Samedi

 

 

 

The Samedi are universally reviled as the most disgusting of Cainites, for

all of them share a singular curse: Upon the Embrace, a Samedi becomes immortal like other vampires but he has only an imperfect preservation of the

flesh. Some appear leathery and emaciated, like unwrapped mummies, while

others look like corpses in various arrested stages of decay with a variety of noisome features — foul fluids oozing from tattered skin, rotted noses, death-rictus grins and sunken eyes.

The Samedi are a recent phenomenon, with none recorded as older than 250 years. The eldest, known only as the Baron, is said to lair in the Caribbean, where the line is said to have first appeared. The Giovanni are most often believed to be the parent clan of the bloodline, and indeed, enmity over some old wrong runs deep between the two groups. Occasionally rumors of Nosferatu involvement circulate, but neither group seems to give it great credence. For the most part, the Stiffs have little interest in sect politics beyond the good pay that princes or bishops fork out for Samedi skills as mercenaries or assassins.

The Stiffs Embrace rarely and then only from a small selection of candidates. Generally, the Samedi include those who find a fascination in the study of deathand its physical processes. Morticians, existentialists, houngans and death cultists have all been inducted into their ranks. Candidates come from a wide range of races and social groups; the only real requirement seems to be an appreciation for death in all its forms.

 

Roleplaying Hints:

Death comes to all things in time; it simply came to you in an unusual way. Life itself is defined by the fact that it ends. Such beginnings and endings are your passion: the animating moments of life, the pains that it endures and the moment that it succumbs. This quest is not so much a spiritual one as a drive to know how the process of creation and cessation works. By extension, you learn about the vampiric condition, the means by which life is extinguished and true death held at bay. You will see death in many forms, whether you are a simple witness or a delivering demon.

 

 

Disciplines:

 

Fortitude, Obfuscate, Thanatosis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advantage:

With their strong connections to the process of death, combined with a tradition of dark spiritualism and insight, the Samedi have a significant knowledge of the shadowy Underworld and its ghostly denizens. Although they must pay the additional Experience Trait costs usual for non-clan Disciplines, Samedi can learn the Necromancy Discipline and its paths without need for a Giovanni instructor — a great number of the clan’s members are necromancers par excellence without any traceable instruction. Samedi necromancers start with the

Sepulchre Path, as usual, and most extend their insight rapidly to the Bone Path.

 

Disadvantage:

Like the Nosferatu, the Samedi are physically repulsive in the extreme. When a Samedi’s true form is apparent, the creature cannot initiate

any Social Challenges except ones involving intimidation. No Samedi can possess the Social Traits of Alluring, Gorgeous or Seductive, and they all have the Negative Social Traits of Repugnant x 3 which can never be removed

 

History:

Thought to have originated in the Caribbean, the Samedi have strong ties to the region's voodoo legacies. They practice a unique Discipline that actually allows them to manipulate the energies of death, albeit in a much more temporal manner than GiovanniNecromancy.

Indeed, the Giovanni have very little good to say about the Samedi, and the enmity between these Kindred runs deep. Some Kindred believe that the Samedi are the result of a vile Giovanni experiment gone wrong, while other vampires attribute darker origins to the Stiffs. Still other Kindred believe that the Samedi are a derelict offshoot of the Nosferatu – one that should have been stillborn

 

Final Nights:

The clan has spread slowly across the globe, though they remain quite small in number. Mostprogeny are picked from mortals obsessed with death and dying. Those who worked in the mortuary field during their mortal lives appear to be very common, and many members of the clan seem to possess some sort of tranquility with their own mortality.

 

Organization:

The Samedi very rarely congregate as a clan, and those chance occurances where they meet are merely informal gatherings of two or three members who gossip and then go their separate ways. Members of this bloodline are often very solitary in nature, and they don't often seek out companionship. A few turbulent rumors sweep through Kindred society about secret cabals of Samedi gathering in graveyards, but none of these rumors have been substantiated.

Those lucky enough to have actually conversed with a member of this bloodline often recall a certain wisdom and intelligence within them that otherwise would have been overlooked or dismissed outright. While obsessed with death, most of these vampires still seem to possess a wisdom that betrays their short existance.

However, there is more to the Samedi bloodline than a loose associate of witch-doctors and death cultists. The bloodline is insular and secretive; many times, its members often keep their affairs private from even other members, suggesting that they have something other than common interests. A few Samedi are known to be members of the Camarilla or the Sabbat, but these offer those sects little information on others of their kind.

Arguably the eldest member of the bloodline, a vampire known only as the Baron, suggests that the Samedi have a greater role in the Kindred's history and future than most vampires suspect. What that may be, the Baron refuses to specify, dismissing further questions with a wave of his rotting hand.

 

Cultures:

Samedi often involve themselves with occult or illegal activities in a city, becoming powerful houngans and mambos or trafficking with superstitious immigrant criminal elements. Given their apparent voodoo roots, the Samedi seem content to garner influence in immigrant ghettoes, practicing their dark magic and preying upon a populace used to the dead walking among them.

The Samedi are also notorious assassins and mercenaries, and it is for this reason that manyCamarilla princes turn a blind eye to them in spite of their almost Masquerade-threatening involvement with the kine around them. For the most part, the Samedi keep to themselves, and aprince never knows when she may need an ally with "special" abilities. The Stiffs seem to hold the Nosferatu and Giovanni in some inscrutable esteem (or dread), though, as they are hesitant to take out contracts on Kindred of these clans without just cause or considerable payment.