Wyrms Nest

The world is constantly in flux, on levels that not even the Kindred can perceive. Long ago, the Ordo Dracul noticed that certain places hold magic better than others. These areas, variously called “nexuses,” “holy sites” or “dragon nests” by different cultures, don’t stay static. They migrate as flows in the mystical energies of the world push them. Likewise, new sites of power spring up every year. The Order has determined that many places that mortals consider haunted or cursed (or blessed) are simply the result of this energy being “washed” into a new locale. Every few years, then, the Dragons re-draw the mystical maps of the world, plotting sites and the current of mystic power toward them (sometimes called “ley lines”). This practice takes place over the course of weeks and months, normally beginning with the week preceding the winter solstice, as it gives the map-makers the most time to work. A certain amount of reverence, if not outright ritual, accompanies these mapping efforts. The mystical cartographers are treated with the utmost respect, and being sent to verify the existence of a nexus is considered something of an honor among the Order. It’s generally accepted that any mystical artifacts discovered at such an investigation remain property of those who find them (after the covenant has a chance to catalog and examine them, of course).

The Ordo Dracul divides Wyrm’s Nests into the following four categories: haunts, fontal nests, crucibles and perilous nests.

Crucibles

The Ordo Dracul defines a Wyrm’s Nest as a crucible if it gives off energies that aid in learning, developing or implementing the Coils of the Dragon. Such Nests are easily the rarest of all Wyrm’s Nests, and the Dragons guard those they find fervently. Unfortunately, the covenant has found that crucibles often result from places associated with faith, and this means conflict with other factions, most notably the Lancea Sanctum and the Circle of the Crone.

Not all crucibles are sacred to one faith or another, however. Areas associated with chaos, including sites of riots, mass hysteria or even large fires can aid in studying the Coils. The Ordo Dracul must take care, however, in researching or enacting the Coils in places associated with unbridled chaos. Change, after all, must have a purpose, but the energies left in the wake of such events aren’t bent toward any particular goal.

Perilous Nests

A perilous nest, to the Ordo Dracul, is a Wyrm’s Nest containing energies or entities that are actively harmful to interlopers in general or Kindred in particular. Of course, the Dragons acknowledge that danger is a matter of degree. An abandoned building that for some reason is defended by a pack of werewolves presents a much greater danger than a corner of a graveyard in which the dead sometimes rise hungry. Just because a Wyrm’s Nest is dangerous doesn’t mean that the Ordo Dracul has no use for it.

The Ordo Dracul isn’t comfortable with a perilous nest unless they know why the area is dangerous. Therefore, young coteries sometimes have the unenviable task of investigating such areas and determining what, if anything, the risks are in using it. While this sort of mission is sometimes used as a punishment, usually mentors see it as an opportunity to let their pupils shine. After all, the work might be risky, but it isn’t trivial — the covenant needs the information.

Fontal Nests

Many Wyrm’s Nests are aspected toward spiritual or magical energies that most Kindred are no better equipped to deal with than common mortals are. These Nests surge with mystic powers tantalizingly misunderstood by most Dragons. The Ordo Dracul calls these areas fontal nests or wellheads.

Fontal nests aren’t typically dangerous to vampires, though the creatures that are drawn to their power often are. The primary value of a fontal nest lies in its use as a bargaining point with other occultists and supernatural beings. In some cases, Kogaions have also been able to use the existence of fontal nests to extrapolate the locations of other Wyrm’s Nests or verify the truths behind arcane myths. Fontal nests are thought to influence and be influenced by pivotal events and powerful emotions (as well as other, unknown forces). The presence of a fontal nest might verify stories of a lost battlefield or ancient disaster — or they might foreshadow such an event.

Every fontal nest is different. Most seem to “vibrate” or “resonate” with a kind of mystic spiritual harmonic, though Dragon theories vary on whether these harmonics affect the living or are effect by them. As emotional creatures, Kindred seem to be no less susceptible to the (often slight and subtle) influences of such resonance. Some mystically sensitive vampires claim to be able to feel the power of spirits and resonance in their blood, stirring or electrifying their Vitae.

Haunted Nests

The Ordo Dracul defines a haunted nest as any Wyrm’s Nest containing at least one human ghost. Such places give off spiritual energy, but this radiation is subtle, almost unnoticeable as such even to those sensitive to the supernatural. Most such mortals, and even Kindred, perceive haunts as touched by the unknown but inert. The energy therein doesn’t seem to change much, even over long periods of time. The Ordo Dracul has theories about why this seems to be the case. Just as vampires enter a kind of stasis after the Embrace, ghosts enact that stasis upon their environments, forcing them to remain — on a spiritual level — as they were at the time of the mortal’s death (or at least, at the time that the ghost came to inhabit the area). The Dragons recognize that not all ghosts have this kind of effect, but there are those that do create Wyrm’s Nests in the form of haunts, and these haunts are useful to the Ordo Dracul.

Haunts tend to be the easiest of Wyrm’s Nests to find. Sensitive mortals are capable of seeing or sensing ghosts much more commonly than other types of spiritual disturbances. Of course, haunts are by nature already inhabited, and the spirits of the dead are usually unwilling to share their space with the undead. The Ordo Dracul has protocols for coping with this problem, of course.