The Invictus - The Danse Macabre
Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one. William Cowper, Task
Joining the Invictus
Every vampire’s Requiem is different in detail, but the covenant the vampires join gives them certain themes in common. The Invictus emphasizes themes of mastery, aristocracy and patronage. Every member of the First Estate is a lord of the night in a fearsome, feudal hierarchy — and many of these Kindred began Climbing the covenant’s ladder of power before their Embraces. Before they even know the Kindred existed . . . .Before the Embrace
Most Kindred expect their childer to follow their sires into their chosen covenant. Invictus members are no exception. Whatever the motive for siring a childe, a First Estate vampire believes the childe can become a covenant member in good standing. Invictus do not sire childer as mere lackeys. The Invictus has Ghouls for that work. A childe is a potential equal (though that potential may take centuries to realize).An Invictus sire must also convince some higher-ranking member that a potential childe is a worthy addition to the covenant. The Invictus enforces the tradition that the Prince (or some similarly authoritative Kindred, such as a Regent or Inner Circle member) must sanction each Embrace. A sufficiently powerful member can Ignore this rule and get away with it, but she would bring scandal on her name. Few Invictus would do so: anyone powerful enough to flout tradition is powerful enough that the Prince would grant her request anyway.
Professional Reasons
Invictus members often select childer who can further their own plans. The childe has some skill or asset the sire believes would be useful.Sometimes, a sire seeks a childe with similar background and abilities. For instance, the military Guilds may recruit new members by Embracing soldiers, police, gangbangers or other people who already know how to fight. A sire who manages a large corporation might Embrace a newly mined MBA as a business assistant. Childer who have abilities and interests similar to the sire’s can start working for their sire right away, as pretrained associates. They may also help the sire keep up with new developments — a valuable consideration for the static Kindred, especially after a long Torpor. For example, if that business tycoon slept through the entire tech-sector bubble, he might want a childe who can explain what the fuss was about, and what is this “Internet” thing anyway?
Other times, a sire deliberately seeks a childe with very different aptitudes, as a way to broaden her own influence or compensate for some weakness. The tycoon puzzled by the Internet might sire a childe with technical skills rather than business skills, on the theory that business is business, he just needs someone to implement his plans. An Invictus whose Status comes from cultural activities might be the one to Embrace the young MBA, so she can expand into the business field, or she might Embrace a private eye to add investigative skills to her organization. A member of a military Guild that lost out in covenant scheming might Embrace a media whiz to burnish the group’s image.
Personal Reasons
Not all Embraces are so calculated. Just like other Kindred, Invictus members sometimes Embrace out of passion or for other personal reasons. The lords and knights of the First Estate may want fair ladies to share their eternity, and the covenant’s grand dames may seek handsome and noble lords for the same reason. Few among the First Estate are ever so bowled over by a pretty face as to Ignore other considerations, though. Sires who seek childer as eternal consorts usually pick lovers with other abilities, too. Now and then, an Invictus Embraces a consort he thinks is too delicate for the covenant’s infighting, so his consort will always need his protection and never leave. Older and cooler heads in the covenant warn that such tender flowers often destroy themselves from horror at the Danse Macabre, and if they do not, they eventually become tiresome. The covenant’s great romances — the rare few that have not (yet) ended in betrayal, hatred or ennui — are all between Kindred who combine passion with respect for each other’s competence.Invictus members sometimes Embrace a mortal to fulfill a debt of honor. Now and then, an Invictus owes a great boon to a mortal, and the mortal demands the Embrace as payment. A Kindred may also pledge to protect a mortal ally’s family, and for various reasons finds she cannot do it herself — so she Embraces someone in the family, granting the power to take over the job. A valued ally might also ask an Invictus to Embrace a dying loved one, and not accept warnings that there are worse things than dying. Each particular circumstance is rare, but the covenant sees a steady trickle of such honor-inspired Embraces.
Covenant members also may Embrace mortals they hate, though this too is rare. For instance, an Invictus might Embrace the son of a witch-hunter he especially loathes, as an exquisite revenge. Princes do not encourage such perverse Embraces, for they usually lead to trouble for everyone, but sometimes Princes are trapped by their own promises to allow Embraces whose reasons are less than prudent.
Observation and Preparation
The decision to Embrace is seldom made quickly. The Invictus recommends that sires watch prospective childer for some time and investigate their backgrounds. The First Estate doesn’t like surprises. Small but unpleasant surprises include drinking or drug problems or work histories that turn out to be padded or entirely fictional. Some problems are more exotic and much worse: Kindred legend includes stories of prospective childer who turn out to be mages, kin to werewolves or lures set by cunning witch-hunters. While The Invictus disdains most innovations, its elders regard the invention of private detectives and background checks as, on the whole, a good thing.The covenant also suggests that a sire refrain from Embracing a childe until she has a clear, definite notion of what will ensure the childe’s loyalty. Like other vampires, Invictus members cannot usually force their childer into Vincula. What else can make a childe want to work for her sire’s goals?
Access to power is one of the strongest and most frequent incentives. Many of the First Estate’s customs seem strange or archaic to modern mortals, but the covenant enjoys vast economic and political power. Members are advised to seek childer with strong ambitions, who can be seduced by that power. Such childer eagerly join the covenant’s patronage system, serving for decades in hopes they may, in time, become a few of the world’s secret masters. At least, that’s The Invictus promise.
Revenge is another lure, though one that operates on a shorter timetable. A First Estate sire can offer to help a prospective childe destroy an enemy who seems beyond his reach as a mortal. If the childe accepts the Embrace willingly, however, she will gain more-thanmortal power as well as the guidance and protection of the world’s greatest conspirators. The Invictus trusts that if a childe fails to feel gratitude for her revenge, she will at least feel a prudent fear of what the covenant could do to her if she betrayed it.
Money, however, is probably the easiest lure for a prospective childe. Many mortals feel the world does not give them rewards to match their talents. An Invictus sire can promise wealth beyond the dreams of avarice — maybe not right away, but eventually. The Invictus further recommends that sires look for prospective childer with loved ones in need: the childe must cut herself off from the people she loves, but the sire can see the loved ones are taken care of, until the childe is in a position to do it herself.
Whatever the lure, the goal is the same: a childe who views her sire as a benefactor, someone she serves willingly. Not uncommonly, however, a prospective childe works for her sire before the Embrace, too. A childe is a huge investment of the sire’s time (and psychic force). Some Invictus members feel that a trial period is only prudent before making that investment. Not only can they test the mortal’s abilities, they can make sure the mortal is someone they can stand having around them for years to come. The sire also gets a chance to decide whether she really needs a childe: maybe the prospective childe is more useful as a mortal minion.
So, the sire finds an excuse to bring the childe into her organization. For instance, an up-and-coming political activist might find herself invited to work with one of her party’s local power-brokers — an Invictus or a front man for one. Or the young MBA gets a job offer from a famously reclusive tycoon. Or the private eye is hired to “recover” an artwork “stolen” from The Invictus esthete. Trial periods can last a few nights or a few years. Sometimes the mortal makes the sire’s choice for her, by figuring out that he works for a vampire. The sire Embraces the mortal rather than kill him and lose his useful skills.
Of course, ghouling is another option for a mortal minion who penetrates the Masquerade. The First Estate has no clear policy about ghouling as part of a prospective childe’s trial period. Some Invictus members believe a period as a ghoul helps ease a prospective childe into the Kindred world and that a Vinculum ensures loyalty while the sire trains the ghoul in Invictus ways. Other Invictus believe the Vitae-inspired servility of ghouldom spoils a candidate for the First Estate. Someone who has been that much a slave, they say, can never fully become a master.
The Embrace
Passing the Curse of undeath to a mortal is one of the most awesome and terrible acts in any vampire’s Requiem. It’s no surprise, then, that the First Estate surrounds this act with ritual. By concentrating on ceremony, the Kindred can acknowledge the forbidden power of the Embrace without feeling his transgression so keenly; by involving other Kindred, the vampire dilutes his own blasphemy. Such is the unholy intimacy of the Embrace, however, that not every Invictus wants other Kindred present when he sires a childe.Petitioning the Prince
Before Embracing the childe, a dutiful Invictus formally asks the Prince for permission. Most likely, the Kindred already asked the Prince in private, perhaps years before. The Invictus will not consider the Embrace legitimate, however, unless the sire makes a formal request at the Prince’s court. This is usually just a formality — but occasionally, Princes change their minds and say no.
The petitioning process is steeped in ceremony. The ritual varies from city to city but typically begins with the would-be sire going down on one knee and declaiming the Prince’s absolute authority, as deputy of Longinus, to approve or reject all sirings. Then the sire offers a beautifully illuminated scroll of her request to sire a childe. The sire recites her lineage as far back as she knows it, and lists every honor she and her “ancestors” have achieved, to show her fitness to bring a childe into The Invictus. She continues with a description of the childe and the assets (financial, political or personal) he brings to the First Estate, and concludes with a pledge to train him in The Traditions of the Kindred and The Invictus, and in obedience to the Prince.
Along the way in this peroration, the Prince and supplicant may exchange formulaic questions and answers as the Prince asks why the supplicant wants to sire a childe and questions her fitness to do so. For instance, the Prince might ask the supplicant if she knows the Three Commandments of Longinus and order the wouldbe sire to teach them to the prospective childe. The supplicant responds with the appropriate ritual phrases (see the sidebar for examples).
The Prince and supplicant may also exchange various symbolic gifts. For example, during the catechism of The Traditions, the Prince might give the supplicant a beeswax candle after each response, symbolizing the light of Longinus’ teachings to the Kindred, who must dwell in darkness. The supplicant responds by giving the Prince a phial of her Vitae, symbolizing that her unlife and that of her childe-to-be are in the Prince’s hands. (Note: The Invictus never does this when the Prince is a member of The Circle of the Crone or The Lancea Sanctum, covenants that can do terrible things with a sample of a Kindred’s blood.) The symbolism behind some exchanges may be so obscure and archaic nobody remembers the reason for them (assuming they were not the products of a long-ago Prince’s derangements). For instance, in Marseille, the supplicant gives the Prince a small Silver cup and the Prince responds by giving the supplicant an egg carved of onyx and five bulrushes, which the supplicant then distributes to the five Primogen. No one knows why.
Invictus Princes usually do not ask Kindred from other covenants to undergo this long, ceremonial petition to sire a childe. In some cities, other covenants design their own formulas to “legitimize” the siring of a childe in First Estate eyes. In others, the sire merely asks the Prince for permission, without ceremony. Depending on the relative strengths of the covenants, other Kindred might not ask the Prince’s permission at all, and instead go to the elders of their own covenant. In most cases, though, Invictus Princes are strong enough that other covenants do not want to show disrespect over siring a childe. Few Invictus Princes are willing to provoke vendettas between covenants for the sake of childer, and, therefore, grant permission when the requests come from suitably influential members of other covenants.
Embracing the Childe
Most of the time, an Invictus sire Embraces a childe in private. The sire picks a time that seems convenient for her and for the childe to drop out of sight for a few days (or longer).
Sometimes, however, a childe deserves extra ceremony. When a mortal has knowingly rendered service to The Invictus and has pledged to serve the covenant from then on, the First Estate member turns the childe’s Embrace into a big production. Some high-ranking member of the covenant officiates — the Prince if possible, an Inner Circle member or Primogen if not. Other members of the covenant attend as well, for in showing honor for a favored childe-to-be, they gain honor themselves. (It’s also a chance to hobnob with the covenant’s elite.) Tradition recommends a dozen Kindred at the Embrace, plus the sire. (The number is variously explained as referring to the disciples of Christ, the tribes of Israel, the paladins of Charlemagne or the astrological signs of the zodiac.) One of the 12 may include a Priest from The Lancea Sanctum, exercising the Second Estate’s traditional prerogative to officiate at the great transitions of life and undeath.
The details of the ritual vary from city to city, but always include the childe-to-be swearing to uphold The Traditions of Longinus, obey the Prince and honor The Invictus in all things. The childe may receive the sacrament of extreme unction (popularly miscalled the “Last Rites”) from the Sanctified representative. Then the childe-to-be’s clothes are stripped away, symbolizing the death of his mortal identity. The 12 Kindred drink some of the mortal’s blood; the sire takes the last, before delivering the taste of Vitae that works the dark miracle of undeath. The newly Embraced childe is wrapped in a black shroud and laid on a bier. At his right side lies a scepter, representing the power of law and rulership; at his left side rests a sword, representing the First Estate’s martial power when law and tradition fail. On his breast is the shield of The Invictus, for the covenant shall be his protection, even as he protects it. His head rests on the Testament of Longinus, to show that his accursed state comes from God. At his feet lies a human skull, for he shall walk the paths of death forever more.
When the childe is ready to rise again, he is unwrapped and the shroud reversed to reveal a purple lining. The reversed shroud is draped around the new vampire while he is proclaimed a lord among Kindred and master of the kine. The sire brings in a mortal — the childe’s first meal — and bids him slake his thirst. The childe is supposed to stop feeding before he kills the vessel and to declare that he rules the Beast Within. The other Kindred are allowed to help him in this, as it is considered a bad omen for the childe to kill the vessel. (Besides, disposing of bodies is always a nuisance.) Each of the 12 Kindred offers the childe a brief homily on unlife in The Invictus, and the childe replies with expressions of gratitude and a promise to take the words to heart. The ceremony ends with the childe dressed in new clothing, to begin his Masquerade and Requiem. After that, courtesy demands the new sire offer a blood feast for his 11 guests.
A childe who receives this ceremonial Embrace begins his Requiem already a member of The Invictus in good standing. His still must serve his sire and receive training for years to come, but the childe has a head start on other neonates. Of course, he is also held to higher standards, and any failure or treachery reflects that much worse on himself and his sire.
Invictus Childehood: Unlife as a Paige
Some Invictus refer to their childer as “paiges.” In medieval Europe, young men of noble birth spent time as attendants on other nobles, as a way to learn courtly graces and prepare for future training in knighthood. The Invictus keeps a similar view of childer.
The First Estate believes that a childe is her sire’s client in a patronage relationship. The sire has already provided largesse through the Embrace, which gave the childe eternity and the powers of the blood. The sire continues to act as the childe’s patron by training her in Disciplines and the customs of the Kindred and Invictus.
In return, the paige serves her sire in whatever capacity her sire demands. Officially, the sire can demand anything at all. Kindred traditions say the sire has near-total power over the childe; in some cities, this extends to the childe’s destruction, with no need to consult the Prince or anyone else. In practice, Invictus sires are usually quite reasonable in assigning tasks their childer can fulfill. Siring a childe is too difficult to waste the effort by making impossible demands; the sire usually had a very good idea in the first place of what service the childe could render as a paige.
The sire also gains unlimited use of the childe’s property. Officially, The Invictus does not allow sires to confiscate a childe’s home, land, company or bank account — but she can do whatever she wants with them. For instance, a sire could not simply take her childe’s shares in the company he created. She could, however, order the paige to sell the stock and use the money to buy out some other company. Some Invictus childer are Embraced as millionaires and leave their sires as paupers. For whatever it’s worth, the First Estate does not consider this honorable, and the Harpies will say nasty things about a sire who abuses her privileges this way.
During his childehood, an Invictus-in-training accompanies his sire to Elysiums and other Kindred affairs, at the sire’s discretion. The childe is expected to speak only when spoken to, and then as little as possible within the bounds of courtesy. Many older Invictus say that “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” are all the vocabulary a paige needs. Naturally, a paige cannot join a coterie. He must stay at his sire’s command at all times.
Personal and Impersonal Relations
During the period as a paige, The Invictus expects the sire and childe to detach the childe from any close ties to mortals. The covenant does not approve of Kindred who stay in touch with their mortal families and friends. The risk to the Masquerade is severe, of course: Kindred communities have been thrown into crisis because a childe had to tell his best friend what happened to him or her parents figured out why they only saw their daughter at night — and the frightened mortal tried to tell the world.
And yet, The Invictus needs members who maintain mortal identities. You can’t buy stock in a company or take out a loan if you’re legally dead or never existed. Many sires select childer precisely because they can walk into a corporate boardroom and everyone says, “Hello, sir” or because politicians will take their calls.
The covenant has no good answer to this conundrum. Sires exercise their own judgments about the mortal connections of their childer. A sire might insist on faking a childe’s death and creating a new, false identity; the childe wills his assets to his new identity, a trust fund or some other proxy by which he and his sire can reclaim them.
Other Invictus members, who select childer for their mortal connections, try to arrange their paiges’ existences to hide that they are vampires. This is easiest if the childe has no Close Family. If not, inconvenient relatives can be eliminated: a job offer from far away, mental conditioning to accept a no-fault divorce or murder. (In this case, though, the sire had better make it look like an accident to the childe as well as the police. Childer who seemed utterly loyal have attacked sires when the childer learned how loved ones were slain.) Business owners can become reclusive. Political activists can invent imaginary jobs that only leave them free at night. Some people can simply retire from their jobs but stay in touch with old associates. Although The Invictus doesn’t like most innovations, it welcomes the growth of work-from-home programs, consultancies and the 24-hour work schedule in general.
In any case, the sire helps her childe to distance himself from former mortal associates. Family and friends are cut off. Professional associates meet the paige less often, in surroundings that are more formal, and only to conduct professional affairs. Professional associates are less likely to figure out the paige has become a vampire because they don’t really know him that well, and probably don’t want to.
Childehood's End
The Invictus does not say how long a childe must remain her sire’s paige. Different clans, bloodlines and factions are free to set their own standards. Some Invictus keep their childer bound to them as long as possible — until the childe herself finds a way to escape. In other cases, a sire may need a childe’s skills so much that, from the moment of Embrace, the paige is more a partner than a servant. Such a childehood will not last very long.
Whether the time comes in five years or 50, however, it comes when other Invictus start asking when the paige shall receive her independence. Once again, the patronage system demands it. A sire who won’t release an increasingly competent paige shows disrespect for the childe’s abilities. Such a sire also breaks the promise implicit in training a childe: that the apprenticeship shall someday end, and the childe can put her training to work for her own sake. Prudent elders also recognize that, while they may dole out rewards to their juniors slowly, the elders do have to dole rewards out eventually. An everincreasing population of older, more powerful and deeply resentful paiges could lead to an explosive rebellion — or simply a mass abandonment of the covenant. Tradition says it’s happened before.
The First Estate calls the end of a vampire’s period of service as a paige her “manumission.” After that, she’s a free neonate. Naturally, the covenant soaks the event in ritual. One of the sire’s duties is to coach his paige in the proper ceremonies.
Ceremony of Manumission
The procedure for liberating a childe takes at least an hour. The Invictus conducts the ceremony at a grand gathering of the covenant. Not only is this an important event for the sire and childe, it matters quite a lot for other members: they may want to inspect the new neonate and evaluate her as a potential client, pawn or enemy. Older members also bring their paiges or manumitted childer to meet the new neonate and perhaps lay the groundwork for a coterie.
The ceremony begins with the sire asking for the attention of the Prince and other dignitaries. The sire announces, in suitably elaborate phrasing, that his childe wishes to be released and become a free Kindred. The Prince asks that the childe be summoned to his presence; the sire demurs, saying that the childe is not ready. Three times, the Prince commands the childe be called forth, and only on the third time does the sire obey.
The childe enters from another room. She wears chains on her wrists, symbolic of bondage to her sire. She also carries an illuminated parchment manuscript bearing her request for manumission, written in her own Vitae. The Prince asks her name; she responds with her complete Kindred lineage, as far back as she knows it. As usual, this is to assert her worthiness as a successor to these Kindred of the past; if her forebears are not particularly glorious, at least stating her lineage shows respect for tradition. (If her Kindred “ancestors” disgraced themselves, the childe mentions her intent to do better and redeem their names.)
The Prince questions the childe about The Traditions of Longinus and other matters of Kindred custom. Upon receiving the proper responses, the Prince demands the sire give him the sword the sire wears. The childe kneels before the Prince and lays her hands on a pedestal provided for this purpose. The Prince cuts the chains with a blow of the sword, symbolically freeing the childe from her sire, and declares her a free neonate. The Prince then hands the sword to the neonate and bids her to wield it in defense of her Prince. The neonate responds by giving the Prince a glove, saying that her hand is ever at his service.
The sire, Prince and neonate then exchange other ceremonial items. The neonate gives her sire a piece of gold, to compensate for the loss of his servant. The sire gives the Prince a knout, representing the right to punish the childe. The Prince gives the sire a hunting dog, saying that since he has lost his childe, this beast can help him hunt his prey. The sire gives the childe a cloak, saying that she came into the work naked and ignorant, but leaves her service clothed and knowing the laws of the Kindred. Various additional gifts are possible, with transparent or obscure symbolism, as local tradition dictates. Normally, no one keeps these items; they are used repeatedly and may be centuries old. Finally, two Invictus members drape the neonate in a purple shroud to show her acceptance into the First Estate.
At the ceremony’s end, the new neonate takes an ewer of fresh blood and a tray of small cups, and gives a drink to her sire, the Prince and the Primogen, as a symbolic blood feast. If the neonate can provide enough vessels for a real blood feast, she wins herself greater favor, but this is not obligatory. From then on, she is a free Kindred, for better or worse.
Joining The Invictus Later
Some Kindred try to join the First Estate without having a sire already in the covenant. Maybe they don’t like their sire’s covenant or have no past affiliation at all. The Invictus sees this as the youngsters developing good sense and does not turn them away.
Without a sire to vouch for the Kindred, however, any applicant to the First Estate does not find the process effortless. In the first place, an Invictus member in good standing must sponsor the applicant and testify to the applicant’s desire to join. For a neonate with no Status in any covenant, any Invictus may stand as sponsor. A vampire who wants to defect after earning Status in another covenant needs a sponsor with more Status in the First Estate. In such cases, the sponsor risks considerable loss of face if the applicant proves false, so any Invictus demands payment in favors before bringing the petition before the Inner Circle.
Once the Inner Circle agrees to hear a petition, at least three elders or ancillae of the covenant interrogate the applicant. All of them have Auspex and attend to the Kindred’s aura as well as her words. They ask why the Kindred wants to join the First Estate and, if applicable, why she wants to leave her previous covenant. They also ask for information about the Kindred’s former covenant. Even if the applicant cannot provide any new information about the covenant’s activities and members, the interrogators pay close attention. Any discrepancy between what the applicant says, and what the interrogators believe to be true, is grounds for much closer questioning.
For an unaligned vampire, the committee of three requires no further surety than an oath of loyalty to The Invictus, signed in blood and witnessed by them. A defector must customarily sign a Blood Oath to guarantee his loyalty (see p. 178 for examples). The Inner Circle will also set some test of loyalty — some attack upon the Kindred’s former covenant that ensures her former comrades will never, ever let her return. For instance, an Acolyte might be asked to steal some treasured item of blood-sorcery, or a Carthian might help Invictus elders subject other Carthians’ mortal Allies to Vincula.
Once The Invictus leaders feel sure of an applicant’s sincerity, there is (of course) a ritual to mark the Kindred’s acceptance into the covenant. After signing the pledge in blood, the applicant offers the Prince (or another elder) a manacle, a stake and a sword, representing his right to chastise or destroy her. Then other Invictus rip off the applicant’s clothes, symbolizing the end of all former allegiances, and drape her in the black shroud of a potential First Estate member.
The presiding Invictus then assigns the applicant a teacher and minder to impart the covenant’s traditions and protocol. This Kindred is usually an ancilla. Effectively, the applicant becomes the ancilla’s childe and must serve and please him. At the end of the year, the teacher stands in as the applicant’s sire during the ceremony of manumission, during which the new applicant wears her black shroud and, at the end of the night, exchanges it for the covenant’s purple shroud.
The new member does not normally start with any Status in the covenant, though. Like a newly manumitted neonate, the new member is merely granted permission by the covenant to seek honor and power within its ranks. A Kindred who held some office before her defection, however, might keep that office; at least, the First Estate desires this, to tweak the defector’s former covenant all the more.
Oderint Dum Metuint: How The Invictus Scares Its Rivals
“Let them hate, so long as they shall fear.” So said Caligula. In his four years as Emperor of Rome, Caligula gave his enemies reason both to hate and fear him. His own guards murdered him.
The Invictus quotes Caligula’s motto, but recommends a nuanced interpretation. As sires explain to their childer, Caligula’s example shows the danger of making others hate and fear you too much. Rather, Invictus members say, one must accept that one can never be loved by all. Some people will always hate you. They may hate you for being stronger — a desirable state of affairs in the First Estate. They may hate you for being weaker; for holding different ideas, for your Allies or for no sensible reason at all. All you can do is make sure your enemies fear to attack you, more than they lust to destroy you — and those who are not your enemies fear the consequences should they cease to be your friends.
In the harsh world of the Kindred, that sort of fear has another name. They call it respect.
Elders
When an elder feels she does not receive sufficient respect, she waits for someone to insult her. Then she shows her power by crushing the offending vampire. An elder who wants to bankrupt, terrorize or destroy another Kindred can call upon multiple, advanced Disciplines, vast wealth, extensive social connections in the Kindred and mortal worlds and enormous experience. For instance, the average ancilla has little chance in Monomacy against an elder with Celerity and a few centuries of practice with a blade.
Invictus elders do not use their high offices to punish personal insults — at least, not often. A Prince has a Sheriff and Scourge to punish open defiance, but that’s to defend the dignity of the office. An Invictus member of lesser rank cannot simply order another Kindred’s punishment. Aside from infringing on the Prince’s authority, pulling rank does not inspire respect for oneself or one’s covenant. The First Estate likes to say its members make their offices powerful, not the other way around. When an Invictus member personally destroys an enemy, she proves her covenant’s claim to rule by right of superior competence, and so brings honor to her covenant and herself.
Neonates and Ancillae
Younger Invictus members have a harder time inspiring fear in other Kindred, but the neonates do have some options. Most importantly, they try to limit their conflicts to foes they actually have a chance to beat — other neonates. A whole coterie can destroy an ancilla or even an elder, but only through careful strategy. Neonates who attack older and more prestigious Kindred also need an ironclad casus belli to justify their actions to the other elders, and influential friends to protect them from their target’s Allies.
The Invictus also has methods to inspire fear and respect that stop short of direct attacks on other Kindred. Although these sample methods do not show power so graphically as destroying another Kindred, these methods are considerably safer. Of course, older Kindred can use them, too.
- Sporting events, such as jousts and hunts, are opportunities to show off your strength and skill. Other Kindred may think twice before offending a vampire who can place a bullet in a target from 500 feet. The bullet could just as easily be incendiary.
The Invictus thinks it’s all right to cheat at sporting events, as long as you don’t get caught. After all, you probably aren’t the only one. Successful cheating makes its own statement of skill.
- Learn something another Kindred wants to keep secret. This does not have to be something criminal or of strategic value in the Danse Macabre. Most Kindred remain human enough to feel embarrassment over certain private interests or activities, such as a Ventrue who feels that his enthusiasm for pro wrestling would compromise his aristocratic façade.
Let other Kindred know you know his secret. Hint that you might know other secrets about him, too. From then on, the other Kindred must fear you for what you might reveal, to the detriment of his reputation — or his unlife, if he has especially dangerous secrets.
- Kindred can also be blackmailed through their mortal connections; especially mortal relatives or other loved ones. Bring another vampire’s mortal kid brother into your blood cult or give a job to her mortal daughter. Let the other vampire know that her loved one’s continued well-being depends on her cooperation.
- If you (or your coterie) have skills at breaking and entering, infiltrate a rival’s Haven. Leave some harmless token of your visit, such as a note saying you wanted a meeting but the other Kindred was out. The real message is clear: you can get to the other vampire whenever you want. The Message is especially compelling if your token is discovered immediately after the other vampire rises in the evening. The dangers and difficulties of daytime action are great, but the reward can be worth it — and a clever Kindred may figure out ways to seem like she made a daytime visit.
- Perhaps the easiest way to gain a reputation is to pay another vampire to say how powerful and dangerous you are. Of course, this only works if other Kindred don’t know the speaker is your client. Such shills are one of the less obvious benefits of having a hidden client, especially one in another covenant.
Subcontracting Terror
When older Invictus members want to terrorize or make examples of other Kindred, the First Estate members may use younger covenant members to do their dirty work. Operating through clients doesn’t bring the same prestige as defeating a foe single-handed, but sometimes it’s more practical. The elder or ancilla may lack the time to do the job herself, or she may need proxies to give herself plausible deniability (in case the attack fails or if some other oath or commitment prevents her from taking action). In the former case, the older Invictus member openly admits that the neonates act at her behest. In the latter case, the elder officially denies any responsibility for whatever happens — but other Kindred know she launched the attack, and grant her greater honor for doing it in such a way no one can prove it was her. One common strategy is for the elder or ancilla to express a wish that something bad happen to another Kindred, to an audience that includes younger clients. (She might say, for instance, “Who will rid me of this troublesome Sanctified?”) Officially, she merely vented a little frustration; if the attack fails, she can blame everything on “overzealous” clients. Whatever the reason for subcontracting an attack, the elder still warns other Kindred about the power she wields through her ties of patronage.
Sooner or later, Invictus neonates must expect their patrons to demand such service from them. Some neonates may even volunteer, to gain new patrons or greater rewards. Serving as other members’ enforcers may place neonates in a conflict of interest, though. What if their patrons tell them to destroy or terrorize vampires or mortals the neonates consider friends? (As much as any of the Damned can have “friends.”) The neonates can betray their friends’ affections and probably erode a bit more of their Humanity — or the neonates can betray their patrons, lose Status and make powerful enemies who must destroy the neonates to maintain the patrons’ own prestige. A similar dilemma happens if the neonates’ patrons tell them to attack someone with whom the neonates share an oath or owe a debt. Whatever they choose, they dishonor themselves in the eyes of other Invictus.
Very often, the only way to escape such dilemmas with honor and Humanity intact is to make the target a client of the most powerful Invictus available. An elder or ancilla who’s ready to make an example of a mouthy neonate or a mortal business rival might hesitate to attack another elder’s client. If the most powerful Invictus available happens to be the neonate’s patron, the neonate must also persuade the target to beg the patron’s forgiveness and offer submission — in front of other Kindred, so everyone knows the elder didn’t go soft. Young Invictus must decide for themselves if they want their friends bound to serve an ancient monster.
The Paradox of Fear
In all the First Estate’s members’ attempts to win respect through fear, they face one final problem. Everything they do to make Kindred of other covenants fear them is also seen by their fellow Invictus. The deeds that show a Kindred is a worthy ally also make her a potential threat. If she cannot be restrained and controlled by oaths, patronage and her own fear, she must be destroyed.
Up-and-coming Invictus, therefore, face their greatest dangers from their own elders. The faster the younger members’ ascents to power and prestige, the more threatening they appear and the greater the odds that some elders will make examples of them. And so the Danse Macabre spins through its endless ironies, as the deeds to prove your usefulness make you a danger, the demonstrations of loyalty bring Suspicion and the fear meant to counter hatred inspires greater hatred in turn.
The Acquisition of Power
The Invictus would not survive into modern nights if it could not back up its aristocratic poses with plenty of raw power. Hereditary aristocracy is dead. Even in Europe, a noble title won’t get you very far. Ruling classes, however, still thrive. As early as the Renaissance (if not earlier), lowborn merchants used money to buy political power: the famous Medicis began as cloth dealers and ended up Dukes of Tuscany, with a pope or two along the way. Now, business and electoral politics form the most visible sources of power — and The Invictus has followed. Disciplines affect just a few people for a short time — but a mayor or a corporate CEO can mobilize hundreds or maybe thousands of mortals with a word.
Money and politics feed into each other, too. On the national level, many politicians are millionaires. Running for office costs a lot of money: self-financers have an advantage. Conversely, political connections are one of the surest routes to wealth, from outright graft to bureaucrats who retire into cushy jobs lobbying their former agencies.
These are the new aristocrats. Some of the old aristocrats even took the Medici journey in reverse. For example, the Habsburgs, the arch-dynastic family that ruled half of Europe, remain rich and powerful in their native Austria. They’re bankers.
If the Habsburgs can adapt, so can The Invictus. The First Estate finds this new aristocracy of money and politics as friendly (and exploitable) as the lords and ladies of long ago. The covenant’s patronage system acts as a sort of factory conveyer-belt, carrying ambitious neonates toward wealth and power. In the process, The Invictus transforms them from modern people into the neo-feudal gentry of the night.
Favored Merits
The First Estate’s patronage system enables members to acquire certain Merits more easily than other Kindred can. The Invictus actively tries to help its members accumulate Resources and find Mentors and Retainers; the herds follow naturally. Contrary to what most Kindred think, Invictus elders do not want all younger Kindred poor and powerless. No, Invictus elders want their childer rich, politically connected — and seeing the elders’ interests as their own.
Mentor
This Merit directly represents the patron-client relationship. Young Invictus easily acquire Mentors because older Invictus want to cultivate the younger ones as clients. Elders and ancillae do not do this out of altruism: they see neonates as investments for building their own power. Just like corporate headhunters scouting Ivy League business schools, Invictus members watch for young Kindred with talent and burning lust to succeed.
Very often these Kindred are The Invictus elders’ own childer. In the First Estate, a childe’s sire is her first patron: the sire gives her eternal life, and the covenant expects the childe to work for her sire from then on. Or, at least work with her sire, even after her period of training ends and she becomes a free Kindred. The Invictus does not demand that childer serve their sires forever, but its traditions certainly encourage sires to continue advising their childer and childer to continue respecting and assisting their sires.
Invictus members have two ways to gain more powerful Mentors. First, a Mentor can acquire greater wealth, influence and Status because she has a coterie of skilled and aggressive neonates helping her with her schemes. As she gains power, she can render greater assistance to her clients. This is exactly how the covenant’s patronage system is supposed to work, to the benefit of both patron and client.
An Invictus member can also “trade up” to a more powerful Mentor. After all, a Kindred’s patron probably has a patron of her own. For instance, a neonate might receive help from an ancilla, who herself is the client of a high-ranking elder. If the neonate shows great talent, the elder might take an interest and become the neonate’s Mentor directly.
Again, the First Estate thinks this is good for everyone involved. The elder gains another talented client. The neonate gains a Mentor who can teach him more and better protect him. And, though the ancilla loses a client, she gains some prestige as the “talent scout” who developed the neonate’s potential. (Admittedly, Invictus members who realize they trained and possibly sired their own replacements often feel some resentment.)
What’s more, nothing forbids an Invictus member from having more than one Mentor. A young Invictus might keep her sire As One Mentor; then join a Guild and acquire her instructor as another Mentor (or, if she’s very lucky or talented, the Guild Meister) and then enter a business partnership with an elder who becomes her third Mentor. Good luck pleasing all these Mentors — but one more reason Invictus characters acquire Mentors more easily than other Kindred is that the covenant permits — in some ways, encourages — multiple Mentorships.
Resources
In the modern world, money brings power and power brings money. The First Estate understands this, and encourages members to gain all the wealth they can. Resources can take the form of money in the bank, but also corporate stock, real estate, institutional funds you can direct or misdirect or mortal Retainers with money, such as successful drug dealers or lawyers placed under Vincula.
In the first place, the covenant tends to Embrace the rich. One way for an Invictus to gain working capital is to Embrace it, possibly after subjecting the mortal to a Vinculum and exploiting him as a ghoul for a time (though as mentioned, treating a potential equal in the covenant this way is not entirely respectable). Neonates in the First Estate often have a head start in building their fortunes, compared to Kindred Embraced into other covenants.
Even if an Invictus recruit doesn’t start out rich, the covenant’s patronage system can help any member gain wealth. You can approach an older covenant member who already made her fortune, and ask to become her client. In return for assisting with her schemes and her business empire, she helps you start a business of your own — or simply pays you a good salary.
Retainers
Retainers are an example of the patronage system extending below a character, instead of above her. Just as The Invictus encourages Kindred to find Mentors in the covenant, it encourages members to seek clients that members can permanently bind to their service. After all, what’s an aristocrat without a cadre of lackeys? The great wealth many Kindred enjoy in the First Estate also makes it easier for them to afford servants. The covenant supplies more direct help in acquiring Retainers, too. Don’t know where to find a trained butler or valet? Your elders know. One of them may even own an agency — though you may have cause to wonder where your hired servant’s loyalties truly lie. The Invictus also supports a number of ghoul families trained and indoctrinated to serve covenant members.
The Invictus even provides an edge where animal Retainers are concerned, at least for some species of animals. Traditionally, aristocrats have a special fondness for horses and hunting dogs: the First Estate includes Kindred who specialize in training these animals to serve as Ghouls so the Masters of the Night can joust and hunt. Members of the ruling class also sometimes develop a taste for stranger pets, such as cheetahs trained to hunt or a pit of crocodiles into which the wealthy may throw their enemies. The First Estate can’t really help you acquire such creatures, but can find someone with Animalism to help you train them. If there’s enough demand, a city may even develop a Guild of animal trainers. Your fellow Invictus members also will not find such pets, or such uses, as odd as other Kindred might. Aristocrats are allowed such eccentricities.
Herd
As Invictus members gain wealth and political power, they sometimes gain mortals who seek their patronage. Mortals willing to place themselves at the mercy of a vampire can become a Herd. The First Estate doesn’t encourage members to gather blood cults of worshippers — that’s more a Lancea Sanctum or Circle of The Crone approach — but the Masters of the Night can build many other sorts of herds.
For instance, servants who are not loyal or useful enough to count as Retainers may function as a small Herd. (Of course, you had better make sure they are devoted enough that they won’t flee in horror the first time they see you feed on one of them. Vinculums help.) Employees who work nights might form a potential Herd for Invictus members who own businesses — but you need some way to keep your employees from knowing what you are and what you do. An employee who’s so desperate to keep a job that he lets his boss bite his neck is rare, despite the pleasure of the Kiss. Using Dominate to erase memories is one option; another is to hold frequent company blood drives and take some of the donations for yourself. Kindred willing to support an extended mortal family can exploit the family members as a Herd by playing on family loyalty and an aristocratic sense of separation from “commoners.” (Vinculums on selected relatives, again, are a powerful tool.)
Invictus members often prefer not to hunt at the city’s Rack like all the other vampires. Why troll for kinky or drunken clubbers when you can own the club yourself? Members of the First Estate who would not think it dignified to feed in a nightclub’s bathroom stall may nevertheless watch from the high office and send a Retainer to fetch customers. The customer wakes up in a back room, a little dizzy from blood loss (and a lot hung over, most likely) but none the wiser.
Other businesses can also help an Invictus member feed copiously, if not well. Invictus members whose Blood Potency stays low enough that they can feed on animals can buy a slaughterhouse or a pet store. With greater Resources, you can own a hospital or nursing home. People die at these places anyway, so it’s easier to hide the evidence of an ugly or uncontrolled feeding.
Whole communities of mortals may accept an Invictus member as their patron, and offer their blood in return for her largesse. In old Europe, undead lords really did rule villages of peasants and take their blood at will. In the more backward parts of the world, perhaps some Invictus members still do. In the developed world, villages of frightened peasants are in short supply — but a few Invictus now rule tony gated communities in much the same way. The affluent mortals are so afraid of the poverty, crime and violence outside their walls that they submit to a monster that promises to keep them safe. For all practical purposes, the homeowners form a secret society dedicated to serving that Invictus member; or perhaps (and preferably) only a few residents know the truth and help the master prey on the rest. Only a powerful and confident vampire could dare to claim such a large Herd, and risk the Masquerade so drastically. What one Kindred calls confident, the Inner Circle may call reckless.
Once you have a Herd, you can turn around and use it to acquire other Merits. For instance, you can pick a few people from your Herd to become Retainers. Some herds (like the gang of drug dealers or the gated community) can be tithed for Resources. Herd members may also possess abilities, property and connections of their own, which may justify gaining Allies, Contacts or still other Merits (though without an experience point discount).
The ready blood supply represented by a Herd is itself an asset that First Estate members can use in the patronage system. If you own a large Herd, you can gift blood directly to less fortunate Kindred or grant feeding rights in exchange for other favors. Thus does The Invictus patronage system run full circle: Mentors help you gain Resources used to build Herds; with these assets, becoming a Mentor to younger Kindred and starting the cycle over again.
Racism
Regrettable as it may be, many European and American Invictus elders are deeply racist. They feel utter contempt for non-white, non-European-descended people, and don’t bother to hide it. These Invictus elders think Native Americans are all drunken savages, black people are fit only for farm labor and Chinese are opium-addicted gamblers. That’s because many mortals held views like that, back when these elders were alive. Only in the 20th century did racism become popularly viewed as something backward and ignorant, and even then The Message took a long time to reach some parts of the Western world. The stasis that is such a part of the Kindred condition affects the mind as well as the body: Kindred are even less able to change their views than mortals. As The Invictus persists, so do these specters of hate and influence.
Of all the covenants, The Invictus perhaps does the least to challenge its old bigotries. Contempt for other races has deep roots in the Western tradition. The Invictus does not challenge traditions. The First Estate is also based on the premise that people are not alike, not equal and do not deserve equal rights. Some Invictus elders translate this premise into racial terms, and say that Kindred and kine of other races deserve less power and respect than those of what is, by modern reckoning, European descent.
To be fair, the peoples of most other cultures have acted in exactly the same ways at one time or another. Some Chinese call everyone else “foreign devils.” Some Indians are horrified and disgusted by foreigners who don’t know the proper duties and taboos of caste. The elders of these lands — whether from local incarnations of The Invictus or from analogous regional covenants — act just as racist as any undead European or American.
Of course, such racism runs directly counter to the covenant’s claim of meritocracy. However, racist mortals easily produce “evidence” that other peoples lack the abilities and achievements of the racists’ own cultures, and explain away any contrary examples. The Kindred are no different. In many Western cities, white Kindred Dominate The Invictus power structure. They throw barriers up to the advancement of non-white Kindred — refusing to Mentor them, keeping them out of financial opportunities, denying them offices in the Kindred power structure — and then use the Kindred’s low Status to “prove” their unsuitability to wield power.
The First Estate does have its exceptions. Some Kindred Embraced in past centuries were less racist than the norm, were (and perhaps still are) willing to Mentor Kindred of other races. Some non-white Kindred have clawed their way to the heights of power despite every impediment. Childer sired after the civil rights movement are becoming ancillae and exercising greater power in the covenant. The fundamental pragmatism of the First Estate also works to reduce the covenant’s racism: a black person’s vote is just as valuable as a white person’s, and ignoring contemporary Asia is begging for failure in business. The most inflexible racists gradually weed themselves out of the power structure. Black, Asian, Native American, Arab Kindred as well as vampires of other ethnicities still face prejudice in The Invictus, but the barriers to power and patronage are lower than they once were.
Ultimately, many modern Invictus members come to identify themselves with the Damned and their own Society above their dead flesh and the ghosts of their transformed cultures. Though an equally large number of vampires never see the evidence and do not believe The Invictus propaganda, a Kindred’s ability to contribute to the stability and dignity of the covenant is more valuable than her race in many domains. The Invictus wants to continue its success; therefore, many elders are willing to share a helping of that success with those they personally deem inferior — for any of a thousand reasons — if it means fortifying the elders’ own keeps. The Language and behavior of so many elders is just a smokescreen that hides the mountain from those they discount so that it cannot be climbed.
Many Invictus members engage in business of one sort or another — usually as owners or investors, of course, rather than employees. The Kindred’s system of boons and influence forms a second economy; here too, the First Estate seeks to profit and gain as much power as it can. As a result, many Invictus members see their covenant in terms of business instead of feudal aristocracy.
The Invictus and Business
Many Invictus members engage in business of one sort or another — usually as owners or investors, of course, rather than employees. The Kindred’s system of boons and influence forms a second economy; here too, the First Estate seeks to profit and gain as much power as it can. As a result, many Invictus members see their covenant in terms of business instead of feudal aristocracy.
Ways of Doing Business
All businesses do not operate the same way. Students of corporate culture see four distinct patterns of business operations, with many variations and combinations. The Invictus finds some forms of business more suited to the covenant’s philosophies than others.
Service or Utility Mode
In some businesses, individuals take little or no risk, and success depends on technical competence. Accountancy is a good example: a CPA’s only risk is that he misses some arcane tax regulation, or gets tired and enters a figure wrong. The menial work of sales clerks, waitresses and other service occupations fits this model, too, at least for the employees. So do businesses that provide staple goods, such as a water company, oil refinery or paper mill. Such businesses are often quite safe as a whole once they reach a certain size: for a fast food chain or hospital, for instance, business success is almost a mathematical formula of predictable profits and costs.
Investment Potential
The Invictus likes quiet, steady money that ignores the vagaries of chance and the marketplace. Pulling big money from super-safe businesses, however, requires big money in the first place. Not many neonates can make their marks with an electric company, brokerage or bank of their own — unless they owned the businesses before their Embraces, which is possible in the First Estate. Other owners of such businesses tend to be ancillae or elders.
Invictus Analogues
The covenant itself has no close analogue to the service business model. No office or occupation in the Kindred world offers that much stability. An employee in a manufacturing or service job can hope to work steadily, changing employers but doing the same thing, until she retires. For the Kindred, however, the gold watch and the pension never come.
Just as importantly, Invictus members are not menials. Ever. In the First Estate, even a secretary or other assistant to a Prince, Sheriff or other officer carries grave responsibilities — and must justify his usefulness every night. Invictus members have valets, butlers, handymen, accountants and other providers of routine services, but these providers are Ghouls or blood-bound mortals. No Invictus member would stoop to take such labor, and no Invictus member would ask another member of the covenant to do so.
The Salesman Mode
In other businesses, success chiefly depends on hard work, with a touch of schmoozing. Sales on commission are the purest examples: the more cosmetics, insurance or homes you sell, the more money you make. Retail also fits this model. Personal risk is low, since if you miss one sale you can always look for another customer.
Investment Potential
The Invictus regards this sort of business as a safe, solid investment. If a neonate wants to enter the business world, most elders advise her to start by managing a small retail outlet such as a laundromat or convenience store — one that stays open all night, of course. In fact, this is a frequent exercise for Guilds that teach finance and business management.
Sweeping the floor, stocking the shelves and running the cash register may seem disappointingly far from the posh boardrooms and billion-dollar deals the Kindred associate with the First Estate, and far below the vaunted dignity of The Invictus. But these tasks provide a chance to learn the basics: how to manage revenue and expenses, hire and fire employees and deal with suppliers and customers. And, although the First Estate looks after its dignity, the covenant believes an Apprentice must accept scutwork cheerfully. If the business fails, it’s no great loss, so long as the Apprentice of commerce learns from the experience.
A small retail franchise also offers good practice at the Masquerade: can the vampire hide his true nature from his employees? Again, failure is not too severe a problem. These businesses tend to have high turnovers of socially invisible employees, so if your personal Masquerade fails you can easily make an unfortunate employee disappear — another valuable lesson.
Invictus Analogues
Within the covenant itself, coteries that provide services to other Kindred may work in this mode. For instance, a coterie that builds or reconditions havens for other Kindred won’t amass great influence. If the coterie members do good work, though, the members can make decent incomes and acquire small boons they can save or trade to other vampires. Admittedly, a mortal realtor or gas station franchisee faces less danger from dissatisfied customers . . . . Similar to retail businesses, these low-value, contract-service businesses are recommended by Invictus elders to neonates, as a way to hone their skills and make Contacts they can exploit later. Few ancillae in the First Estate, and no elders, would pursue such modest rewards.
The Gambler Mode
Some businesses offer great rewards but high personal risks. You also quickly know if you succeed or fail. Success or failure may also depend on factors you can’t control. Day trading is one example: if you guess the stock fluctuations correctly, you end the day with more money than you began. (Vampires, of course, cannot day trade.) Most of the entertainment industry also follows this model, for an actor, singer, agent or producer is only as successful as her last job. One hit can put you on top of the world; one flop can plunge you down again. The most extreme example, though, is crime. For example, a big, successful drug deal might net millions. A failure could mean jail or death.
Investment Potential
Many Invictus members dislike this sort of uncertainty. They expend decades of effort making themselves financially and politically secure. Few elders would risk much of their assets or prestige on one short-term venture, and ancillae tend not to like it either. Older Invictus members might own businesses whose employees follow the gambler model, such as currency trading firms (and some Invictus members are drawn to sponsor theaters or other entertainers for the prestige of being patrons of the arts), but The Invictus members try to foist the risks on to their employees, not themselves.
Of all the modern trends that disturb and disgust The Invictus, one of the worst is the tendency for American businesses to adopt the gambler model when that isn’t their natural style. The savings and loan collapse of the 1980s shocked many Invictus members who thought they had the ultimate safe investment. The lure of spectacular profits turned many S&L managers into gamblers who made unsafe, speculative investments in real estate and other areas outside their competence. The fad for corporate takeovers financed by junk bonds decimated many Invictus-held companies, too, even though the covenant itself avoided such newfangled financial instruments. Speculators who trade in derivatives and other arcane financial instruments — and sometimes ruin billiondollar companies with ever-larger gambles — remain a serious worry for the covenant’s financiers. The recent collapse and exposure of tricky financial schemes (or outright frauds) by Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat and other megacorporations sets many Invictus tycoons harrumphing that it just goes to show: the old and safe ways are best.
Invictus Analogues
Nevertheless, quite a few younger Invictus members come from high-pressure financial occupations such as venture capital, arbitrage or organized crime. Elders appreciate the insane energy that successful gambler-businessmen bring to their jobs: in this sort of business, opportunities appear and vanish quickly, so success requires immediate, total effort. The First Estate tries to teach its neonates that adrenaline is for the living, however, and, in the long term, neonates should move into some steadier businesses.
In particular, The Invictus does not like its members making high-risk ventures with the covenant’s own assets and prestige. Sure, stealing a lost Kindred artifact from a group of Lupines might bring great prestige to a coterie and its covenant. The theft also might provoke terrible retribution on all Kindred. The only Invictus faction that gains respect from taking great personal risks are the modern Knights of the covenant, who defend it from its foes and generally have the sense not to risk the existence of other Invictus members.
The Forecaster Mode
Of all types of business, The Invictus most prefers those where the risks can be managed through careful planning and comprehensive knowledge; where the rewards are slow, but enormous. The name of the game isn’t to win now; it’s to win big. Military contracting is a good example: A new plane, rocket launcher or gun takes years to design and build, and millions or billions to produce. If governments like it, you can multiply your investment by many times. If they don’t . . . . One bad guess won’t wreck the company, but two in a row might.
Many manufacturers of consumer goods, such as automobiles or refrigerators, also follow this model to some degree. So do insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and the fashion industry. These businesses can reduce their risks by watching their competitors, doing market Research and even lobbying governments for fat contracts or favorable legislation, but fundamentally, each major venture is an attempt to forecast what their customers will want.
Investment Potential
As Invictus members age, many gravitate to this sort of big business. For the Kindred, 10 years is not that long to wait and see if a business venture pans out. Playing for larger sums than the budgets of some nations stirs their cold, dead hearts, but success also depends on skill at predicting and controlling the market, more than luck. Whether the product is a new drug, a new make of car or a new line of clothing, members of the First Estate approach each venture like a war in which they are the generals plotting strategy, with their competitors as the foe.
Invictus members like another aspect of the forecaster model business, as well. These companies tend to be hierarchical and formal, like The Invictus itself, and for much the same reasons. Traditionally, these companies don’t entrust their futures to inexperienced hands. CEOs and vice presidents must work their ways up the corporate ladder, in the company itself or other large businesses, and prove their competence at every step. Such masters and commanders of the business world demand respect, and get it from subordinates who want to fill their shoes someday. The leaders also demand obedience and discipline, because one employee could doom the venture: A careless engineer could miss a design flaw in a new car or plane. A rash underwriter could pay out billions in ill-advised insurance policies. A contract accepted too hurriedly could bind the company to obligations, expenses or liabilities that drain away profits.
On a practical level, the hierarchical natures of these big businesses makes them easy for vampires to control. If the board members always meet after dark, no one lower wonders why (much) or makes a fuss. In fact, most employees have no idea what the corporate masters do, or when. The employees just receive their orders, do their work and submit reports about the results.
Rank, formality, a fierce demand for competence — this sounds almost military. And why not? War itself is the ultimate high-stakes game. Once upon a time, war was a business, too, with tribute or colonies as the reward. The restrictions of undeath block Invictus members from literal conquest, but big business lets them build empires of capital: less tangible than the empires of Assyria, Rome or Britain, but reaching just as far around the world.
Invictus Analogues
The Invictus itself represents a forecast-based business for its members. The commodity is power itself, measured in boons, oathbound clients and offices in Kindred society. Ambitious members try to predict which alliances and stratagems will increase their power and which will leave them the ones indebted to Kindred who are more farsighted. After decades or centuries of plotting and correct predictions, a Kindred can win the ultimate reward as Prince of a city, with wealth and influence few mortals can imagine.
The Invictus and Politics
The Invictus likes political influence as much as the covenant likes money — maybe even more. The covenant isn’t as good at acquiring political power, though. To a large degree, this is because the nature of politics has changed since Invictus leaders last breathed. Centuries ago, power rested with a small number of aristocrats — hereditary nobles, bishops or merchant princes. Embrace one, condition one using Dominate or secure one’s loyalty with a Vinculum, and you had a voice with which to lobby the entire class and perhaps rule large numbers of people outright. The lower classes knew to obey.
Now it’s not so easy. Modern societies diffuse power through legislatures, civil service bureaucracies, militaries, police forces, judges, private interest groups, businesses, professional groups, churches and a host of other public and private institutions, all of them jealously guarding their special zones of influence. Getting anything done requires cooperation between many groups, all asking what’s in it for them. Oh for the good old nights, Invictus elders sigh, when a king could give an order and it was done! Lucky Kindred in countries ruled by dictators, where the old ways still stand!
Of course, it was never really that easy, and the First Estate still manages to bring much of mortal government to heel. The Invictus’ greatest problems come not from the nature of modern politics, but from the fact that The Invictus now faces competition. The Carthian Movement is at least as good as The Invictus at manipulating mortals. The First Estate’s elders also find themselves hampered by their own notions about who is worth influencing, how and for what ends.
Political Goals
The First Estate finds several reasons to meddle in politics. First and foremost, it wants to protect the Masquerade. Even the most hidebound elder realizes that modern governments could destroy the Kindred. Completely. The Kindred need to control governments as much as possible, so that knowledge of the Kindred never reaches the mortals with the power and desire to do anything about it. The Invictus see this as part of its special duty as the Kindred’s ruling class, and believes the covenant is doing a good job. The other covenants are quite ungrateful in not showing proper appreciation for this great and continuing act of largesse from the First Estate.
The Invictus also believes it has a duty to preserve the right and proper order of mortal society, with a small elite ruling over obedient commoners. The covenant defends laws and practices that uphold class privileges. Invictus elders want the rich to get richer (including them) and the poor to stay poor. Invictus elders want dissident opinions silenced and leaders glorified. Invictus elders want people to know their places. The covenant opposes civil rights laws and undercuts attempts to enforce such rules, because these laws give too much respect to ordinary people. To the First Estate’s leaders, the state should be able to spy on citizens, tell them what to think and limit political power to certain favored groups. That’s order. That’s the way it’s always been. What modern people call freedom, the First Estate’s elders call chaos, immoral license and anarchy. Not coincidentally, freedom also makes society harder for The Invictus to control. The elders want power centralized as much as possible, so they have fewer people to influence.
Of course, individual members of the covenant seek political power to further their personal goals as well. Just like mortal corporate lobbyists, covenant members seek fat government contracts and laws that protect their industries from competition. Invictus members also try to mobilize government forces to interfere with the covenant’s rivals’ plans, from exposing rivals’ criminal connections to demolishing their havens to make way for shopping centers.
Finally, The Invictus agrees with the Inner Party from 1984: the purpose of power is power. Even in matters that don’t affect the Kindred in general, or themselves in particular, Invictus members want to feel in control. They allowed this law to pass or that judge’s ruling to stand on appeal. Political connections are just another way for Invictus members to brag and high-hat each other. (“Two state senators take my calls, and I contributed to the resolution on the floor today.” “How nice. I spoke with the governor tonight.”)
Political Methods
Members of the First Estate can affect government in many ways. Some are the same methods that mortals use. Invictus members can bribe lawmakers, cops, judges and bureaucrats outright or tempt elected officials with dump trucks full of campaign cash, all suitably laundered through PACs and other front groups. Minions can lobby during the day, and Invictus members themselves can schmooze with officials at after-dark parties. (Attending the same party is easy for a rich Invictus: he throws it himself, and invites the officials he wants to influence.) Like wealthy mortals, members of the First Estate can fund ersatz grassroots letter-writing campaigns or gain influence in real activist groups by supplying them with money (and perhaps direct them for or against particular politicians).
Anyone who won’t be bought (rare in the World of Darkness) or persuaded can be threatened. Enough money can buy attacks by muggers, kidnappings of children, drugs planted in homes or offices or artfully faked photographs of immoral acts with prostitutes. The Kindred attempt such dirty tricks more freely than mortals usually dare, because the vampires’ whole existence is a
crime and deception. What’s a few more?
Sometimes, however, government figures can be bought through deeds beyond the power of legitimate institutions or beyond mortal power altogether. Is a crusading district attorney or FBI agent frustrated by a mob boss who evades prosecution? Does a group of activists keep a city from building an incinerator the municipality truly needs because the dumps are all full? Did a social service agency bungle a case, and a judge ordered a $10 million penalty? The government official receives a visit from someone who offers to make the problem go away. The judge will revisit his ruling. The outraged citizens’ group will decide that the incinerator’s okay after all. And the mobster will just disappear. The stranger wants just a little favor in return — and no questions asked.
The Invictus can offer favors like these because it isn’t a legitimate institution and its members aren’t mortal. When all legal and illegal Resources fail, The Invictus can fall back on Disciplines and The Vinculum. These are brute-force methods — and not the first choice — because they risk the Masquerade. Still, the First Estate includes elders who can turn a mortal’s mind inside-out through Dominate or Majesty or terrorize him into gibbering submission through Nightmare. Elders can read minds, see the past, enter locked rooms as a cloud of mist and generally uncover any blackmail-worthy secret they want to know, in time. They can ruin or kill any mortal they want and avoid Suspicion by waiting for the right moment. There’s no rush.
Thanks to the First Estate’s patronage system, some elders also do these things for covenant members who can’t do them for themselves. Of course, there’s a price — a price the other Kindred shall pay back for decades, or forever. The elder will ask the other Kindred to help with his political schemes, using her own money, connections and powers — not once but many times. Any political power sought by an Invictus member has a good chance of ending up in an elder’s claws, not her own. Through such methods, however, the covenant as a whole accumulates formidable political power.
That power tends to nourish itself. The more political clout you have, the more other politicians, party leaders and government officials want to curry favor, so you will use that clout on their behalf. After decades of accumulating influence and Contacts, a group of Invictus members might be able to rig elections and place their own pawns in high office — as mayor, state or national legislator, governor or head of a major bureaucracy. At this point, The Invictus members can achieve many things simply by having one mortal give an order.
If the covenant has a weakness in its political scheming, though, it’s a tendency to focus on that one mortal. The elders easily fall into the old habit of seeking one very powerful pawn (a Retainer), instead of a lot of low-ranking pawns (Contacts and Allies), who have limited powers but operate below the public’s attention. The Invictus has raised mortal agents shockingly high in the governments of many nations. Quite often, these pawns knew nothing about the Kindred; only that the mortals served at the pleasure of others. Invictus cabals have also suffered catastrophic losses of power when a pawn developed ideas of her own and stopped repaying for past favors, fell in a scandal or died. Sometimes other vampires stripped away the powerful pawn; sometimes it happened naturally. Either way, The Invictus forgot that while mortals are power, they are, alas, still mortal. As individuals, they do not endure.
The Invictus thinks it’s all right to cheat at sporting events, as long as you don’t get caught. After all, you probably aren’t the only one. Successful cheating makes its own statement of skill.
Let other Kindred know you know his secret. Hint that you might know other secrets about him, too. From then on, the other Kindred must fear you for what you might reveal, to the detriment of his reputation — or his unlife, if he has especially dangerous secrets.
— Josephine Brown, Poet Laureate of Prince Morgan
Catechism of the Sire
Prince: Sire-who-would-be, do you know the First Commandment of Longinus?Supplicant: Great Longinus spake, Do not reveal your true nature to those not of the blood. Doing so forfeits you your claim to the blood.
Prince: Yet you would reveal your true nature to one of the kine through granting your blood. How do you plead?
Supplicant: Master, I crave your permission in Longinus’ name. I swear the mortal shall keep the secrets of the Kindred, before the Embrace and after. On my own blood, I swear it.
Prince: Let it be so. Take this candle, in token of your oath. It is the light of the First Tradition, given us by Longinus to guide us in the darkness of our Damnation. Let it be a light to your childe as well; and if you are foresworn by his deeds, let its fire burn in your blood, to your destruction or his own.
Supplicant: Let it be so.
Sample Services for a Sire
- Help your sire take over the company you used to work for — or that you owned.
- Get an elderly couple to sell their home, so your sire can complete a bloc of property he wants to build on.
- Kill or drive away a gang that’s interfered with one of your sire’s projects.
- Deceive a community or activist group into protesting some project of your sire’s rival.
- Help your sire cope with “newfangled” technology, occupations and institutions, such as cell phones, environmental groups or arbitrageurs.
Technology Consultants
The First Estate’s reluctance to adopt new technology is practically a joke among the Kindred. Few Invictus elders are actually stupid or crazy when it comes to new gadgets, though, or to new ways to do things. These elders say they just don’t want to waste time on fads. From their point of view, a technology that disappears after 20 years was never worth learning to use.For instance, many Invictus members like music. The covenant’s elders took decades to accept phonographs as a possible alternative to live (or undead) performances. Only the younger Invictus ever bought CDs — and now that media such as MP3s grow in importance, some elders snicker that the childer got suckered. (Those elders who’ve even heard of MP3s, anyway.)
Sometimes, elders find they can’t avoid new technologies in their endeavors. In that case, they hire neonates or Ghouls with the needed technical expertise.
If something stays around for more than 20 years, Invictus elders might consider learning how to use it themselves. In that case, the elder hires a technical consultant to teach him. The teacher is called a glossator. This contract is always kept secret, for admitting a need to learn something fundamentally new is a loss of face for a First Estate elder. Technical experts and glossators may achieve covenant Status •, but no more, since the covenant’s leaders won’t admit the experts’ services are needed. Nevertheless, technical consultants have skills the covenant needs. Selling technical services can be a neonate’s entry into The Invictus patronage system.
Democracy
The leaders of The Invictus say they don’t believe in democracy. Many neonates think that means the elders don’t approve of it — which is true, but insufficient. Elders of the First Estate don’t believe in democracy the way they don’t believe in the boogeyman. Fables such as “the consent of the governed” may please the young and simple, but grown-ups should know better.At best, the First Estate’s political thinkers say, an election reveals which party (or faction within a party) commands the greatest power, the greatest skill at promoting its message or, put another way, the greatest influence over the body politic. A political party’s leaders and candidates — the people who really set policies and wield power — are not themselves elected by “the people,” because the leaders built their factions around themselves or emerged from the party’s internal contests of power.
At worst, an election takes the fitful whims of foolish, ignorant and short-sighted people, and engraves them into law. Invictus politicians can point to many examples when people elected leaders who were bad for them. Such unfortunate situations are not only a kind of democratic defeat, but an avoidable kind — the way of The Invictus does not lead to such failures. A meritorious leader defines what is good for the people.
Far better, the elders say, to reserve power for an elite that’s wise enough to see things as they are and ruthless enough to wield power effectively. Such an elite should be divorced from the fickle passions of the mob, so the elite’s leaders can act for the greater good. Such an elite should not have to justify itself; the ignorant masses do not even need to know their wise guardians exist. The elite should be immortal, preferably, with the perspective that comes with age and history and the patience to pursue goals for decades or centuries.
Only one group fills these requirements.