, even the simplest alterations in the shape of one’s beliefs can become points of breaking strain. The Amara Havana, in this day and fallen age, are a throwback to ancient honor and glory — and are very, very fragile. The coming conflicts may either signal a return to power for the line, a remaking of unbalanced Kindred society in their own image, or finish breaking them once and for all.
Within the senior counsels of the bloodline, at least two distinct factions have come into being. The traditionalist elders of the Amara Havana have, for the most part, thrown their lot wholly in with those who wish to avenge themselves on the western Kindred whose conquest of southern Indian during the 19th century so ravaged the kshatriya lineages. These vampires are highly conservative in general, adhering to social conventions that were ancient before Alexander marched his armies to the Hyphases and nourishing their sense of grievance with the modern world like a man cuckolded by his favorite wife. The loyal opposition within the bloodline is, in fact, only slightly less conservative — but that “less” embraces such heretical notions as not picking a potentially unwinnable intergenerational war with the western Kindred to salve the bloodline’s wounded pride, not declaring those Indian Kindred who travel to the west for their own reasons pariah, and a general greater willingness to adopt such elements of the modern world that do not directly threaten the integrity of their clan culture. The unappeasable fury of the conservatives drives most of the bloodline’s current activities with regard to its involvement in The Southern Cities Alliance; but the loyalists, somewhat greater in numbers, exert a certain amount of counterbalancing influence, forcing a consideration of tactics, objectives, and, most importantly, consequences that many of the more bloodthirsty elders would prefer to ignore. As matters currently stand, neither faction has the numbers nor the continuity of influence necessary to completely undermine the other’s efforts. The only thing that could significantly alter this balance of power is, of course, the vacancy of the Chhatrapati’s throne. Should Ravindra, one of the most potent loyalist elders, feel it necessary to issue a challenge, the traditionalists would move to neutralize him, and by extension those allied to him, with a challenger of their own. On the eve of war it remains to be seen, however, if anyone — Ravindra included — desires to unsettle the entire kshatriya caste in such a way.
Within the senior counsels of the bloodline, at least two distinct factions have come into being. The traditionalist elders of the Amara Havana have, for the most part, thrown their lot wholly in with those who wish to avenge themselves on the western Kindred whose conquest of southern Indian during the 19th century so ravaged the kshatriya lineages. These vampires are highly conservative in general, adhering to social conventions that were ancient before Alexander marched his armies to the Hyphases and nourishing their sense of grievance with the modern world like a man cuckolded by his favorite wife. The loyal opposition within the bloodline is, in fact, only slightly less conservative — but that “less” embraces such heretical notions as not picking a potentially unwinnable intergenerational war with the western Kindred to salve the bloodline’s wounded pride, not declaring those Indian Kindred who travel to the west for their own reasons pariah, and a general greater willingness to adopt such elements of the modern world that do not directly threaten the integrity of their clan culture. The unappeasable fury of the conservatives drives most of the bloodline’s current activities with regard to its involvement in The Southern Cities Alliance; but the loyalists, somewhat greater in numbers, exert a certain amount of counterbalancing influence, forcing a consideration of tactics, objectives, and, most importantly, consequences that many of the more bloodthirsty elders would prefer to ignore. As matters currently stand, neither faction has the numbers nor the continuity of influence necessary to completely undermine the other’s efforts. The only thing that could significantly alter this balance of power is, of course, the vacancy of the Chhatrapati’s throne. Should Ravindra, one of the most potent loyalist elders, feel it necessary to issue a challenge, the traditionalists would move to neutralize him, and by extension those allied to him, with a challenger of their own. On the eve of war it remains to be seen, however, if anyone — Ravindra included — desires to unsettle the entire kshatriya caste in such a way.
Nickname: Guardians
Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity, Majesty, Sakti Pata, Vigor
Weakness: As with their parent clan, the Amara Havana have difficulty resisting the darker passions of their natures (see p. 105 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Additionally, accepting membership into the Amara Havana forever stains the vampires with blood. All Guardians leave bloody handprints on whatever they touch. This blood is illusory; it does not feel wet, and does not transfer to other surfaces. The player can expend Willpower to cancel this effect for a scene, just as he can to make the vampire’s reflection appear normal (see p. 170 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Concepts: Genius chessmaster tactician, reluctant assassin, dumb but honorable muscle, individual of mass destruction, dharma rebel, hard-bitten veteran of the colonial wars, warrior poet, private military contractor with an agenda, Bollywood martial artist, ultraconservative culture cop
The office of the Chhatrapati is as old as the kshatriya Kindred themselves, steeped in the martial traditions of the warrior vampires that cut across bloodline, loyalty and antagonism alike. The Chhatrapati is, in essence, the ruler of the entire warrior caste, the vampire who has, through dint of martial skill, political acumen, religious piety and personal magnetism, managed to claim the title in trial by combat or through the acclaim of the majority of the kshatriya elders. In times of danger, this individual becomes the strategos of the warrior caste, the general whose plans direct the actions of the kshatriya elders and their subordinates to meet their dharmic responsibility to protect the great mandala of Kindred society. In times of peace, the holder of the office wields considerable political influence within the counsels of the kshatriya bloodlines and does much to shape the balance of power between them and the brahmin bloodlines — with whom they are sometimes peaceful partners and sometimes vicious rivals.
Even when the need is acute, the office of the Chhatrapati is not always filled. In fact, it is currently vacant. The last to hold the title was assassinated by Invictus agents in the 19th century and none of the surviving elders of the kshatriya bloodlines have yet proven themselves to possess the requisite social heft to claim the throne and keep it. The Ananta Naga, the pre-eminent kshatriya bloodline of the Mekhet, and the Amara Havana essentially traded claims to the title for the best part of a thousand years, the majority of all Chhatrapati coming from these two bloodlines, though the last to hold it was a Rakshasa. At the moment, there are three potential claimants, all of whom possess a valid case for their assertion. Ravindra of the Amara Havana holds claim as being the sole survivor of his lineage, which has produced no less than six Chhatrapati over the last thousand years and which was nearly annihilated fighting in defense of the previous holder of the title. Kalapriya of the Ananta Naga contests the claim on the grounds of the incompetence of both the Amara Havana and the Rakshasa in recent decades and the need for care and delicacy in the execution of current plans. Narayan of the Rakshasa holds claim as being the grandchilde of the last Chhatrapati and the foremost warrior of his remaining lineage. Contested claims of this type are usually resolved in trials by combat. No one has yet issued such a challenge, but many within the kshatriya caste believe it is only a matter of time.
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: As with their parent clan, the Amara Havana have difficulty resisting the darker passions of their natures (see p. 105 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Additionally, accepting membership into the Amara Havana forever stains the vampires with blood. All Guardians leave bloody handprints on whatever they touch. This blood is illusory; it does not feel wet, and does not transfer to other surfaces. The player can expend Willpower to cancel this effect for a scene, just as he can to make the vampire’s reflection appear normal (see p. 170 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Concepts: Genius chessmaster tactician, reluctant assassin, dumb but honorable muscle, individual of mass destruction, dharma rebel, hard-bitten veteran of the colonial wars, warrior poet, private military contractor with an agenda, Bollywood martial artist, ultraconservative culture cop
The Warrior of Warriors
The office of the Chhatrapati is as old as the kshatriya Kindred themselves, steeped in the martial traditions of the warrior vampires that cut across bloodline, loyalty and antagonism alike. The Chhatrapati is, in essence, the ruler of the entire warrior caste, the vampire who has, through dint of martial skill, political acumen, religious piety and personal magnetism, managed to claim the title in trial by combat or through the acclaim of the majority of the kshatriya elders. In times of danger, this individual becomes the strategos of the warrior caste, the general whose plans direct the actions of the kshatriya elders and their subordinates to meet their dharmic responsibility to protect the great mandala of Kindred society. In times of peace, the holder of the office wields considerable political influence within the counsels of the kshatriya bloodlines and does much to shape the balance of power between them and the brahmin bloodlines — with whom they are sometimes peaceful partners and sometimes vicious rivals.Even when the need is acute, the office of the Chhatrapati is not always filled. In fact, it is currently vacant. The last to hold the title was assassinated by Invictus agents in the 19th century and none of the surviving elders of the kshatriya bloodlines have yet proven themselves to possess the requisite social heft to claim the throne and keep it. The Ananta Naga, the pre-eminent kshatriya bloodline of the Mekhet, and the Amara Havana essentially traded claims to the title for the best part of a thousand years, the majority of all Chhatrapati coming from these two bloodlines, though the last to hold it was a Rakshasa. At the moment, there are three potential claimants, all of whom possess a valid case for their assertion. Ravindra of the Amara Havana holds claim as being the sole survivor of his lineage, which has produced no less than six Chhatrapati over the last thousand years and which was nearly annihilated fighting in defense of the previous holder of the title. Kalapriya of the Ananta Naga contests the claim on the grounds of the incompetence of both the Amara Havana and the Rakshasa in recent decades and the need for care and delicacy in the execution of current plans. Narayan of the Rakshasa holds claim as being the grandchilde of the last Chhatrapati and the foremost warrior of his remaining lineage. Contested claims of this type are usually resolved in trials by combat. No one has yet issued such a challenge, but many within the kshatriya caste believe it is only a matter of time.