The Circle of the Crone - Coteries
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o’er a slumbering world. —Edward Young, Night Thoughts
The old gods are not dead. They sleep in the earth like ancient vampires. To wake them, the Circle of the Crone dances on their graves and sings their names into the night.
The Circle of the Crone is the covenant most interested in the occult practices of the nighttime world. While the rest of vampire society faces inward, the Circle walks the perimeter. Acolytes from San Francisco to Moscow and everywhere else are dancing, bleeding, feeding and screwing where the lights of vampire society give way to the woods and the mountains and the ruins of the societies that came before. Acolytes test the philosophies and ceremonies of the bygone age that lie broken and ignored in the darkness just outside the firelight of memories in the minds of the eldest among the Damned.
The polymorphous mother of this diverse and misunderstood covenant has inspired her worshippers to form countless dissimilar cults from the Old World to the New. The creativity she represents and her followers revere inspires — or perhaps demands — a massive spiritual body made up of unique and sometimes wholly independent cells. The Circle of the Crone is the covenant with a thousand faces, and its members revel in its magnificent variety.
As a covenant of religious ideology, the Circle of the Crone manages to keep its disparate parts together through a broad and open-minded cosmology that encourages members to expand the metaphors of the religion and explore new philosophical territories. The job of the spiritual leader in every domain, the Hierophant, is to sculpt and shape the dogma of the covenant’s local membership. Beneath even his sometimes meager authority, each coterie of Acolytes is welcome to draft new ideas, challenge the old imagery and create new variations on the covenant’s sacred ceremonies.
The Circle of the Crone practices a vital faith that puts the power and responsibility of spiritual growth into the hands of the individual worshipper, but its most important rites and ceremonies require multiple hands and voices. It is at once an inclusive and innately personal religion. Its roots go back to the most ancient of the undead, long before Dracula or Longinus, and its widest branches touch a vast and unlikely array of members from every clan, century and mortal culture yet known. The Circle affords coteries an inspiring and empowering spiritual charge with the freedom to release that charge in any of a hundred ceremonies venerating the true nature of vampiric existence.
The covenant’s inclusive outlook makes it easy for Kindred to find a coterie of like-minded undead. The intensity of faith the covenant cultivates inspires a powerful loyalty that holds coteries together. The variety the covenant welcomes allows for coteries of formidable strength through diversity.
Ideological coteries have the advantage of an underlying psychological bond keeping the group together despite the specific actions they have to undertake. The motives of religious covenant members are often similar enough to keep the competing ambitions of a coterie’s members from tearing the group apart. When those motives do prove incompatible in Circle coteries, the members can depart on good terms with the confidence that the right coterie for that Kindred exists somewhere in the covenant.
Circle coteries are devout and dedicated to the proper observances of the Crone and the practice of coterie- or city-specific rites, but they are lax on logistical demands beyond worship. Although a city with tightly organized Acolytes might have specialized coteries dedicated to particular duties like a Sanctified city does, just as many cities leave the individual coteries to their own devices. Since the coterie is the largest worshipping body of the covenant most nights of the year, this attitude suits the Circle fine. On those nights of major ceremonies or festivities, the coteries that come together rely on tradition and the Crone’s Liturgy to guide them. Otherwise, Acolyte coteries might vote on important decisions, consult texts or seek supernatural guidance when necessary. More often, though, each member of the coterie is given purview over some aspect of covenant operations for the coterie or the larger area, such as security, correspondence with the city at large or the tending of herds.
Coteries of Acolytes do develop certain group identities, however. Rather than being mandated by a presiding Bishop or Archduke or title-holding figurehead, these collective identities are based on the mutual interests and goals of the coterie’s members, which naturally grow over time into some kind of group momentum. The demands of maintaining a religious ideal lead coteries to take up those tasks that are necessary for the success of the covenant, and those tasks eventually come to be associated with the coterie. If nothing else, the outside pressures of the city guide and motivate the coterie to define itself in relationship to the larger vampiric society.
The dogma of the Crone and the Kindred it attracts makes it possible to define a few broad categories of coteries. These examples, while common, are by no means standard. Most coteries, in fact, resemble hybrids of two or more of these models.
It’s not uncommon for each of the coteries in a region to worship subtle variations of the same goddess. In such cases, individual coteries take responsibility for certain ceremonial rites. A coterie’s Status within the covenant can hinge on the quality of observances it prepares for all covenant members.
Traditionally, The Lancea Sanctum has played the role of the gospel-barking missionary, and the Circle of the Crone played the inverted role, keeping the faith and tending it like a field. Now that’s changing. The Circle is actively drumming up new membership with coteries of proactive spiritual advisors. Instead of spreading like a net beneath the streets to catch the chaff from other covenants, the Circle is now going out and plucking new converts from the tree.
In some domains, the role of the Circle missionary is more like the role of an explorer. The covenant doesn’t follow any mortal model of missionary work, so when a Circle coterie seeks to expand its constituency, it doesn’t necessarily make the fact known by thumping its holy text and building a temple. Instead, Circle missionaries monitor the attitudes of the local vampire and mortal populations and estimate the kind of Acolytes in the area and the quantity that could be culled from both bodies. When the coterie’s confident in its assessment, it either gets to work extending and refining covenant territory in the area or it goes back to existing covenant territory and seeks out a coterie that’s a good match for the local population. Even when the Circle overtly pursues new converts, its missionary work is subtler than its ceremonial practices.
Low-ranking coteries don’t know what’s inspiring the new missionary work, but many assume it’s the result of the covenant’s recent study of The Lancea Sanctum. If the vampiric population as a whole is losing interest in the strict and penitent ways of the Sanctified, then perhaps Kindred society is approaching a tipping point. Now is the time to find out, by gathering as many vampires around the Crone as possible by taking advantage of The Lancea Sanctum’s cracking flagstones and convincing casual Allies to solidify their relationships.
The same tactic works outside the ideological theater to scout out new domains and prepare them for claims by the Circle of the Crone. Some chorus coteries are given the task of posing as fledgling missionaries for The Lancea Sanctum and going into contested or abandoned territories to ruin the reputation of that covenant before real missionaries can arrive. Once the local Kindred temperament is predisposed against the Sanctified, the Acolytes petition for those domains from the Prince, Regent or other authority figure.
Academic coteries (also thought of as investigative coteries) have a reputation for disdaining the Masquerade and keeping unusually large numbers of mortal servants and Ghouls. Researchers need access to rare or one-of-a-kind sites and artifacts under mortal control and often require manpower to work in the daylight at historic and archaeological sites. Acolytes weigh the risks carefully before each actual breach of the First Tradition, and the wise ones have a plan for the elimination of mortals in the know. In practice, however, the covenant’s academic coteries have had remarkable luck with the kine they choose for this work; the truth about vampires and supernatural forces ignites an excitement more powerful than fear in the mortal Allies chosen by Circle scholars. Still, the covenant acknowledges that luck runs out eventually and nights without consequences come to an end. It’s better, these coteries say, to get as much done as possible before that happens.
Expeditions to historic sites center on academic coteries but swell to include packs of muscle and sometimes tag-along devotees to the site in question. Formal expeditions are rare, though, as many of the great occult sites of interest to the covenant are difficult to reach or study by night. More often, an expedition amounts to a coterie independently visiting a remote site and hiring poorly informed workers to explore, catalog and photograph sites while the coterie waits, often for weeks. Then the coterie takes the results of its secret expedition back to covenant elders for praise and reward. Just as often, these quiet expeditions are devoured by those remote sites or surrounding hazards.
Academic coteries are responsible for tracking vampiric genealogy and history, keeping and cataloging stacks of books, maps, plans and records, and recognizing the truth. Scholarly Acolytes dig new fragments of knowledge out of the dirt of old texts and inscriptions, advise the covenant or even the Prince, and judge what to share or keep secret. It’s an intriguing existence, if not always a safe one.
This is an important niche not just for the Circle of the Crone but for many cities. A coterie with connections in the arcane underworld can make itself invaluable to Princes and Prisci, though the balance of loyalties is difficult. Such a coterie must be dedicated foremost to the covenant or risk losing the occult credibility that comes with membership. After that, the coterie must be concerned with all Allies who aren’t vampires, for they are the hardest for a coterie to replace.
A coterie of this category could be another one with good standing in the larger world or one comprising active scholars and diplomats. The covenant needs Acolytes who are capable of coaxing new revelations from the other occult powers of the world so that the Circle’s spiritual horizons can continue to expand. This Research mission turns coteries into cabals of supernatural anthropologists of the old school: the type who wear finger bones at tribal festivities and eat with the cannibals. Other such coteries become the hubs in the black market of magic, selling looted artifacts in exchange for ones that the covenant wants.
Where the Circle is less welcome, some coteries create unofficial neutral ground in a park or gallery and offer solitude or stimulation to any visitors. Sometimes rival zealots or the agents of an unsympathetic Prince sabotage these efforts, and sometimes the sites evolve into alternative meeting grounds or genuine sites of Elysium. Most often, though, Circle gardens find a few loyal visitors or appreciative return visitors and become little more than meeting grounds for local Acolytes and avenues of recruitment into the covenant.
The advantage to coteries who tend such sites is in the trust of other vampires. Coteries whose greenhouses become Elysium have a distinct advantage as long as they can keep the secret. If nothing else, tending such a site is a good way for a coterie to make Contacts without taking sides.
Not all art is beautiful. Acolyte artists might be masters of ancient techniques or pioneers of questionable new media. A coterie of bird breeders in one European city gifts nightingales to all the known vampires in the city each year, while a North American pack of Acolytes makes snuff films on the streets of its urban domains. Sometimes creating the art is the coterie’s purpose, but sometimes it’s about reaction to the art.
Different coteries have different motives and Expectations, of course. Some use art to attract converts to the covenant, some want personal attention or Status, and others want to influence the trajectory of the society of the Damned. Artist coteries might get lucky and become a city’s Harpies, or they might be branded dangerous by a Bishop and forbidden to continue creating. Any artistic venue that becomes popular has a chance of being hijacked for use by political agents, such as subversive Carthians or a propagandizing Regent. Artists intend for their works to go into the night and change society, but the art usually drags the coterie into the night and changes it.
The specifics vary, but all challenger cults tend to be inspired by the covenant’s belief in personal enlightenment through extreme experiences. Coteries that focus on exploring the philosophy begin by testing and expanding their own limits, but they can eventually become celebrities among Acolytes and chorus members in the domain and sometimes even beyond. It’s prestigious to be mutilated by the masters of the craft. Rare and famous cabals of ceremonial torturers follow the invitations, visiting one domain tonight and another tomorrow. These are glamorous and revered coteries within the covenant.
In some fiefs, challenger cults strike out into the city on nights of revelry, testing Kindred and kine alike, with or without permission.
Faith in the Crone is the invisible vein that runs from one member of a coterie to another. Faith can’t be torched like a fleshly political leader, and it can’t be torn down like a shared Haven. Whatever happens to a coterie’s physical possessions, whatever mistakes are made, however the group changes to the eye, the faith is still there, holding everyone together.
The flexibility of the covenant’s faith is a boon to coterie fellows. Kindred of like minds naturally congregate, and, with no higher rule to override the organic cliques that develop, the coterie never chafes under the choices of some arbitrary organizer. At the same time, Acolytes are comfortable recognizing a worshipper of another god or goddess as an ally, so coterie members enjoy the flexibility to disagree without straining their allegiance. The diversity and strangeness that brings Acolytes together at the fringes of Kindred society also gives them the ability to assume any social structure necessary to survive.
In the social dogma of the covenant, a coterie is a creation made up of the vampires themselves. There’s no shame in altering a coterie or displacing one member for another, but the disintegration of a coterie is considered a major failure for all the Kindred in its membership. Coteries, in some cases, are considered to carry on even if all the original members no longer belong. Kindred who wish to break up a coterie are encouraged to replace themselves with unaligned converts and neonates, so when the parting Acolytes go and eventually involve themselves with other coteries, the total number of covenant coteries might not shrink. The practical benefits of this philosophy on the covenant as a whole are plain to all Acolytes, but the spiritual ramifications are always considered more important.
This philosophy also keeps coteries together. Strife is not necessarily something to flee. Enduring and overcoming the spite and discord of existence in a vampiric coterie betters that coterie. Practicing this philosophy teaches coterie members to forget internal grudges and weather the storms of Kindred society. The coterie strengthens every time its members choose not to destroy it.
In any case, some philosophical path leads each character to the pack. Even if the philosophical path of every Acolyte were unique, some commonalities can be identified between them.
Circle coteries supply bogeymen with the basic social treasures they need: challengers, spiritual sounding boards, an audience. Bogeymen in packs of bogeymen never have to explain their own strange psychology or justify their actions, since the others already get it. Bogeymen who are after attention, on the other hand, might seek out a coterie it can shock and surprise without being unwelcome.
Whole packs of bogeymen appear like undead carnivals, and the rituals such coteries observe resemble freak shows. As Acolyte bogeymen slowly wear away their own Humanity, the acts of mutilation they lust after become more and more externalized. Eventually the drive to act on other creatures might overwhelm the pack. These shock-loving groups probably make up the majority of the covenant’s challenger coteries.
Naturalists believe that every creature on Earth has a purpose and that the unnatural state of the undead allows each vampire and each coterie to define and redefine its own purpose throughout eternity. Therefore, vampires who are drawn to the covenant for its naturalist worldview join coteries that play an active role in the domain. These are the Kindred who further the cause of the covenant, seek out converts and plan to impact vampire society. The naturalist philosophy benefits any coterie in search of an active voice or motivator. Naturalists are often comfortable in the role of spiritual advisor for the coterie, and they sometimes expand their view of “nature” to include the magical rites of Crúac. When they do, they learn those rites on behalf of the coterie.
Even a single curious vampire energizes a coterie with new ideas and ambition. In time, a hunger for knowledge and experience might give way to long-term goals for the coterie or the covenant, casting the coterie into a leadership or spearhead role in some larger project. Curious coteries are social butterflies or pilgrims between the hierarchies of the undead. The rituals such coteries observe vary over time as the members encounter new customs and ways to worship.
In a coterie, an overwhelmed fledgling is at least plainly shown the hoops to jump through. Decisions are made for him. Expectations and rewards are explained for him.
Impale yourself on this fence with us, and we’ll like you. Sew this into your skin, and you can sleep in our Haven. Drink my blood, and I promise I’ll never leave you.
Mystified outsiders are enticed to ask questions and interact with the coterie, which creates opportunities for the coterie to ask questions of its own. Mystery implies desirability as well, simultaneously attracting potential converts and holding off possible attacks. Enemies might withhold violence until they understand what exactly the coterie is up to. Finally, mysteries make outsiders afraid.
By promoting this reputation in conjunction with the covenant’s image as a strange and frightening mélange of independent cults, membership seems simultaneously redeeming and exciting. The nightly rituals appear solemn and involving. The motives of the covenant are difficult to identify, so local authorities must make decisions based on the local coteries, rather than popular generalizations. The individualization of coteries means that one can raise hell without necessarily implicating the other covenant followers. In the feudal city-states of the undead, that kind of freedom is an attractive luxury for street-level whelps and a powerful weapon for the covenant elders.
Although all Crone-worshipping coteries can be said to be mysterious and misunderstood, each city’s local Acolytes practice a different sort of strangeness. Two Circle coteries might have contrary relationships with the powers that be. One might be an unwelcome cult of crazed troublemakers, the other an Aloof cabal of garden-tending spiritual advisors. What Circle coteries usually have in common is their relationship to the city’s larger social strata. Coteries of the Crone either position themselves or are habitually forced outside the normal social structure of the city. They are the uncommon covenant, the city’s “organic” spiritual voice.
Therefore, Circle coteries rarely bother to play the more elaborate political games attributed to elder culture, even when they have positive political standing. A coterie might have formidable Status in local affairs, or it might not have any formal influence on policy at all, preferring to work indirectly. An Acolyte might be a respected voice at court, but less august members of the covenant often do not hold high regard for formal politics. The covenant’s focus of spiritual matters suggests that its most powerful members are not too concerned with feudal power. In recent times, though, many Princes have sensed a change in the priorities of the Circle.
So the Circle of the Crone does wield substantial power in select domains, but its total territories are few and its aspirations for secular power are minor. Like The Ordo Dracul, the Circle of the Crone tends to focus its political Resources on select positions of influence in hopes of controlling private territories where covenant members can worship, study and challenge themselves unmolested by the other covenants. In some cases, Circle coteries pay for this privilege with favors to feudal lords and spiritual contributions to the city’s Kindred. In many cases, Circle coteries avoid participation in formal contracts altogether and exempt themselves from the feudal system as best they can with a curtain of fear and a reputation for xenophobia. Rather than the intricately defined relationships that seem to be the obsession of The Invictus and rulers from every covenant, the Circle of the Crone prefers to deal with the hierarchies of undead society on a case-by-case basis.
Circle coteries sometimes become the untouchables, the useful X-factors playable by every side against the others, but not responsible for their own wicked acts of war. The Carthians might enlist the help of the Acolytes against The Invictus, for example, but The Invictus knows that the Carthians were behind the act and retaliates against them, not the Circle. The Acolytes accept this arrangement because it puts them in an ideal position to collect the tired, the disgusted and the castoff members who flee the factions after every defeat. Therefore, the Circle is in contact with every instrument in the city’s Danse Macabre, well informed and well protected.
The more formal covenants that make up the establishment of Kindred society have mechanisms in place for the political promotion of their own members. In one city, it’s simply understood that all churches and synagogues within the city limits are the domain of a Bishop selected by The Lancea Sanctum. In another, the Primogen always belong to The Ordo Dracul.
The internal disparity and external unfamiliarity of the Circle of the Crone makes it more difficult for the covenant to gain ground in many domains, and even for its own members to gain recognition within the larger body of the covenant. When local agents of the covenant decide that the time is right to gain visibility and Status within either body, they sometimes form coteries and mount street-level campaigns to benefit and promote a figurehead or leader. The largest challenge for these ambitious coteries isn’t the opposition, but the lack of support from the larger reputation of the covenant.
The techniques such coteries use aren’t unique to the Circle of the Crone, though. Storytellers are welcome to use this system for coteries of other covenants and for any other kinds of Status relevant in the chronicle.
Coteries should consider carefully who gets the power, with all the freedoms, responsibilities and risks involved. The rest should consider keeping lower profiles — possibly so low as to warrant no Covenant Status themselves. To gain Covenant Status, other vampires of the covenant must hear of the candidate and come to recognize him — and the more other vampires know about him, the more vulnerable he becomes. Keeping some members of the coterie off the popular radar is a good way to keep potential enemies in the dark.
The Storyteller should consider allowing coteries to pool experience to purchase dots in Covenant Status (or even City Status, as might fit a cosmopolitan chronicle, though this is not universally recommended) for one member of the pack. Doing so represents the members of the coterie using their own efforts to promote and earn favor for their figurehead. Of course, such efforts should actually take place if experience-pooling is to be justified. The Storyteller may decree that only experience points earned specifically for actions promoting the coterie or its figurehead can be pooled to purchase Status, and then award such experience points at the end of a chapter with serious campaigning. This method creates a separate registry of experience points belonging not to any one member of the group but to the coterie as a whole, who get to turn those points into a dot which must itself land on one character’s sheet.
To share Covenant Status, two or more characters simply have to pool their dots to reflect the increase in the figurehead’s standing. A shared rating in the Covenant Status Merit cannot rise higher than five dots.
Shared Status dots can be lost. Coterie members or associates might withdraw their support. Kindred initially supportive of the situation might sour on it later, undertaking actions or even smear campaigns that reflect poorly on the figurehead. Initiatives might be won or lost. If any group member does something to diminish the figurehead’s reputation, its dots decrease accordingly. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Covenant Status dots.
Characters can also abandon a shared-Status arrangement. When a character leaves such a relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. The character doesn’t get his dots back for his own purposes. He must begin on the road toward building his reputation from square one, given that he was effectively a “silent partner” up until this point.
On the other hand, a character need not devote all of her experience-point expenditures (or starting Merit dots) to the pooled Status. A Kindred might make a name of her own outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners.
For more suggestions on sharing Merits, see the Haven Merit on p. 100 of Vampire: The Requiem.
Campaigning
Politics is clearly the Skill that covers actual political campaigning, but City Status isn’t always about politics. Covenant Status, especially in the case of the ideological Circle of the Crone, might have nothing to do with politics. Lots of different skills can and should become important when trying to gain Status. Use Intelligence + Expression to write speeches or essays that make the figurehead look good, and Presence + Expression to pull off those speeches. With Manipulation + Socialize, coterie-mates can subtly influence eavesdroppers or acquaintances with promotional Oratory disguised as casual ranting or conversation. Intelligence + Empathy could be used to dissect the bitching of street-level whelps and identify the religious or political angle that’ll finally get through to them.
No Vacancies
So, the coterie’s got six experience points pooled and ready. With those six points, the coterie’s figurehead will get a third dot in Status and become “known to all in the local covenant” (see Vampire: The Requiem) as the Hierophant of the Circle of the Crone in town. Trouble is, another vampire’s already using that title, and he’s not ready to give it up. The Storyteller might decide that the coterie’s figurehead can purchase the third dot in Status, become known throughout the city, and be recognized as a rival for the seat. The Storyteller could also decide that the third dot can’t be purchased until the position can be captured; it’s her call. While Status isn’t a rigid measure of social rank with each dot indicating a special title, the Storyteller does get to decide how the scale of Status works in the city and the chronicle.
Either way, if the coterie wants to fill that seat, the characters have got to get rid of the current Hierophant. To do that without losing the favor of the Acolytes or the chorus in town and provoking a violent backlash is one more reason why some members of the coterie avoid getting Status of their own. While the figurehead positions himself as a loyal right-hand to the Hierophant, the rest of the coterie gets the Hierophant incinerated by The Lancea Sanctum or exposed as a hypocrite by a coterie of whistleblower Carthians.
An earthquake under the political landscape of the domain might be an opportunity for a character to redistribute his total dots in Status into new categories. What if the Circle of the Crone usurps dominance in a city from the Carthians and your character was a spy in the Carthian ranks with one dot in Covenant Status (Carthians)? That dot might move to City Status to reflect a new post beneath the new Hierophant-Prince.
Depending on the size of the city and its vampiric population, the Storyteller might decide that there’s no way for part of a coterie to hide when the social spotlight is cast on one of its members. If the coterie members represent every Acolyte in the domain, they become the poster boys for the covenant and possibly the basis of stereotypes. This is the unavoidable weight of recognition. This is especially suitable for Acolyte coteries, which often organize around a powerful figure, like a Hierophant, rather than beneath a powerful figure, as The Lancea Sanctum is structured below its Archbishops.
Status is something other Kindred respect, but not necessarily like. An Acolyte whose City Status is based on word of the gruesome act of vengeance that got her kicked out of the covenant might be feared, but that fear can be a form of Status. Among the undead, such Status might make her feared or idolized (or both), depending on the social climate of the city at large. Status is foremost a measure of magnitude — the number of extra dice you get in social situations — which can be colored in countless ways by the chronicle and your own roleplaying.
Note that not every situation allows for dot-switching. In some cases, lost Status is just that: a reputation sent straight to the shitter. Storytellers, pay careful mind to Status, as hard-andfast guidelines in the form of rules can’t always accurately apply to something so capricious as public opinion.
The Circle of the Crone is the covenant most interested in the occult practices of the nighttime world. While the rest of vampire society faces inward, the Circle walks the perimeter. Acolytes from San Francisco to Moscow and everywhere else are dancing, bleeding, feeding and screwing where the lights of vampire society give way to the woods and the mountains and the ruins of the societies that came before. Acolytes test the philosophies and ceremonies of the bygone age that lie broken and ignored in the darkness just outside the firelight of memories in the minds of the eldest among the Damned.
The polymorphous mother of this diverse and misunderstood covenant has inspired her worshippers to form countless dissimilar cults from the Old World to the New. The creativity she represents and her followers revere inspires — or perhaps demands — a massive spiritual body made up of unique and sometimes wholly independent cells. The Circle of the Crone is the covenant with a thousand faces, and its members revel in its magnificent variety.
As a covenant of religious ideology, the Circle of the Crone manages to keep its disparate parts together through a broad and open-minded cosmology that encourages members to expand the metaphors of the religion and explore new philosophical territories. The job of the spiritual leader in every domain, the Hierophant, is to sculpt and shape the dogma of the covenant’s local membership. Beneath even his sometimes meager authority, each coterie of Acolytes is welcome to draft new ideas, challenge the old imagery and create new variations on the covenant’s sacred ceremonies.
The Circle of the Crone practices a vital faith that puts the power and responsibility of spiritual growth into the hands of the individual worshipper, but its most important rites and ceremonies require multiple hands and voices. It is at once an inclusive and innately personal religion. Its roots go back to the most ancient of the undead, long before Dracula or Longinus, and its widest branches touch a vast and unlikely array of members from every clan, century and mortal culture yet known. The Circle affords coteries an inspiring and empowering spiritual charge with the freedom to release that charge in any of a hundred ceremonies venerating the true nature of vampiric existence.
Psychology
In a way, the Circle of the Crone believes more in the worship than the god. The dogma of the covenant is deeply concerned with personal trials and enlightenment through tribulation. While every act venerates and praises the Crone herself, the real benefit in the end is to the vampire who challenges himself to higher and higher states of enlightenment.The covenant’s inclusive outlook makes it easy for Kindred to find a coterie of like-minded undead. The intensity of faith the covenant cultivates inspires a powerful loyalty that holds coteries together. The variety the covenant welcomes allows for coteries of formidable strength through diversity.
Ideological coteries have the advantage of an underlying psychological bond keeping the group together despite the specific actions they have to undertake. The motives of religious covenant members are often similar enough to keep the competing ambitions of a coterie’s members from tearing the group apart. When those motives do prove incompatible in Circle coteries, the members can depart on good terms with the confidence that the right coterie for that Kindred exists somewhere in the covenant.
The Structure of Circle Coteries
Circle of the Crone coteries often assemble by happenstance. Perhaps the coterie is simply made up of four Acolytes with nearby havens, or maybe the coterie consists of all the chorus members currently awaiting formal initiation into the covenant. Unlike political coteries or spiritual coteries from such rigidly structured religious covenants as The Lancea Sanctum, a Circle coterie can survive for decades with only loose threads tying the Acolytes together. Such coteries are able to weather more difficult threats without fracturing under internal stresses and avoid internal betrayals and melodrama by limiting expectation and emotional demands.Circle coteries are devout and dedicated to the proper observances of the Crone and the practice of coterie- or city-specific rites, but they are lax on logistical demands beyond worship. Although a city with tightly organized Acolytes might have specialized coteries dedicated to particular duties like a Sanctified city does, just as many cities leave the individual coteries to their own devices. Since the coterie is the largest worshipping body of the covenant most nights of the year, this attitude suits the Circle fine. On those nights of major ceremonies or festivities, the coteries that come together rely on tradition and the Crone’s Liturgy to guide them. Otherwise, Acolyte coteries might vote on important decisions, consult texts or seek supernatural guidance when necessary. More often, though, each member of the coterie is given purview over some aspect of covenant operations for the coterie or the larger area, such as security, correspondence with the city at large or the tending of herds.
Coteries of Acolytes do develop certain group identities, however. Rather than being mandated by a presiding Bishop or Archduke or title-holding figurehead, these collective identities are based on the mutual interests and goals of the coterie’s members, which naturally grow over time into some kind of group momentum. The demands of maintaining a religious ideal lead coteries to take up those tasks that are necessary for the success of the covenant, and those tasks eventually come to be associated with the coterie. If nothing else, the outside pressures of the city guide and motivate the coterie to define itself in relationship to the larger vampiric society.
The dogma of the Crone and the Kindred it attracts makes it possible to define a few broad categories of coteries. These examples, while common, are by no means standard. Most coteries, in fact, resemble hybrids of two or more of these models.
Cults
All Circle coteries are effectively cults. Some, however, are dedicated exclusively to obscure or unique religious practices. Some coterie cults act as religious advisors for all Acolytes in the city, sometimes forming into complex relationships of tangled authority and overlapping holy nights. Other coteries practice observances that are so far removed from the covenant’s traditions as to be unrecognizable — possibly even going so far as to invent new gods.It’s not uncommon for each of the coteries in a region to worship subtle variations of the same goddess. In such cases, individual coteries take responsibility for certain ceremonial rites. A coterie’s Status within the covenant can hinge on the quality of observances it prepares for all covenant members.
Missionaries
The past few decades have seen the Circle of the Crone take up dedicated missionary work, where the growth of its membership was once simply one more responsibility on the back of every coterie and cult in the covenant. This isn’t to say that the covenant placed a low value on the expansion of its ranks, but it does demonstrate the sort of operational trends that can occur when covenant elders get the word out.Traditionally, The Lancea Sanctum has played the role of the gospel-barking missionary, and the Circle of the Crone played the inverted role, keeping the faith and tending it like a field. Now that’s changing. The Circle is actively drumming up new membership with coteries of proactive spiritual advisors. Instead of spreading like a net beneath the streets to catch the chaff from other covenants, the Circle is now going out and plucking new converts from the tree.
In some domains, the role of the Circle missionary is more like the role of an explorer. The covenant doesn’t follow any mortal model of missionary work, so when a Circle coterie seeks to expand its constituency, it doesn’t necessarily make the fact known by thumping its holy text and building a temple. Instead, Circle missionaries monitor the attitudes of the local vampire and mortal populations and estimate the kind of Acolytes in the area and the quantity that could be culled from both bodies. When the coterie’s confident in its assessment, it either gets to work extending and refining covenant territory in the area or it goes back to existing covenant territory and seeks out a coterie that’s a good match for the local population. Even when the Circle overtly pursues new converts, its missionary work is subtler than its ceremonial practices.
Low-ranking coteries don’t know what’s inspiring the new missionary work, but many assume it’s the result of the covenant’s recent study of The Lancea Sanctum. If the vampiric population as a whole is losing interest in the strict and penitent ways of the Sanctified, then perhaps Kindred society is approaching a tipping point. Now is the time to find out, by gathering as many vampires around the Crone as possible by taking advantage of The Lancea Sanctum’s cracking flagstones and convincing casual Allies to solidify their relationships.
Infiltrators
The Circle has been using the noncommittal reputation of its initiates, the chorus, to its advantage for decades by insinuating low-profile neonates among the ranks of The Lancea Sanctum, The Ordo Dracul, and any other theologically inclined covenants that might exist only in certain localities. The covenant elders are after more information on the internal workings of the competition. The low fidelity of vampire polling makes it possible for a coterie of the chorus to get far enough inside either organization to be recognized as members throughout the city. When the coterie backs out and joins the Circle of the Crone, it’s not symptomatic of some wavering faith among the Sanctified but a sign of the Circle’s subtle prowess — those faithless priests never accepted the dogma of Longinus. And now the Circle knows what the Sanctified and the Dragons worry about, and it has members with knowledge of each house’s sacred and secret miracles.The same tactic works outside the ideological theater to scout out new domains and prepare them for claims by the Circle of the Crone. Some chorus coteries are given the task of posing as fledgling missionaries for The Lancea Sanctum and going into contested or abandoned territories to ruin the reputation of that covenant before real missionaries can arrive. Once the local Kindred temperament is predisposed against the Sanctified, the Acolytes petition for those domains from the Prince, Regent or other authority figure.
Academics
Much of the factual and religious lore detailing the old religions beloved by the covenant has fallen from popular wisdom and academic records into the category of the occult. Most of it has been in that category since the beginning. To recover the wisdom of the ancient world and record it anew for the benefit of tomorrow night’s waking elders, the covenant requires scholars, academics and researchers working to ratify each local body of “canon,” or at least form the basis for orthodoxy. This is one of the rare coterie types the Circle actively organizes, usually through word-of-mouth or ghoul petitioners. Naturally, most are organized by the Hierophant (who might even be a member of such a coterie), while others are selected by the covenant as a whole, particularly in domains where it is populous.Academic coteries (also thought of as investigative coteries) have a reputation for disdaining the Masquerade and keeping unusually large numbers of mortal servants and Ghouls. Researchers need access to rare or one-of-a-kind sites and artifacts under mortal control and often require manpower to work in the daylight at historic and archaeological sites. Acolytes weigh the risks carefully before each actual breach of the First Tradition, and the wise ones have a plan for the elimination of mortals in the know. In practice, however, the covenant’s academic coteries have had remarkable luck with the kine they choose for this work; the truth about vampires and supernatural forces ignites an excitement more powerful than fear in the mortal Allies chosen by Circle scholars. Still, the covenant acknowledges that luck runs out eventually and nights without consequences come to an end. It’s better, these coteries say, to get as much done as possible before that happens.
Expeditions to historic sites center on academic coteries but swell to include packs of muscle and sometimes tag-along devotees to the site in question. Formal expeditions are rare, though, as many of the great occult sites of interest to the covenant are difficult to reach or study by night. More often, an expedition amounts to a coterie independently visiting a remote site and hiring poorly informed workers to explore, catalog and photograph sites while the coterie waits, often for weeks. Then the coterie takes the results of its secret expedition back to covenant elders for praise and reward. Just as often, these quiet expeditions are devoured by those remote sites or surrounding hazards.
Academic coteries are responsible for tracking vampiric genealogy and history, keeping and cataloging stacks of books, maps, plans and records, and recognizing the truth. Scholarly Acolytes dig new fragments of knowledge out of the dirt of old texts and inscriptions, advise the covenant or even the Prince, and judge what to share or keep secret. It’s an intriguing existence, if not always a safe one.
Occult Ambassadors
From their positions on the outskirts of vampire society, Circle coteries are as likely to be exposed to the other horrors of the darkened world as they are to be threatened by other Kindred. To survive, such coteries develop a rapport with the odd occult powers of the land. Some Circle coteries have cultivated strong enough relationships with the neighbors to meet sporadically with Lupine agents and be welcomed at meetings of mages. Certain studies of the occult lead Acolytes to deal with ghosts, self-proclaimed “demons” and things even less identifiable with meager human words. These are the covenant’s occult ambassadors.This is an important niche not just for the Circle of the Crone but for many cities. A coterie with connections in the arcane underworld can make itself invaluable to Princes and Prisci, though the balance of loyalties is difficult. Such a coterie must be dedicated foremost to the covenant or risk losing the occult credibility that comes with membership. After that, the coterie must be concerned with all Allies who aren’t vampires, for they are the hardest for a coterie to replace.
A coterie of this category could be another one with good standing in the larger world or one comprising active scholars and diplomats. The covenant needs Acolytes who are capable of coaxing new revelations from the other occult powers of the world so that the Circle’s spiritual horizons can continue to expand. This Research mission turns coteries into cabals of supernatural anthropologists of the old school: the type who wear finger bones at tribal festivities and eat with the cannibals. Other such coteries become the hubs in the black market of magic, selling looted artifacts in exchange for ones that the covenant wants.
Gardeners
In cities with small or sedate Circle populations, the term “gardener” has come to mean any Acolyte or coterie that tends neutral ground or Elysium. Often, these Kindred are literally gardeners, cultivating strange and secluded circles of wildflowers in abandoned industrial zones or maintaining hanging gardens in forgotten cisterns and subway stations. In an increasing number of cities, Acolytes are given authority by the Prince to beautify and enliven Elysium throughout the city. In domains governed by the Circle, the studios, greenhouses and workshops of prominent Acolytes might even be granted Status as Elysium.Where the Circle is less welcome, some coteries create unofficial neutral ground in a park or gallery and offer solitude or stimulation to any visitors. Sometimes rival zealots or the agents of an unsympathetic Prince sabotage these efforts, and sometimes the sites evolve into alternative meeting grounds or genuine sites of Elysium. Most often, though, Circle gardens find a few loyal visitors or appreciative return visitors and become little more than meeting grounds for local Acolytes and avenues of recruitment into the covenant.
The advantage to coteries who tend such sites is in the trust of other vampires. Coteries whose greenhouses become Elysium have a distinct advantage as long as they can keep the secret. If nothing else, tending such a site is a good way for a coterie to make Contacts without taking sides.
Artists
The Circle of the Crone believes that the power of creation is sacred, so all Acolytes strive to create. Coteries of artists make works of art the top priority and participate in the Danse Macabre primarily through the pieces they create. These coteries strive to get their works in front of audiences at all levels of Kindred society. Coteries of this sort seek out formal relationships with figures in local art communities and the Prince’s inner circle. For artist coteries, being seen is the purpose for forming a coterie.Not all art is beautiful. Acolyte artists might be masters of ancient techniques or pioneers of questionable new media. A coterie of bird breeders in one European city gifts nightingales to all the known vampires in the city each year, while a North American pack of Acolytes makes snuff films on the streets of its urban domains. Sometimes creating the art is the coterie’s purpose, but sometimes it’s about reaction to the art.
Different coteries have different motives and Expectations, of course. Some use art to attract converts to the covenant, some want personal attention or Status, and others want to influence the trajectory of the society of the Damned. Artist coteries might get lucky and become a city’s Harpies, or they might be branded dangerous by a Bishop and forbidden to continue creating. Any artistic venue that becomes popular has a chance of being hijacked for use by political agents, such as subversive Carthians or a propagandizing Regent. Artists intend for their works to go into the night and change society, but the art usually drags the coterie into the night and changes it.
Challengers
The so-called challenger cults of the Circle come in many forms, chased or preceded by many names. Cells of blatant, leather-hooded sadists with power tools are called tormentors on the American East Coast, but that same name is used to describe a gang of tortuous jailers in the Midwest, too. Throughout Europe and Canada are coteries of religious pain fanatics who provoke visions from (usually voluntary) subjects through expert anguish. They call themselves tribulations.The specifics vary, but all challenger cults tend to be inspired by the covenant’s belief in personal enlightenment through extreme experiences. Coteries that focus on exploring the philosophy begin by testing and expanding their own limits, but they can eventually become celebrities among Acolytes and chorus members in the domain and sometimes even beyond. It’s prestigious to be mutilated by the masters of the craft. Rare and famous cabals of ceremonial torturers follow the invitations, visiting one domain tonight and another tomorrow. These are glamorous and revered coteries within the covenant.
In some fiefs, challenger cults strike out into the city on nights of revelry, testing Kindred and kine alike, with or without permission.
Philosophy
Diversity keeps a Circle coterie together. Look at the way the covenant worships: Circle ceremonies bring many worshippers into a single celebration that might itself celebrate multiple mother-goddesses. The covenant doesn’t necessarily put pressure on Acolytes to agree with one another about all things, but it often allows them to enjoy the easy trust that comes from sharing a belief system. (That is, under all but the most domineering of Hierophants.)Faith in the Crone is the invisible vein that runs from one member of a coterie to another. Faith can’t be torched like a fleshly political leader, and it can’t be torn down like a shared Haven. Whatever happens to a coterie’s physical possessions, whatever mistakes are made, however the group changes to the eye, the faith is still there, holding everyone together.
The flexibility of the covenant’s faith is a boon to coterie fellows. Kindred of like minds naturally congregate, and, with no higher rule to override the organic cliques that develop, the coterie never chafes under the choices of some arbitrary organizer. At the same time, Acolytes are comfortable recognizing a worshipper of another god or goddess as an ally, so coterie members enjoy the flexibility to disagree without straining their allegiance. The diversity and strangeness that brings Acolytes together at the fringes of Kindred society also gives them the ability to assume any social structure necessary to survive.
Principles of the Crone
The guiding principles of the covenant are considered to be spiritual truths by Acolytes. The essential power of the principles is the clarity of purpose they bestow upon the worshipper. The principles give meaning to the Requiem. That spiritual guidance creates social stability within the covenant and its component coteries. Each principle helps hold the vampires in a coterie together while encouraging them to go forth and pit their mettle against the world’s. This supportive and inspiring dogma keeps the covenant and its coteries strong through nights of loss, setbacks and defeat.Creation is Power
The power to create is sacred to the Circle of the Crone. Although the covenant’s many avatars and the Crone herself are worshipped as mothers and masters, the covenant reveres the power to create in all its forms. Artists and craftsmen are cherished. Leaders are honored for the social constructs they organize and bind with charisma and insight. It’s the responsibility of every soul to add to the world around it. For the deathless childer of the Crone, this responsibility is especially heavy. Vampires must create works to justify their eternal existence.In the social dogma of the covenant, a coterie is a creation made up of the vampires themselves. There’s no shame in altering a coterie or displacing one member for another, but the disintegration of a coterie is considered a major failure for all the Kindred in its membership. Coteries, in some cases, are considered to carry on even if all the original members no longer belong. Kindred who wish to break up a coterie are encouraged to replace themselves with unaligned converts and neonates, so when the parting Acolytes go and eventually involve themselves with other coteries, the total number of covenant coteries might not shrink. The practical benefits of this philosophy on the covenant as a whole are plain to all Acolytes, but the spiritual ramifications are always considered more important.
Tribulation Brings Enlightenment
The Requiem is a supernatural manifestation of the harsh world the Crone faced (in whatever form that takes in a given domain’s mythology). It’s a curse, but it’s not hell. It’s a challenge set forth for the Crone — and all her undead descendents — to overcome. By experiencing the horrors, joys, agonies and relief of undeath, a vampire becomes wiser in the ways of the world. The Requiem is a look at another layer of the metaphysics of the world, a layer mortals never get to see. By Throwing herself into those metaphysics, a Kindred tests herself and slowly reveals the natural systems that make everything run. What doesn’t destroy her makes her wiser.This philosophy also keeps coteries together. Strife is not necessarily something to flee. Enduring and overcoming the spite and discord of existence in a vampiric coterie betters that coterie. Practicing this philosophy teaches coterie members to forget internal grudges and weather the storms of Kindred society. The coterie strengthens every time its members choose not to destroy it.
Faith Versus Motive
Faith has the power to hold a coterie together, but what brings a coterie together in the first place? Most fledgling vampires don’t come to the covenant rich with faith in Hecate. Most come with a motive that opens them up to an infusion of faith. A coterie might even come to the covenant already formed, looking for legitimacy or purpose through religion.In any case, some philosophical path leads each character to the pack. Even if the philosophical path of every Acolyte were unique, some commonalities can be identified between them.
Bogeymen
The bizarre rites and strange customs of the Circle attract strange and bizarre vampires. Some come to play and explore taboos. Some come to scare themselves. Some come to scare everyone else.Circle coteries supply bogeymen with the basic social treasures they need: challengers, spiritual sounding boards, an audience. Bogeymen in packs of bogeymen never have to explain their own strange psychology or justify their actions, since the others already get it. Bogeymen who are after attention, on the other hand, might seek out a coterie it can shock and surprise without being unwelcome.
Whole packs of bogeymen appear like undead carnivals, and the rituals such coteries observe resemble freak shows. As Acolyte bogeymen slowly wear away their own Humanity, the acts of mutilation they lust after become more and more externalized. Eventually the drive to act on other creatures might overwhelm the pack. These shock-loving groups probably make up the majority of the covenant’s challenger coteries.
Naturalism
Many Acolytes come to the Crone out of a direct rejection of the Sanctified philosophies of damnation and penance. The Testament of Longinus casts vampires in a static role that amplifies the alien infinity of undeath. Kindred who find the philosophy unbearable are quickly drawn in by the ever-changing existence promised in the Crone’s Liturgy.Naturalists believe that every creature on Earth has a purpose and that the unnatural state of the undead allows each vampire and each coterie to define and redefine its own purpose throughout eternity. Therefore, vampires who are drawn to the covenant for its naturalist worldview join coteries that play an active role in the domain. These are the Kindred who further the cause of the covenant, seek out converts and plan to impact vampire society. The naturalist philosophy benefits any coterie in search of an active voice or motivator. Naturalists are often comfortable in the role of spiritual advisor for the coterie, and they sometimes expand their view of “nature” to include the magical rites of Crúac. When they do, they learn those rites on behalf of the coterie.
Curiosity
The Embrace changes the world for each of the undead. The revelation of a supernatural world just beneath the one experienced in mortal life inspires intense curiosity in some vampires. For them, the Circle of the Crone represents a religious alternative to the pessimistic familiarity of the Sanctified’s church-like gospel. It also provides an active and unashamed organization of spiritual explorers for the fledgling to latch on to.Even a single curious vampire energizes a coterie with new ideas and ambition. In time, a hunger for knowledge and experience might give way to long-term goals for the coterie or the covenant, casting the coterie into a leadership or spearhead role in some larger project. Curious coteries are social butterflies or pilgrims between the hierarchies of the undead. The rituals such coteries observe vary over time as the members encounter new customs and ways to worship.
Safety
For some scared whelps, a Circle coterie affords the same benefits as any organized and supportive group: a safe distance from the pains and problems of ordinary society. Even if it creates its own social troubles or moral problems, the coterie is at least a wall the whelp can lean against. Neonates who find themselves in over their heads amid the grotesque, fleshrending rituals of some coteries still benefit from the social safety that comes from clarity. If the neonate attempts to leave the coterie, the others might destroy him. Worse, they might not, and then what is he supposed to do?In a coterie, an overwhelmed fledgling is at least plainly shown the hoops to jump through. Decisions are made for him. Expectations and rewards are explained for him.
Impale yourself on this fence with us, and we’ll like you. Sew this into your skin, and you can sleep in our Haven. Drink my blood, and I promise I’ll never leave you.
Methodology
The methods of Circle coteries descend from the covenant itself but are interpreted, enacted and modified by every coterie in operation. No two coteries behave the same way. Still, these three practical strategies are employed by so many Circle coteries that they’re thought of as an innate part of the covenant’s identity.Mystery
The Circle of the Crone and all her coteries surround themselves with mystery. Some coteries refuse to explain their ceremonies or keep the identity of their favored god secret. Some behave with a caution, formality or precision that makes other Kindred wonder. Circle coteries keep things to themselves, avoid discussing details of the covenant and maintain strict barriers of privacy over certain subjects. Since so much of the covenant’s ideology is misunderstood by the outside population, coteries usually find it easy to maintain an atmosphere of mystery.Mystified outsiders are enticed to ask questions and interact with the coterie, which creates opportunities for the coterie to ask questions of its own. Mystery implies desirability as well, simultaneously attracting potential converts and holding off possible attacks. Enemies might withhold violence until they understand what exactly the coterie is up to. Finally, mysteries make outsiders afraid.
Fear
The Circle of the Crone uses fear in many of the same ways other covenants do: as a shield. Fear can keep enemies at bay and relationships in balance. Fearful populations commiserate, which facilitates information gathering and promotes the coterie. Fear also exaggerates, inspiring lies that can hide vulnerable truths. Fear inspires respect in those who might make valuable converts and draws out potential traitors in enemy organizations. It’s good to be feared.Personal Involvement
Contrary to the other two tactics — or to balance them — the covenant also promotes its ever-expanding dogma and open-mindedness. The Circle of the Crone demands less and inspires more. The Circle’s faith adapts to absorb the beliefs of converts. Its coteries define their own goals and rituals. Acolytes might not be personally recognized, but they’ll never be faceless.By promoting this reputation in conjunction with the covenant’s image as a strange and frightening mélange of independent cults, membership seems simultaneously redeeming and exciting. The nightly rituals appear solemn and involving. The motives of the covenant are difficult to identify, so local authorities must make decisions based on the local coteries, rather than popular generalizations. The individualization of coteries means that one can raise hell without necessarily implicating the other covenant followers. In the feudal city-states of the undead, that kind of freedom is an attractive luxury for street-level whelps and a powerful weapon for the covenant elders.
Status
The many faces of the Crone wear many masks. Coteries of the Crone play different roles on the different stages of the world’s cities. More than any other covenant, the Status of a Circle coterie is dependent on the coterie itself, rather than the reputation of the covenant.Although all Crone-worshipping coteries can be said to be mysterious and misunderstood, each city’s local Acolytes practice a different sort of strangeness. Two Circle coteries might have contrary relationships with the powers that be. One might be an unwelcome cult of crazed troublemakers, the other an Aloof cabal of garden-tending spiritual advisors. What Circle coteries usually have in common is their relationship to the city’s larger social strata. Coteries of the Crone either position themselves or are habitually forced outside the normal social structure of the city. They are the uncommon covenant, the city’s “organic” spiritual voice.
Therefore, Circle coteries rarely bother to play the more elaborate political games attributed to elder culture, even when they have positive political standing. A coterie might have formidable Status in local affairs, or it might not have any formal influence on policy at all, preferring to work indirectly. An Acolyte might be a respected voice at court, but less august members of the covenant often do not hold high regard for formal politics. The covenant’s focus of spiritual matters suggests that its most powerful members are not too concerned with feudal power. In recent times, though, many Princes have sensed a change in the priorities of the Circle.
Common Status for the Crone
When the Circle thrives in a domain, it plants coteries like seeds and hopes some cultural influence takes root. When Circle coteries advance the city’s political framework, they grow like vines, tangled and tenacious. When Acolytes claim power, the covenant sprouts up through cracks in the city’s foundation until the domain is entwined in its web of influence.So the Circle of the Crone does wield substantial power in select domains, but its total territories are few and its aspirations for secular power are minor. Like The Ordo Dracul, the Circle of the Crone tends to focus its political Resources on select positions of influence in hopes of controlling private territories where covenant members can worship, study and challenge themselves unmolested by the other covenants. In some cases, Circle coteries pay for this privilege with favors to feudal lords and spiritual contributions to the city’s Kindred. In many cases, Circle coteries avoid participation in formal contracts altogether and exempt themselves from the feudal system as best they can with a curtain of fear and a reputation for xenophobia. Rather than the intricately defined relationships that seem to be the obsession of The Invictus and rulers from every covenant, the Circle of the Crone prefers to deal with the hierarchies of undead society on a case-by-case basis.
The In-Between Places
The spaces occupied by Circle coteries reflect their standing in the city and inevitably bring with them a social Status both unsought and invaluable. Acolytes dwell in the in-between places of the realm: the areas technically within a Prince’s domain but outside of his interest. The areas unwatched by the Sheriff and his Hounds. The areas attractive to outcasts, exiles, runaways and fugitives.Circle coteries sometimes become the untouchables, the useful X-factors playable by every side against the others, but not responsible for their own wicked acts of war. The Carthians might enlist the help of the Acolytes against The Invictus, for example, but The Invictus knows that the Carthians were behind the act and retaliates against them, not the Circle. The Acolytes accept this arrangement because it puts them in an ideal position to collect the tired, the disgusted and the castoff members who flee the factions after every defeat. Therefore, the Circle is in contact with every instrument in the city’s Danse Macabre, well informed and well protected.
Campaigns for Power
Status is about recognition and acknowledgement. Status comes in response to actions taken and bestows responsibilities and freedoms. Or does it? It can appear real, it can inspire genuine sentiment and provoke actions with real consequences without ever being real itself. Status can be a strange thing — a lie that becomes true, an illusion made manifest by its audience. Convince enough people that a Kindred dwells in an unassailable fortress of esteem, and his reputation builds protective walls around him.The more formal covenants that make up the establishment of Kindred society have mechanisms in place for the political promotion of their own members. In one city, it’s simply understood that all churches and synagogues within the city limits are the domain of a Bishop selected by The Lancea Sanctum. In another, the Primogen always belong to The Ordo Dracul.
The internal disparity and external unfamiliarity of the Circle of the Crone makes it more difficult for the covenant to gain ground in many domains, and even for its own members to gain recognition within the larger body of the covenant. When local agents of the covenant decide that the time is right to gain visibility and Status within either body, they sometimes form coteries and mount street-level campaigns to benefit and promote a figurehead or leader. The largest challenge for these ambitious coteries isn’t the opposition, but the lack of support from the larger reputation of the covenant.
The techniques such coteries use aren’t unique to the Circle of the Crone, though. Storytellers are welcome to use this system for coteries of other covenants and for any other kinds of Status relevant in the chronicle.
Coterie Figureheads and Pooled Status
Kindred must often conspire to win the most valuable seats of power, though only one of the conspirators claims the seat when the campaign is won. In the case of the Circle of the Crone only one Acolyte in each city can be considered the Hierophant — typically the wisest and most revered Acolyte. Therefore, even if a coterie of unprecedented fairness and equality works together to pursue the position, even if several of them attain maximum Covenant Status, only one typically claims the title. Better, then, to decide in advance which vampire takes control and work to maximize the benefits of the situation. To be sure, the covenant has historically seen “coHierophants,” but such a situation is almost always a political, spiritual and personal problem simply waiting to happen.Coteries should consider carefully who gets the power, with all the freedoms, responsibilities and risks involved. The rest should consider keeping lower profiles — possibly so low as to warrant no Covenant Status themselves. To gain Covenant Status, other vampires of the covenant must hear of the candidate and come to recognize him — and the more other vampires know about him, the more vulnerable he becomes. Keeping some members of the coterie off the popular radar is a good way to keep potential enemies in the dark.
The Storyteller should consider allowing coteries to pool experience to purchase dots in Covenant Status (or even City Status, as might fit a cosmopolitan chronicle, though this is not universally recommended) for one member of the pack. Doing so represents the members of the coterie using their own efforts to promote and earn favor for their figurehead. Of course, such efforts should actually take place if experience-pooling is to be justified. The Storyteller may decree that only experience points earned specifically for actions promoting the coterie or its figurehead can be pooled to purchase Status, and then award such experience points at the end of a chapter with serious campaigning. This method creates a separate registry of experience points belonging not to any one member of the group but to the coterie as a whole, who get to turn those points into a dot which must itself land on one character’s sheet.
To share Covenant Status, two or more characters simply have to pool their dots to reflect the increase in the figurehead’s standing. A shared rating in the Covenant Status Merit cannot rise higher than five dots.
Shared Status dots can be lost. Coterie members or associates might withdraw their support. Kindred initially supportive of the situation might sour on it later, undertaking actions or even smear campaigns that reflect poorly on the figurehead. Initiatives might be won or lost. If any group member does something to diminish the figurehead’s reputation, its dots decrease accordingly. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Covenant Status dots.
Characters can also abandon a shared-Status arrangement. When a character leaves such a relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. The character doesn’t get his dots back for his own purposes. He must begin on the road toward building his reputation from square one, given that he was effectively a “silent partner” up until this point.
On the other hand, a character need not devote all of her experience-point expenditures (or starting Merit dots) to the pooled Status. A Kindred might make a name of her own outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners.
For more suggestions on sharing Merits, see the Haven Merit on p. 100 of Vampire: The Requiem.
Campaigning
Politics is clearly the Skill that covers actual political campaigning, but City Status isn’t always about politics. Covenant Status, especially in the case of the ideological Circle of the Crone, might have nothing to do with politics. Lots of different skills can and should become important when trying to gain Status. Use Intelligence + Expression to write speeches or essays that make the figurehead look good, and Presence + Expression to pull off those speeches. With Manipulation + Socialize, coterie-mates can subtly influence eavesdroppers or acquaintances with promotional Oratory disguised as casual ranting or conversation. Intelligence + Empathy could be used to dissect the bitching of street-level whelps and identify the religious or political angle that’ll finally get through to them.
No Vacancies
So, the coterie’s got six experience points pooled and ready. With those six points, the coterie’s figurehead will get a third dot in Status and become “known to all in the local covenant” (see Vampire: The Requiem) as the Hierophant of the Circle of the Crone in town. Trouble is, another vampire’s already using that title, and he’s not ready to give it up. The Storyteller might decide that the coterie’s figurehead can purchase the third dot in Status, become known throughout the city, and be recognized as a rival for the seat. The Storyteller could also decide that the third dot can’t be purchased until the position can be captured; it’s her call. While Status isn’t a rigid measure of social rank with each dot indicating a special title, the Storyteller does get to decide how the scale of Status works in the city and the chronicle.
Either way, if the coterie wants to fill that seat, the characters have got to get rid of the current Hierophant. To do that without losing the favor of the Acolytes or the chorus in town and provoking a violent backlash is one more reason why some members of the coterie avoid getting Status of their own. While the figurehead positions himself as a loyal right-hand to the Hierophant, the rest of the coterie gets the Hierophant incinerated by The Lancea Sanctum or exposed as a hypocrite by a coterie of whistleblower Carthians.
A House with No Foundation
Something that’s not real can’t be revoked, but it can be disbelieved. If the coterie’s campaign is based on lies or halftruths, and those lies are revealed, the whole house can come down. Covenant Status is a vertical path, as you can’t be a member without Status. If a Hierophant is revealed to be a fraud, for example — perhaps he won the title by taking credit for the actions of another Acolyte — he’ll almost certainly be ousted and probably exiled from the covenant. He might even meet Final Death. The higher one’s Status is, the further the fall is when that Status disappears.Keeping Status After Losing a Title
Again, Status isn’t necessarily fused to a formalized title. A character’s Status can utterly change within the context of the chronicle without the player gaining or losing any dots on her character sheet. Imagine a Hierophant who falls out of favor with the covenant but translates it into City Status when news of his masterful power play gets out.An earthquake under the political landscape of the domain might be an opportunity for a character to redistribute his total dots in Status into new categories. What if the Circle of the Crone usurps dominance in a city from the Carthians and your character was a spy in the Carthian ranks with one dot in Covenant Status (Carthians)? That dot might move to City Status to reflect a new post beneath the new Hierophant-Prince.
Depending on the size of the city and its vampiric population, the Storyteller might decide that there’s no way for part of a coterie to hide when the social spotlight is cast on one of its members. If the coterie members represent every Acolyte in the domain, they become the poster boys for the covenant and possibly the basis of stereotypes. This is the unavoidable weight of recognition. This is especially suitable for Acolyte coteries, which often organize around a powerful figure, like a Hierophant, rather than beneath a powerful figure, as The Lancea Sanctum is structured below its Archbishops.
Status is something other Kindred respect, but not necessarily like. An Acolyte whose City Status is based on word of the gruesome act of vengeance that got her kicked out of the covenant might be feared, but that fear can be a form of Status. Among the undead, such Status might make her feared or idolized (or both), depending on the social climate of the city at large. Status is foremost a measure of magnitude — the number of extra dice you get in social situations — which can be colored in countless ways by the chronicle and your own roleplaying.
Note that not every situation allows for dot-switching. In some cases, lost Status is just that: a reputation sent straight to the shitter. Storytellers, pay careful mind to Status, as hard-andfast guidelines in the form of rules can’t always accurately apply to something so capricious as public opinion.
See us when we reach toward heaven, When our arms reach upward toward thee. When the Full Moon shines upon us, Give us thy blessings. Teach us of thine ancient mysteries, Ancient rites of invocation that the Holy Strega spoke of, For we believe the Strega’s story: When she spoke of thy shining glory, When she told us to entreat thee, Told us when we seek for knowledge to seek And find thee above all others.
— A Circle of the Crone invocation of Diana
— A Circle of the Crone invocation of Diana
Type
Alliance, Generic
Ruling Organization
Coteries That Don't Get It
In some areas, the decentralized nature of the covenant amplifies poor translations of the dogma into a strange or broken iteration of the covenant’s actual beliefs. Maybe a coterie is started by some daft whelp who’s heard of the Circle of the Crone but never actually seen the Crone’s Liturgy (and who tells other vampires the text doesn’t exist anymore). Or maybe some failed Acolyte shows up in a town without Kindred of the covenant and uses her limited experience to redefine the covenant’s faith from memory. In so doing, she sparks a pack of would-be Acolytes in reverence around the sort of half-feigned, halfauthentic philosophy that she would’ve preferred.A cabal of New Agers thinks it’s tapping into some Wiccan heritage when one member finds half a copy of the Crone’s Liturgy and takes to worshipping Cleopatra with sacrifices of stray cats. Abandoned neonates break into the community theater’s props closet and steal Greek masks to use in an orgiastic feeding frenzy they’re calling a ritual in hopes that it summons up their own faith. A cell of former Lancea Sanctum members sets itself up as the Many Faces of the Crone and rallies a cult of mortal blood addicts to worship the members as gods, because that’s what they think Circle coteries do.
With no overseeing body to police the actions of coteries using the name, this is the sort of debased worship that happens in remote Kindred territories. Woe to such groups when a genuine member of the Circle of the Crone hears of it. The Circle is openminded as a whole, but it does not suffer fools who blaspheme against the Crone in its own name.
Night Watchment
The job of watching, guarding and protecting the covenant’s sacred and secret sites falls on cherished volunteers or honored appointees. It’s a symbol of respect and authority to be trusted with the protection of a pagan catacomb or the oversight of a mystic barrow. Sometimes the work requires military vigilance, sometimes a delicate knack for obfuscation. Each site has different needs that the coterie must meet.It’s dangerous work. Not all the sites watched by the Circle of the Crone belong to vampire history, and it’s entirely possible that most don’t. Mages, werewolves, spirits and worse might come looking for a site… or out from it. Acolytes welcome these risks and the chance to overcome them and enrich their eternal existence.