The Devil's Footprint

After the initiation conversation with Hodge, I found myself with much to consider. Although consciously I knew I had, perhaps, gone beyond the point I had originally intended not to pass, the rich detail and intriguing violence of these ancient ways consumed my imagination. Whereas the Coils of my covenant certainly had methods for addressing the Beast, they were systems of control put in place to stifle the essential nature of what we’d all become. The rites of the Forsworn, however, spoke to my very core, addressing the dilemma of the vampiric state with a dark honesty that surpassed anything I would experience within the halls of the Dragons. And was it not my oath to the Mysteries that should make clear the course of my actions? As I paced the curtained halls of the covey’s Haven, I considered this very matter and how I had come to this place I now found myself.
As I absent-mindedly fingered the curtains of the rooms, I grew curious about the building itself. It was apparently a tenement of some sort, with each room now bare of any furnishings and painted in the stark,institutional gray that covered the walls of the snaking hallways as well. As I wandered and looked into one empty room after another, I was surprised to find Evelyn standing alone in one of the cells, mindfully pulling on her long cigarette as I stood there staring ather. Apparently not startled by my sudden appearance in the doorway, she moved to the back of the room and leaned into the corner, as if it were holding her safe. As I walked into the center of the room, I could feel a shaking at my center, an awareness of power and darkness that I, too, found oddly affirming. As the two of us stood in the dark chamber, Evelyn stared at me as if she were waiting for something to happen. Uncomfortable with the silence, I asked her why this room was different from the others.
Evelyn informed me that Aaron Kleig, a Swiss Dadaist of little vision, used the room in which we stood during the early 1900s. Though his skill with his chosen medium of sculpture was not appreciated by the critics of his time, his prodigal grasp of torture, murder and postmortem mutilation captured the imagination of the covey. According to Evelyn, it was to this room that Kleig lured twin nine-year-old boys on a sunny afternoon in July of that year, under the auspices of a gift of boiled sweets. Over a span of four days, Kleig produced his most infamous works by painstakingly removing the children’s bones and stretching their shredded remains over copper pipe armatures originally intended for his sculptures. The authorities discovered the bodies in a state of advanced decay, three of them, as Kleig had slit his own throat and collapsed facedown in the stinking offal of his two victims.
At that point, I took note of Evelyn’s voice, which had collapsed into the solemn, droning tone that a fundamentalist would use when reciting the verses of a sacred text. I asked if she had known Kleig, and she smiled as she stated that she knew him but had never met him. She stated that the spiritual accomplishments of Aaron Kleig had drawn her to this place many years ago, like some sort of beacon of the Beast that called out to her own instincts. When she had arrived in this place those many nights ago, it was an abandoned tenement and the room was as nondescript as I found it now. Despite this, Evelyn returned to the room night after night as she said she could feel something neglected being nourished and awakened inside her. Though at that time the room’s history was a secret to Evelyn’s intellect, from her Beast the room could hide nothing. Through these nightly meditations at this place so close to the Beast, Evelyn had come to be one of the Forsworn. Through her explanation, I then came to understand my own route to Belial’s Brood, and shared the tale of how I had come by the two codices that had given me my first clues of what I had now found.

Execution

Rites of Communion

The rites of communion, as they are called, are the methods used by Belial’s Brood to unlock and understand those objects and places that are closest to the Beast. Forsworn grimoires, bloodstained surgical instruments and the sites of torture and murder all serve as a point of religious transmission for those set upon the Pursuit. Through this communion, one’s own Beast is further enlightened and one’s experience is connected to the greater movements of the Adversary as it cuts its path through hapless world of the blind. By interpreting the movements of so-called evil through the plane upon which we exist, our subjective instincts are harmonized with the frequency of the Demiurge’s seductive call, giving meaning absolute to what others may see as aimless and pointless malevolence.
These sorts of rites come in two forms, the distinction being along the lines of the Archontes and dynameis. Evelyn’s initial experience is an example of the preliminary communion rite that precedes the dynameis of communion as it is a ceremony of subjective structure that connects the individual Forsworn, although only intuitively, to the energy of the site. By meditating upon the egregore left by an intensely savage or predatory act, she found he center and began her Pursuit. Years later, after the covey was established, Hodge, Gabriel and Evelyn returned to the site and performed their covey’s dynamei of communion in honor of Kleig’s holy atrocities and the role the murders played in the awakening of their covey sister.
The greater form of the communion rite is performed when a site is located of such magnitude that the entirety of Belial’s Brood holds the site sacred. Though the history of such sites is usually recorded in great and gratuitous detail in the cryptic manuscripts of the Brood, this is not always the case. In some instances, the dreadful secrets of a site of atrocity are known only by the most abyssal pangs of the Beast and the Demiurge itself. Nonetheless, these sorts of ceremonies are usually quite elaborate and involve more than one covey and, in some cases, members of more than one faction. These events are generally held on a specific date, usually the day on which the site was consecrated, if such information is known.
The philosophical focus of communion rites varies depending on the focus of the covey’s faction. Factions that focus on the sarx often choose sites of the most extreme nature, often having dubious historical significance even outside of occult circles. The Pandaemonium will often choose locations of ritual murder, massacre or mass cult suicide (or the instruments used to bring about such things) to perform their larger rites. The soma cults generally choose places or objects that represent savage conquest or destruction, where culture has been crushed and violence rules. The Faustians focus on sites where the bestial nature of man served to undermine order and civilization either on a large scale or in secret. The seekers of the pneuma use such rites to guide them on their spiritual quest, seeking out omens and portents that transform their understanding as the Demiurge takes shape within them. Among the Nameless, sites and objects of unknown origin are examined with meditative precision as the faction feels that to not consciously know the significance of such places and things will lend the Brood members more power. Sites and objects sacred to the entire Brood are most often those of history-changing significance. The mass graves of St. Petersburg, the concentration camp sites of Germany and Poland, the Antietam battleground, as well as the killing fields Nanjing and Cambodia all possess signs of civilization’s inevitable failure.
Though these rituals are most powerful when performed with one’s covey, the subjective inspiration gained from personal experimentation with such places and objects cannot be denied. For this reason, solitary communion rites can be deeply significant even when performed without a group.

Related Organizations

• Belial's Brood