VII

What exactly is true of the Kindred adversarial group known as VII are left to the Storyteller's discretion.

There are three optional incarnations for the group knowns as VII presented in the VII book. The first concept is that of The Princes of The Fallen City whose origin is tied to the ill-fated Biblical city of Gomorrah and their mission to restore it. The second concept is The Betrayed, Kindred sworn to revenge for an ancient broken pact between the King of Day and a Lord of the Night. The third concept is The Sleepers, the product of an experiment in science and the occult that has spun out of control and perpetuates cells of brainwashed assassins. The book of VII stresses however that these three incarnations are just possibilities, suggestions of what VII might be. It doesn't establish any one as canon. It also encourages storytellers to come up with their own stories for the origins and motivations of VII.

Princes of the Fallen City

The members of VII are descended from the sons of the last king of Gomorrah, one of two cities (the other being Sodom) destroyed by God in the old testament. According to the story, it was a mysterious stranger who came to the city of Gomorrah, enticed the king, turned him against his sons, and tempted the old king and his people to sin grievously. It was these sins that brought the wrath of God down upon the city. The three sons watched their city burned to the ground with fire and brimstone, and vowed to find the stranger and punish him for leading their father astray. After centuries of searching, the sons discovered this stranger was a vampire through their contact with the old Camarilla in Rome. They also found that before leaving, the stranger had passed his curse on to the king and his sons. A demon named Shaddad was summoned by one of the sons' progeny in a moment of desperation, and told the sons that if they could eliminate all others like them, when they were the only ones left a new Gomorrah would be granted to them. The descendants of these sons, known as the Ahranites, continually hunt the kindred to this day, in the hopes of restoring their lost city.

The name VII comes from an old Gomorrahan symbol left by the Ahranites, painted on the sides of buildings in Rome as a warning to the kindred, reading "As the ground swallowed the city of pillars, so shall we devour you." This symbol contains the roman numeral "VII" within its markings.

Within the covenant of the Ahranites (known to outsiders as "VII") resides Clan Akhud, a group of powerful and influential vampires, fiercely loyal to each other, who seek to create a new vampire order, with themselves on top. They share the lust for power of Clan Ventrue, the secrecy of Clan Mekhet, and the inherent distrust from their brethren that Clan Nosferatu suffer from.

The Betrayed

More of a cult than a covenant (i.e. your character probably can't join or belong to it), VII is a fanatical group of Vampires who seek to destroy every other Vampire in the world. Their name derives from the mark they sometimes leave at the scene of their attacks: the Roman numeral VII. It is not know what the group actually calls itself. No one knows how many members this group has and encounters with them should be rare. What they lack in numbers, however, they more than make up for in ferocity.

The members of VII believe they are the descendants of a Vampire Kingdom from ancient Russia that was, somehow, betrayed and destroyed by other Vampires. They believe that only by destroying all other Vampires can their Kingdom be restored.

It is rumored that members of VII do not suffer the usual potential frenzy resulting from the "Mark of the Beast" to which other Vampires are subject. Members of the clan claim they can recognize other Vampires on sight due a "Mark of the Betrayer."

The Sleepers

Rather than a clan, united by birthright, or a covenant, united by ideologies, the members of VII are united only by their misfortune. VII is a group of vampires, captured and taken to secret laboratories across the world, where they are operated and experimented on, until the very blood which flows through them is tainted, and they become sleeper agents, unknowing servants of some malevolent masters who when triggered are forced to hunt and kill their own kind, or capture them, in order to create more sleepers. Those in charge of the mysterious organization known as "The Seventh Day" are a group of scientists who, over the last few centuries, have made many discoveries and advances in the field of paranormal physiology, psychosurgery, and mind control techniques, through extensive experiments on mortals and supernaturals alike. They see the kindred as things to be controlled, and if that is not possible, eradicated, and what better tool to accomplish this end than the kindred themselves?