Canda Bhanu
Your arrogance ill becomes you, traveler. I am a teacher of the way — will you not sit and speak peacefully with me? I am certain that we have much to learn from one another.
Thus it is written:
The wars between the gods and the demons, and the armies of their chosen warriors, ravaged the Earth by both day and night. The suffering of all peoples was great. Famine stalked the fields, stole the food from the tables of kings and sages, warriors and farmers, and the starving multitudes cried out to Heaven for sustenance. Pestilence flowed through the cities and the towns, the great temples and the humble villages, carrying away first the very young and the very old, and then laying its baneful touch on all, that none lived to offer prayers for those who had fallen or aid to those who yet survived. Demons carried away the sons and daughters of men, to profane them with unholy lusts, and taught blasphemy from the defiled altars of the gods, to turn the people away from their dharma and bring the whole of the universe to unending darkness and chaos. This terrible war gave birth to the night-hunting warriors of the kshatriya and, in time, the cruel weight of its toil wore away at their minds and souls, until they were little more than demons themselves.
The gods saw how far their night-warriors had fallen and shed tears of grief and despair. As the tears of the gods fell upon the blighted Earth, some among the night-warriors came forth to bathe themselves in these divine waters, seeking to wash away the stain of hatred and violence that the war had left upon their souls. At the sight of this, the gods knew hope again, for if the demontainted could still seek out righteousness, all was not lost for the world. One of the highest of all the gods left his seat of contemplation and descended to the soul-hungry night-warriors, who fell upon their knees before him in awe and worship, offering him prayers for the Healing of their pain. To assuage the hungers of their flesh, he laid open his own veins and permitted them to drink deeply of his divine blood. To assuage the hungers of their souls, he took them apart from the world to the holy mountain where he dwelt, that he might teach them more deeply of the ways of righteousness and the path to conquering the demon-madness that lay within them. There they abided for many long years, learning the way from the great divine sage, and, when the hour seemed darkest for those left behind, they emerged again to offer the fruits of their studies to all the asura-children of the great war.
Thus it is written:
The newly-born brahmin of the night peoples went forth into the world to bring the word of hope and righteousness to their fellows, to let them know that the war they fought was not the beginning and the ending of all things for them. Many at first refused to listen, for their anguish had blinded them to all but terrible despair, and many more had no desire to receive the teachings, for their hatred and their lusts were better served by base indulgence. But, for some, the gentle words of their brahmin kin were as a balm to the soul and in them they found Healing and a path beyond war and suffering to a future unshackled from both. Slowly, the words that the sages spoke spread from the small circles of their first students, washing out like soothing water, making pure that which had been sullied, making whole that which had been sundered, bringing peace to that which had been at war.
Thus it is written and thus it remains.
The wars between the gods and the demons, and the armies of their chosen warriors, ravaged the Earth by both day and night. The suffering of all peoples was great. Famine stalked the fields, stole the food from the tables of kings and sages, warriors and farmers, and the starving multitudes cried out to Heaven for sustenance. Pestilence flowed through the cities and the towns, the great temples and the humble villages, carrying away first the very young and the very old, and then laying its baneful touch on all, that none lived to offer prayers for those who had fallen or aid to those who yet survived. Demons carried away the sons and daughters of men, to profane them with unholy lusts, and taught blasphemy from the defiled altars of the gods, to turn the people away from their dharma and bring the whole of the universe to unending darkness and chaos. This terrible war gave birth to the night-hunting warriors of the kshatriya and, in time, the cruel weight of its toil wore away at their minds and souls, until they were little more than demons themselves.
The gods saw how far their night-warriors had fallen and shed tears of grief and despair. As the tears of the gods fell upon the blighted Earth, some among the night-warriors came forth to bathe themselves in these divine waters, seeking to wash away the stain of hatred and violence that the war had left upon their souls. At the sight of this, the gods knew hope again, for if the demontainted could still seek out righteousness, all was not lost for the world. One of the highest of all the gods left his seat of contemplation and descended to the soul-hungry night-warriors, who fell upon their knees before him in awe and worship, offering him prayers for the Healing of their pain. To assuage the hungers of their flesh, he laid open his own veins and permitted them to drink deeply of his divine blood. To assuage the hungers of their souls, he took them apart from the world to the holy mountain where he dwelt, that he might teach them more deeply of the ways of righteousness and the path to conquering the demon-madness that lay within them. There they abided for many long years, learning the way from the great divine sage, and, when the hour seemed darkest for those left behind, they emerged again to offer the fruits of their studies to all the asura-children of the great war.
Thus it is written:
The newly-born brahmin of the night peoples went forth into the world to bring the word of hope and righteousness to their fellows, to let them know that the war they fought was not the beginning and the ending of all things for them. Many at first refused to listen, for their anguish had blinded them to all but terrible despair, and many more had no desire to receive the teachings, for their hatred and their lusts were better served by base indulgence. But, for some, the gentle words of their brahmin kin were as a balm to the soul and in them they found Healing and a path beyond war and suffering to a future unshackled from both. Slowly, the words that the sages spoke spread from the small circles of their first students, washing out like soothing water, making pure that which had been sullied, making whole that which had been sundered, bringing peace to that which had been at war.
Thus it is written and thus it remains.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
History and Culture: The Canda Bhanu consider themselves but one among many: they are of the bloodlines of vampires who, in the aftermath of the terrible war between the gods, the demons, and their own demontainted people, were chosen by the gods to bring Healing to the world. In this they are at least somewhat humble, though the brahmin vampires, as a whole, are not at all meek. While they are, in total, the least populous of the varnas, they wield political and social influence that far outstrips their numbers — thanks to their exalted station as teachers, scholars, priests, and, perhaps most significantly, blood-sorcerers. Even among the brahmin, the Canda Bhanu are a small but vastly influential bloodline, and this prominence extends not only within their own clan but to others as well, owing to their skills as diplomats and politicians more than to any particular esoteric skills for which the brahmin are generally known.
This is because the Canda Bhanu are not what they claim to be, though even they have forgotten the truth of what they are. They are, in fact, the descendants not of a native lineage of brahmin extraction but from that of a refugee seeking a safe exile in their land: a Ventrue adventurer who fled Rome in the waning days of the Empire, escaping the consequences of his own poor decisions, of treachery that would otherwise have been resolved only with his Final Death. He escaped the Eternal City with the most loyal of his childer and servants, just ahead of his enemies, and took ship to the East. When he ran out of sea, he and his attendants fled by land across the desolation of the Hindu Kush, seeking a safe Haven where no one knew his face or his name or his deeds. He found that Haven in the great cities of India, teeming with mortal life among whom he could lose himself while he learned the lay of the land and the local Kindred society.
It required some time, and some effort on his part, but eventually he found his way into the counsels of the Prince, who was a kshatriya of the Gangrel, and from there into a position as that Prince’s close advisor, in preference of the brahmin counselor whose guidance he found an onerous imposition on his desire to make war with his neighbors. An elegant solution to their mutual dilemma was devised: in return for the gods’ blessings upon hisendeavors, the Roman refugee would be permitted to dispose of the irritating brahmin as he wished.
Thus the Canda Bhanu were (re)born in an atrocious crime. The already tiny brahmin bloodline, their entire dominion residing within the grasp of a Prince hostile to them, was systematically hunted down and devoured by the Roman, his kin, and his newly acquired native Allies. None escaped to tell the tale, and, knowing the infamy of what he had done, the newly created paterfamilias took no chances in further hiding the evidence. Within a decade, he arranged for the deposition and assassination of the Prince whose ambitions had enabled the massacre in the first place, along with his entire immediate brood and any Allies to whom he might have confided. Eventually, time, Torpor, and the helpful effects of native internecine struggles succeeded in obliterating any recollection of the original Canda Bhanu and what they had been, leaving only what they had become.
Eventually, even the Canda Bhanu themselves forgot that their lineage had originated in treachery and murder, though both continued to follow the bloodline’s destiny like a bloodstain that refused to wash away. Bereft of the blood sorcery that had been the province of the name’s previous owners, the Canda Bhanu nonetheless maintained their brahmin social Status, serving a succession of princes as political advisors, diplomats, religious advocates and social provocateurs, eventually branching out from their northern “roots” to take positions of great intellectual and religious prominence in the city-states of the south, as well. In the process, they became almost more brahmin than even other brahmin, cleaving to the native philosophies they co-opted for their own gain with something approaching a convert’s zeal and passing that zealotry down to their offspring, who perpetuated it down the line to the present. The social battles for dominance between the kshatriya vampires, who believed they possessed a divinely bestowed mandate to make war and rule according to the precepts revealed to them, and the brahmin, who believed they possessed the divinely bestowed right to overrule the dictates of even immortal rulers in order to promote the proper adherence to vampiric dharma, were the source of much of their influence. Few princes wished to rule without the imprimatur of the gods or the approval of the priestly caste, and the Canda Bhanu were among the most adept at ruling from behind the thrones of those who sought their counsel — and occasionally seizing those thrones for themselves. Their efforts, in particular, bore fruit in their extensive alliances with, and manipulations of, assorted Rakshasa kshatriya princes, many of which persisted deep into the 19th century and the coming of the European invaders to the Indian subcontinent.
The European invasions created both conflict and opportunity. Pre-existing social pressures, within the rigidly stratified culture of the Indian Kindred, were coming to a boil as the perpetually fractious kshatriya caste prepared to enter into one of its cyclical changes of rulership, the pretenders to the office of the Chhatrapati lining up to assert their dominance over the others. Meanwhile, assorted factions within the brahmin caste were also contemplating changes in the society of their kind. It was the thinking of many brahmin — the majority of the Canda Bhanu bloodline among them — that for too long the stability of their society had depended on the violent whims of the kshatriya, who were becoming less and less biddable with every passing year, less inclined to accept the wisdom of their spiritual superiors. Certain overtures were made to a selection of European Kindred, certain communications exchanged, certain agreements put into place. When the kshatriya, as they inevitably did, ceased their preliminary “negotiations” and drew their knives on each other, the situation was ripe. The Canda Bhanu and their co-conspirators in the brahmin and vaisya castes passed intelligence to their European Allies, disclosing the safe resting-places of a dozen torpid kshatriya elders, the temple-havens of dozens more kshatriya princes and influential ancillae, and then stepped back to allow the western mercenaries and assassins to do their work. The kshatriya were decimated in a series of swift, savage attacks that left many of the southern courts in chaos, deprived of their princes and many of their governing elders. Unfortunately for the brahmin, what happened next did not precisely unspool as planned: the European Kindred proved more than willing to extend the already treacherous situation to their erstwhile Allies, as well. The Canda Bhanu, as the bloodline who had interacted most closely with the Europeans as a go-between and intelligence conduit, suffered the most directly from this turnabout. Never as populous as some of the older brahmin bloodlines, they and their dominions were ravaged by the invaders and their numbers horribly reduced by outright murder. Only one Canda Bhanu who claimed personal rulership of her own domain survived the assault against them, and even she was wounded almost to Final Death. Only a handful of the bloodline’s most powerful and puissant members survived to flee back into the north, exiled, their power utterly broken. The only consolation — and it was extremely cold comfort — was that the betrayal of the European Kindred had effectively obscured the culpability of the brahmin in general and Canda Bhanu in specific in the slaughter of the kshatriya caste.
From their northern exile, the Canda Bhanu brooded on this reversal of their fortunes and considered their options, slowly nursing their wounds and nourishing their bitterness. Their Rakshasa Allies, who had suffered heavy losses in both the kshatriya blood-war and the subsequent attempt to annihilate their caste, slunk out of the south to bring word of the Europeans, their strengths and weaknesses. The surviving kshatriya bloodlines, bloody and broken but fundamentally unbowed, began to coalesce again in knots of fury and unexpectedly robust resistance to further European expansion, though no single leader emerged from their ranks. A slow but steady program of retaliation against the European invaders and European princes who had seized Indian thrones began. The Canda Bhanu were gratified when the proud, fierce Amara Havana finally swallowed that pride for the first time in centuries, making their peace with the Rakshasa and consenting to take counsel with the brahmin, creating an alliance between the three bloodlines that successfully targeted and executed a series of vicious, precision attacks against their particular nemesis: The Invictus princes of the south. Though it took the best part of a century, eventually the European invaders were forced into flight, abandoning their Indian holdings and childer to the tender mercies of the kshatriya they had displaced. Now, in the 21st century, the Canda Bhanu, still bitter at the failure of their own treachery, still furious at being betrayed themselves, are at the forefront of the movement within Indian Kindred society to continue retaliation against the European Kindred wherever they now lair. The honor of the blood demands it, they say. The honor of those who were betrayed and who fell, the honor and rajadharma of the kshatriya which were despoiled and defiled by the invaders, cries out to be avenged upon the defilers. If not now, when?
Politicians and manipulators with few peers, the Canda Bhanu were also one of the handful of Indian bloodlines to expend any effort at maintaining those few connections they possessed with non-hostile western Kindred. These relationships are being put to work now. Younger members of this lineage, more likely to possess the necessary cosmopolitan mind-sets and educational backgrounds, have been sent forth to renew old ties of diplomacy and scholarship, the better to use those bonds to secure intelligence on their western enemies — and work subtly against the schemes of their erstwhile Allies. In truth, the Canda Bhanu thirst to humble, humiliate and tame the kshatriya even more than they desire to avenge themselves against the western Kindred. Certain factions within the bloodline have begun undermining the efforts of the kshatriya to locate and isolate the western elders who attempted the conquest of India a century and a half ago, while other factions work to advance those goals. Eventually, something is going to give.
This is because the Canda Bhanu are not what they claim to be, though even they have forgotten the truth of what they are. They are, in fact, the descendants not of a native lineage of brahmin extraction but from that of a refugee seeking a safe exile in their land: a Ventrue adventurer who fled Rome in the waning days of the Empire, escaping the consequences of his own poor decisions, of treachery that would otherwise have been resolved only with his Final Death. He escaped the Eternal City with the most loyal of his childer and servants, just ahead of his enemies, and took ship to the East. When he ran out of sea, he and his attendants fled by land across the desolation of the Hindu Kush, seeking a safe Haven where no one knew his face or his name or his deeds. He found that Haven in the great cities of India, teeming with mortal life among whom he could lose himself while he learned the lay of the land and the local Kindred society.
It required some time, and some effort on his part, but eventually he found his way into the counsels of the Prince, who was a kshatriya of the Gangrel, and from there into a position as that Prince’s close advisor, in preference of the brahmin counselor whose guidance he found an onerous imposition on his desire to make war with his neighbors. An elegant solution to their mutual dilemma was devised: in return for the gods’ blessings upon hisendeavors, the Roman refugee would be permitted to dispose of the irritating brahmin as he wished.
Thus the Canda Bhanu were (re)born in an atrocious crime. The already tiny brahmin bloodline, their entire dominion residing within the grasp of a Prince hostile to them, was systematically hunted down and devoured by the Roman, his kin, and his newly acquired native Allies. None escaped to tell the tale, and, knowing the infamy of what he had done, the newly created paterfamilias took no chances in further hiding the evidence. Within a decade, he arranged for the deposition and assassination of the Prince whose ambitions had enabled the massacre in the first place, along with his entire immediate brood and any Allies to whom he might have confided. Eventually, time, Torpor, and the helpful effects of native internecine struggles succeeded in obliterating any recollection of the original Canda Bhanu and what they had been, leaving only what they had become.
Eventually, even the Canda Bhanu themselves forgot that their lineage had originated in treachery and murder, though both continued to follow the bloodline’s destiny like a bloodstain that refused to wash away. Bereft of the blood sorcery that had been the province of the name’s previous owners, the Canda Bhanu nonetheless maintained their brahmin social Status, serving a succession of princes as political advisors, diplomats, religious advocates and social provocateurs, eventually branching out from their northern “roots” to take positions of great intellectual and religious prominence in the city-states of the south, as well. In the process, they became almost more brahmin than even other brahmin, cleaving to the native philosophies they co-opted for their own gain with something approaching a convert’s zeal and passing that zealotry down to their offspring, who perpetuated it down the line to the present. The social battles for dominance between the kshatriya vampires, who believed they possessed a divinely bestowed mandate to make war and rule according to the precepts revealed to them, and the brahmin, who believed they possessed the divinely bestowed right to overrule the dictates of even immortal rulers in order to promote the proper adherence to vampiric dharma, were the source of much of their influence. Few princes wished to rule without the imprimatur of the gods or the approval of the priestly caste, and the Canda Bhanu were among the most adept at ruling from behind the thrones of those who sought their counsel — and occasionally seizing those thrones for themselves. Their efforts, in particular, bore fruit in their extensive alliances with, and manipulations of, assorted Rakshasa kshatriya princes, many of which persisted deep into the 19th century and the coming of the European invaders to the Indian subcontinent.
The European invasions created both conflict and opportunity. Pre-existing social pressures, within the rigidly stratified culture of the Indian Kindred, were coming to a boil as the perpetually fractious kshatriya caste prepared to enter into one of its cyclical changes of rulership, the pretenders to the office of the Chhatrapati lining up to assert their dominance over the others. Meanwhile, assorted factions within the brahmin caste were also contemplating changes in the society of their kind. It was the thinking of many brahmin — the majority of the Canda Bhanu bloodline among them — that for too long the stability of their society had depended on the violent whims of the kshatriya, who were becoming less and less biddable with every passing year, less inclined to accept the wisdom of their spiritual superiors. Certain overtures were made to a selection of European Kindred, certain communications exchanged, certain agreements put into place. When the kshatriya, as they inevitably did, ceased their preliminary “negotiations” and drew their knives on each other, the situation was ripe. The Canda Bhanu and their co-conspirators in the brahmin and vaisya castes passed intelligence to their European Allies, disclosing the safe resting-places of a dozen torpid kshatriya elders, the temple-havens of dozens more kshatriya princes and influential ancillae, and then stepped back to allow the western mercenaries and assassins to do their work. The kshatriya were decimated in a series of swift, savage attacks that left many of the southern courts in chaos, deprived of their princes and many of their governing elders. Unfortunately for the brahmin, what happened next did not precisely unspool as planned: the European Kindred proved more than willing to extend the already treacherous situation to their erstwhile Allies, as well. The Canda Bhanu, as the bloodline who had interacted most closely with the Europeans as a go-between and intelligence conduit, suffered the most directly from this turnabout. Never as populous as some of the older brahmin bloodlines, they and their dominions were ravaged by the invaders and their numbers horribly reduced by outright murder. Only one Canda Bhanu who claimed personal rulership of her own domain survived the assault against them, and even she was wounded almost to Final Death. Only a handful of the bloodline’s most powerful and puissant members survived to flee back into the north, exiled, their power utterly broken. The only consolation — and it was extremely cold comfort — was that the betrayal of the European Kindred had effectively obscured the culpability of the brahmin in general and Canda Bhanu in specific in the slaughter of the kshatriya caste.
From their northern exile, the Canda Bhanu brooded on this reversal of their fortunes and considered their options, slowly nursing their wounds and nourishing their bitterness. Their Rakshasa Allies, who had suffered heavy losses in both the kshatriya blood-war and the subsequent attempt to annihilate their caste, slunk out of the south to bring word of the Europeans, their strengths and weaknesses. The surviving kshatriya bloodlines, bloody and broken but fundamentally unbowed, began to coalesce again in knots of fury and unexpectedly robust resistance to further European expansion, though no single leader emerged from their ranks. A slow but steady program of retaliation against the European invaders and European princes who had seized Indian thrones began. The Canda Bhanu were gratified when the proud, fierce Amara Havana finally swallowed that pride for the first time in centuries, making their peace with the Rakshasa and consenting to take counsel with the brahmin, creating an alliance between the three bloodlines that successfully targeted and executed a series of vicious, precision attacks against their particular nemesis: The Invictus princes of the south. Though it took the best part of a century, eventually the European invaders were forced into flight, abandoning their Indian holdings and childer to the tender mercies of the kshatriya they had displaced. Now, in the 21st century, the Canda Bhanu, still bitter at the failure of their own treachery, still furious at being betrayed themselves, are at the forefront of the movement within Indian Kindred society to continue retaliation against the European Kindred wherever they now lair. The honor of the blood demands it, they say. The honor of those who were betrayed and who fell, the honor and rajadharma of the kshatriya which were despoiled and defiled by the invaders, cries out to be avenged upon the defilers. If not now, when?
Politicians and manipulators with few peers, the Canda Bhanu were also one of the handful of Indian bloodlines to expend any effort at maintaining those few connections they possessed with non-hostile western Kindred. These relationships are being put to work now. Younger members of this lineage, more likely to possess the necessary cosmopolitan mind-sets and educational backgrounds, have been sent forth to renew old ties of diplomacy and scholarship, the better to use those bonds to secure intelligence on their western enemies — and work subtly against the schemes of their erstwhile Allies. In truth, the Canda Bhanu thirst to humble, humiliate and tame the kshatriya even more than they desire to avenge themselves against the western Kindred. Certain factions within the bloodline have begun undermining the efforts of the kshatriya to locate and isolate the western elders who attempted the conquest of India a century and a half ago, while other factions work to advance those goals. Eventually, something is going to give.
Major organizations
Reputation: The Canda Bhanu have, among their own kind, a reputation for extreme piety. They exemplify the moral code of the vampiric brahmin: control of their emotions and the resistance of the darker heart of their nature, pursuit of truth and purity, extensive study of and teaching from the sacred scriptures, the offering and acceptance of sacrifice, and the performance of ritual. In fact, many among their own kind perceive the Canda Bhanu as not only being exceptionally righteous, rigidly so, but also more than slightly self-righteous –— the pride they take in their own unsullied purity, which they claim they maintained by preferring Final Death to submission to the European invaders, is particularly galling to the Amara Havana, whose elders suffered destruction in a considerably less ritually pure fashion.
In truth, the Canda Bhanu are treacherous, murderous, extremely self-righteous bastards, almost one and all, with a sufficient population of genuinely pious individuals to give their less tolerable kin a screen behind which to work. Furious at having been denied their opportunity to dispose of the intractable, ungovernable kshatriya — the primary stumbling-block to their own assumption of power — they are fully prepared now to finish the jobthey started a century and a half ago, manipulating their countrymen through the twin mechanisms of legitimate desire for vengeance and cultural guilt.
In truth, the Canda Bhanu are treacherous, murderous, extremely self-righteous bastards, almost one and all, with a sufficient population of genuinely pious individuals to give their less tolerable kin a screen behind which to work. Furious at having been denied their opportunity to dispose of the intractable, ungovernable kshatriya — the primary stumbling-block to their own assumption of power — they are fully prepared now to finish the jobthey started a century and a half ago, manipulating their countrymen through the twin mechanisms of legitimate desire for vengeance and cultural guilt.
Nickname: Purifiers
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Auspex, Dominate, Resilience
Weakness: As with their parent clan, the power enjoyed by the Canda Bhanu inevitably corrodes and corrupts their souls, degrading the moral balance they struggle to maintain (see p. 113 of Vampire: The Requiem). In addition, the curse that plagues the Canda Bhanu makes them especially susceptible to the powers of other Kindred. They stole their position in society from a Mekhet bloodline, and in return, their blood is somewhat mutable. Any vampire who uses a Discipline against a Purifier receives the blood tie bonus, if it would normally be applicable with that Discipline (see p. 162 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Concepts: Diabolical mastermind, self-serving spiritual guide, manipulative power behind the throne, ultraconservative cultural judge, sadistic teacher, tragically true believer, wise old master, waif goddess, karma’s chew toy, rebellious scion
None still undead tonight, including the “new” Canda Bhanu themselves, remember the original Canda Bhanu, the tiny, insular, extremely devout and scholarly Mekhet bloodline destroyed and consumed by the Ventrue invaders who claimed their name. The blood in their veins, however, does not forget what it is…and neither does the vengeance levied against that blood. When it became obvious that their doom was upon them and would not be denied, the eldest and most powerful blood sorcerer of the original Canda Bhanu lineage spent the last of herself in a terrible curse: that the treachery and murder that their killers brought to their doors would revisit itself upon them and bring them low, karma twisting upon itself to avenge the fall of the blameless and righteous. The act of Diablerie that ended her unlife sealed that magic into the blood of her murderer and all his descendants. The Canda Bhanu are doomed to end as they began. Whether they will destroy only themselves or if they will take others down with them remains to be seen.
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: As with their parent clan, the power enjoyed by the Canda Bhanu inevitably corrodes and corrupts their souls, degrading the moral balance they struggle to maintain (see p. 113 of Vampire: The Requiem). In addition, the curse that plagues the Canda Bhanu makes them especially susceptible to the powers of other Kindred. They stole their position in society from a Mekhet bloodline, and in return, their blood is somewhat mutable. Any vampire who uses a Discipline against a Purifier receives the blood tie bonus, if it would normally be applicable with that Discipline (see p. 162 of Vampire: The Requiem).
Concepts: Diabolical mastermind, self-serving spiritual guide, manipulative power behind the throne, ultraconservative cultural judge, sadistic teacher, tragically true believer, wise old master, waif goddess, karma’s chew toy, rebellious scion