Erzsébet
The light that burns brightest still burns.
The Erzsébet long to walk in the light. Not to commit suicide. Not to be mortal again. The Erzsébet exalt in their undeath, singing Requiems that might be hymns of praise. They long to walk in the sun because it’s the only thing they haven’t done yet. Members of the Erzsébet know that, while eternity is within their reach, it cannot go uninterrupted. As age creeps in and poisons their blood, they are reminded that nothing can stave off Torpor forever. They enjoy their unlives to the fullest, so that they may sail into the ages without regret.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
The Erzsébet have very little history as a bloodline, but quite a bit as immediate families and individuals. They owe this to the peculiar circumstances of their line’s recorded appearances in Europe. In the late 17th century, a woman calling herself Syska appeared at several courts in northern Italy.
Travel in the Mediterranean region was unusually easy in that period, thanks to many active trade routes and Kindred financing thereof. The Mediterranean Kindred were undergoing something of a Renaissance of their own, reveling in widespread cooperation between independent Ventrue rulers; at the time, the Ventrue were popularly aligning themselves as the founders of The Invictus and the truest heirs to Rome. At the same time, The Lancea Sanctum was enjoying a spiritual resurgence led by glorious churches and the revival of pilgrimages. These traditions were bolstered by the availability of skilled mortal labor-for-hire and the awakening of large numbers of Crusader Kindred.
Cooperation between Princes was common, if always from a distance, and Syska made herself useful as a messenger. Due to her varying age and long disappearances, she was widely believed to be a brood of several different Daeva, perhaps Embraced from the same mortal stock. In fact, Syska was a single vampire, afflicted with the aging common to her bloodline. Syska is the earliest known Erzsébet, and was believed to be Polish by the Kindred she dealt with in Italy. Later claims that either her mortal or vampiric line were Hungarian are difficult to verify. In 1657, Syska appeared before the Court of Milan for the last time. She became embroiled in an argument over whether she had been using her nomadic existence to Embrace promiscuously, and murdered her accuser. She was sentenced to Torpor, but escaped.
In 1751, a young-looking elder named Rózsa appeared in Vienna. Recently-published histories had made a folk-heroine out of Elizabeth Bathory, the so-called Blood Countess. While mortal culture wouldn’t identify Bathory with vampirism for several centuries, the Kindred of Vienna celebrated the murderess almost as one of their own. The myth of a mortal who understood why life must be stolen gripped the Kindred imagination in Vienna. Parties were held reenacting and exaggerating Lady Bathory’s crimes. The sins of the mortal became heroism to the damned. The Kindred have often indulged excess, and the growing Bathory legends provided a theme for this prediliction, connecting it to the Humanity that the stuffy Lancea Sanctum urged secular vampires to abandon.
Rózsa emerged into this social scene claiming not only to be Hungarian... but to be the childe of Elizabeth Bathory herself! Her stories were met both with applause (for their daring) and skepticism (for their general implausibility). Rózsa built a cult of personality around her mother and herself. She claimed that, like Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory had been cursed by God, and that her alleged death was only Torpor, the result of being deprived of the blood she required. Bathory, said Rózsa, had been buried in unmarked and unhallowed ground, her monument inscribed with a false name.
Rózsa threw herself into the parties and asked for nothing but invitations... yet, sometimes she lamented that her fortunes had declined, that she could not return to her mother’s Tomb and raise the Blood Countess from the dead. She began to age, gradually, lending more credence to her claim that her unique line suffered a unique curse. Bathing in blood, she said, was her mother’s means of comfort, not a true ward against the curse’s power. Other Kindred gave her small sums of money, fortunes that might enable her to locate her mother’s resting place and wake the heroine, and Rózsa cached them throughout the region. When it became clear that she had no intent to mount the search or even return to Hungary, Rózsa and her childe fled Vienna for the shores of England, where she reinvented herself as one Mariza Moretti.
Auctors and other nomadic mercenaries were dispatched to follow her. Over time, small donations had become large fortunes, and the Kindred of Vienna wanted them back. They offered substantial rewards for the capture of any “Erzsébet,” rewards worth risking the roads and sun for. Mariza became Marisa, and spawned several broods, at least one of which came with her when she relocated to the Americas.
Tonight, the American Erzsébet are largely known as the Moretti. They generally present themselves as a line of Daeva with a unique and unexplained curse. The Erzsébet understand their aging as a growing poison in the Blood, and often believe it as a consequence of growing in potency rather than age. Some modern cousins of the bloodline refer to it as if it were a virus somehow unique to vampires within their family. Nonetheless, most know that it cannot be transmitted. Some have tried to cure it by making pacts with spirits. Others join the Order of the Dragon and perform obscene experiments upon themselves. A few even approach mortal doctors, wondering if the problem is a conflict between Humanity and undeath rather than a true weakness in their Vitae.
Erzsébet often feel more kinship with their Ghouls than Kindred outside their bloodline, and certainly more than those outside their clan. Ghouls, too, are afforded an altered mortality instead of true agelessness. Where they can suppress passion and impatience, they often groom Ghouls over decades to prime them as new members of the family. When Marisa herself traveled to the New World, as many of her brood were Ghouls as were childer. Even before the modern day, Erzsébet tended to keep in touch with her progeny. A few hunters still chase them on behalf of European Kindred.
Most Erzsébet qualify for the Close Family Merit, and several have independently invented the Night Life Devotion. Their Auspex enables them to avoid the bounty hunters who still occasionally pursue them, and to enjoy every pleasure of unlife just a little more.
The one true family creed of the Erzsébet is this: enjoy youth and Vigor while they last, because soon they will give way to sleep under the sun.
Travel in the Mediterranean region was unusually easy in that period, thanks to many active trade routes and Kindred financing thereof. The Mediterranean Kindred were undergoing something of a Renaissance of their own, reveling in widespread cooperation between independent Ventrue rulers; at the time, the Ventrue were popularly aligning themselves as the founders of The Invictus and the truest heirs to Rome. At the same time, The Lancea Sanctum was enjoying a spiritual resurgence led by glorious churches and the revival of pilgrimages. These traditions were bolstered by the availability of skilled mortal labor-for-hire and the awakening of large numbers of Crusader Kindred.
Cooperation between Princes was common, if always from a distance, and Syska made herself useful as a messenger. Due to her varying age and long disappearances, she was widely believed to be a brood of several different Daeva, perhaps Embraced from the same mortal stock. In fact, Syska was a single vampire, afflicted with the aging common to her bloodline. Syska is the earliest known Erzsébet, and was believed to be Polish by the Kindred she dealt with in Italy. Later claims that either her mortal or vampiric line were Hungarian are difficult to verify. In 1657, Syska appeared before the Court of Milan for the last time. She became embroiled in an argument over whether she had been using her nomadic existence to Embrace promiscuously, and murdered her accuser. She was sentenced to Torpor, but escaped.
In 1751, a young-looking elder named Rózsa appeared in Vienna. Recently-published histories had made a folk-heroine out of Elizabeth Bathory, the so-called Blood Countess. While mortal culture wouldn’t identify Bathory with vampirism for several centuries, the Kindred of Vienna celebrated the murderess almost as one of their own. The myth of a mortal who understood why life must be stolen gripped the Kindred imagination in Vienna. Parties were held reenacting and exaggerating Lady Bathory’s crimes. The sins of the mortal became heroism to the damned. The Kindred have often indulged excess, and the growing Bathory legends provided a theme for this prediliction, connecting it to the Humanity that the stuffy Lancea Sanctum urged secular vampires to abandon.
Rózsa emerged into this social scene claiming not only to be Hungarian... but to be the childe of Elizabeth Bathory herself! Her stories were met both with applause (for their daring) and skepticism (for their general implausibility). Rózsa built a cult of personality around her mother and herself. She claimed that, like Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory had been cursed by God, and that her alleged death was only Torpor, the result of being deprived of the blood she required. Bathory, said Rózsa, had been buried in unmarked and unhallowed ground, her monument inscribed with a false name.
Rózsa threw herself into the parties and asked for nothing but invitations... yet, sometimes she lamented that her fortunes had declined, that she could not return to her mother’s Tomb and raise the Blood Countess from the dead. She began to age, gradually, lending more credence to her claim that her unique line suffered a unique curse. Bathing in blood, she said, was her mother’s means of comfort, not a true ward against the curse’s power. Other Kindred gave her small sums of money, fortunes that might enable her to locate her mother’s resting place and wake the heroine, and Rózsa cached them throughout the region. When it became clear that she had no intent to mount the search or even return to Hungary, Rózsa and her childe fled Vienna for the shores of England, where she reinvented herself as one Mariza Moretti.
Auctors and other nomadic mercenaries were dispatched to follow her. Over time, small donations had become large fortunes, and the Kindred of Vienna wanted them back. They offered substantial rewards for the capture of any “Erzsébet,” rewards worth risking the roads and sun for. Mariza became Marisa, and spawned several broods, at least one of which came with her when she relocated to the Americas.
Tonight, the American Erzsébet are largely known as the Moretti. They generally present themselves as a line of Daeva with a unique and unexplained curse. The Erzsébet understand their aging as a growing poison in the Blood, and often believe it as a consequence of growing in potency rather than age. Some modern cousins of the bloodline refer to it as if it were a virus somehow unique to vampires within their family. Nonetheless, most know that it cannot be transmitted. Some have tried to cure it by making pacts with spirits. Others join the Order of the Dragon and perform obscene experiments upon themselves. A few even approach mortal doctors, wondering if the problem is a conflict between Humanity and undeath rather than a true weakness in their Vitae.
Erzsébet often feel more kinship with their Ghouls than Kindred outside their bloodline, and certainly more than those outside their clan. Ghouls, too, are afforded an altered mortality instead of true agelessness. Where they can suppress passion and impatience, they often groom Ghouls over decades to prime them as new members of the family. When Marisa herself traveled to the New World, as many of her brood were Ghouls as were childer. Even before the modern day, Erzsébet tended to keep in touch with her progeny. A few hunters still chase them on behalf of European Kindred.
Most Erzsébet qualify for the Close Family Merit, and several have independently invented the Night Life Devotion. Their Auspex enables them to avoid the bounty hunters who still occasionally pursue them, and to enjoy every pleasure of unlife just a little more.
The one true family creed of the Erzsébet is this: enjoy youth and Vigor while they last, because soon they will give way to sleep under the sun.
Nickname: Cavaliers (contemporary), the Withered (derogatory). They also go by many family names, including Moretti, Syska and Rózsa.
Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity, Majesty, Auspex, Vigor
Weakness: Most vampires do not fear age. The Erzsébet know better. As the decades pass them by, they find that their bodies begin to age as if still human. For every decade since his last Torpor of one decade or more, the Withered visibly ages 2 years. This weakness also penalizes Physical feats and Disciplines. If it has been more than 50 years since the Erzsébet’s last such Torpor, his player may not benefit from the 10 Again rule on any roll involving a Physical Attribute. If it has been more than 100 years, the Erzsébet suffers a -1 penalty for each decade past 50, up to -5. Additionally, he cannot benefit from dots in Celerity above this penalty.
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: Most vampires do not fear age. The Erzsébet know better. As the decades pass them by, they find that their bodies begin to age as if still human. For every decade since his last Torpor of one decade or more, the Withered visibly ages 2 years. This weakness also penalizes Physical feats and Disciplines. If it has been more than 50 years since the Erzsébet’s last such Torpor, his player may not benefit from the 10 Again rule on any roll involving a Physical Attribute. If it has been more than 100 years, the Erzsébet suffers a -1 penalty for each decade past 50, up to -5. Additionally, he cannot benefit from dots in Celerity above this penalty.