Reviews 5. Please log in to add or reply to comments. Megan R. Some vampires have no time for the traditions that have built up night by night amongst their kind. Some do not want to wait to gain seniority and status within vampire society but want to grab it now, even if to others it seems that they haven't earne [ Darryl J.
This book adds more information to a group we need nothing from. A fairly narrow tome, this book is solid for what it has,and it does a good job of moving the Anarch Movement forward into the 21st century.
The artwork is interesting and thematic with whatever is being discussed on the page. The short stories and flu [ Don't get me wrong; I like this book. I really do, but This book continues that trend, and for e [ Tom D. See All Ratings and Reviews. Browse Categories. Wolfenoot Sale. Rule System. Apocalypse World Engine. BRP Basic Roleplaying. Modiphius 2d Savage Worlds. Product Type. Core Rulebooks. Non-Core Books. Other Tabletop Games. Gift Certificates. Publisher Resources.
Log in. Anarchs Unbound released! Official release: January 17, Legal for Tournament Play: February 16, Vampire: Elder Kindred Network 's fourth expansion for Vampire: the Eternal Struggle is Anarchs Unbound , which focuses on the rabble-rousing revolutionaries of the Anarch Movement - those Kindred who reject the Traditions of the Camarilla and stifling order of their elders.
That said, one can smash every idol on Monday and wake up Tuesday to a new pantheon. Even brash young vampires settle into habits and arrangements over time, and these calcify into tradition, the way things have always been done.
We may question the fanaticism of the Sabbat and the gerontocracy of the Camarilla, the rickety axioms that prop up their commandments, but we have our own.
And the dirty little secret is that the results, in many places, are similar. Masquerade Fortunately, even the dullest of us can apprehend the dangers of revealing our existence to humanity. It requires no great feat of logic, and in calmer nights you and I have passed long hours discussing the history of the Tradition the ancient beliefs regarding it, not to mention the plain common sense of it.
For all these reasons, most Anarch territories keep the Masquerade exactly as Camarilla, and, indeed, even Sabbat domains do. Which is to say: not terribly well, but well enough to serve in this unbelieving age. The Heretics The inconvenient truth is that many of us need mortals to do what we cant do for ourselves.
In the Camarilla, they keep ghouls. In the Sabbat, some keep ghouls on the sly, while some rely on sheer terror to keep mouths shut. In the Movement, things are more complex. Certainly many of us hew to these old methods without even a twinge of conscience the doctrine that Kindred owe no more to kine than mortals do to their own livestock has its adherents. Others, however, point out that cows and kine are nothing alike, and question how we can justify keeping mortals in the same chains of Blood that we accuse our elders of using.
And yet, if we refrain from that, what is the alternative? Are threats and blackmail any better? Mesmerism and enthrallment? And why do we even bother with this argument when we all warm our veins with stolen blood? There are various paths out of the dilemma. Utilitarians can claim the disaster caused by destroying the Masquerade outweighs any evil committed against individual mortals. Noddists may be few among us, but those we have can take refuge in religion: Were commanded to do these things, hate them though we might.
Lastly, those comfortable with doublethink see no problem in the first place. Sweep away all of these, and you have precious few Anarchs left, but not none. Such unfortunates are left with no choice but to conclude that the Masquerade is morally unsustainable and should be brought down.
Full stop. Nor is even that the limit of the heresy, at least for the true agitators. Why, Ive heard it proposed that Kindred should offer the power of the Blood freely to the living that mortal. To be fair, both times it was a Malkavian saying it, but as I behold the new wonders mortals create with bioengineering, even I must begin to wonder who is really mad.
Then there are the cultists who believe that under this or that messiah we could return to the nights of the first cities, when Cainites supposedly walked as gods among men. Then there are the Cleaversbut to that later. You and I have entertained no torch-bearing mobs, and despite occasional scares, the Masquerade holds, so plainly the radicals have not yet succeeded in putting theory into widespread practice.
Although many of us are happy to subject the Tradition to vigorous scrutiny in Forum or Rant, we will move to strike down neighbors whose loose lips actually threaten us. Yes, a handful of Anarch states and territories have formally abolished the Masquerade, pointing out that the enforcement of the Tradition has always been capricious and biased.
Yet theyve all instituted laws against the reckless endan germent of fellow Damned, which amounts to the same thing. The only exception Ive ever heard of, Fiddlers Green, may or may not exist.
We only know that two elders who claim to be its ambassadors attend summits in Santa Barbara regularly. All they will say of their domain is that its self-sustaining, that their mortals are voluntary citizens, they live completely cut off from any mainland, and any mortal who does decide to leave must submit to having all memories of the Kindred erased.
Thus, in theory, their experiment in complete openness and free will can endanger no other territories should it fail. Is this place an island, a ship, an abandoned oil platform, or a dreamland as imaginary as its namesake?
What would eternity be, if we couldnt wonder? The Orthodox Ironically, if the Masquerade does come crashing down around our heads one of these nights, the culprit is less likely to be some passionate reformer than one of our many less-political Anarchs who are as quick to defend the Tradition in word as they are to break it in deed.
After all, the primary temptation of mortals doesnt lie in their blood. No, its that they are so comfortingly like us, and so tantalizingly unlike us the warmth of their hearts draws us in the way a roaring hearth lures the half-frozen traveler, and we rarely stop to think before we entangle ourselves with one whos captured our fancy. Those of us whove actually seen what the Blood does to a mortal over time often cant bear to so degrade someone we care about. We cannot look at ourselves in the mirror after we force their will in some small matter, and cannot bring ourselves to do it again when the stakes are more dire.
The young have it even harder. Their friends and family still live, and in modern times it isnt so easy to disappear as it used to be. If they havent carefully faked their deaths, then worried phone calls, emails, letters, and missing-persons reports besiege them, each bearing a tiny poison dagger of regret.
I dont blame neonates who succumb and make contact. Undead society, even within the Movement, all too often gives them but cold welcome. Where then should they turn? True, this goes on anywhere you may find vampires. But we have a greater challenge in dealing with it.
Firstly, as Ive said, the various governors of our territories can hardly invoke sacred law. Secondly, Anarchs are particularly sensitized to the faintest whiff of selective enforcement.
Many regard the assumption that a Baron must have control over the mortals he associates with, while a neonate must not, as not only insulting but unjust. They say what goes on between a Kindred and a mortal is no ones business unless and until it actually affects others.
Some of them are willing to express their opinions on the matter with fire and rowan wood. As a result, leaders must tread carefully when they decide to make an example of a Masquerade-breaker, even in those domains where its formal law. Free states with something like a peer jury trial have proven least likely to fall apart over such scandals, because the perception of impartiality is at least as important as the reality.
However, even that system isnt foolproof protection while it mitigates the danger of elders abusing younger Kindred, there may be other rifts in the city no less deep. I recall hearing of a riot in a Canadian domain that makes the point. The Brujah had been the majority, the Nosferatu and Gangrel disgruntled minorities, and unsurprisingly, they took great exception when a Nosferatu was convicted of breaking Masquerade by an all-Brujah jury, despite the councils insistence that the jury was selected by lottery.
The problem is unlikely to recur, but only because the Brujah are no longer the majority there. Just as one can easily find domains where the Masquerade technically doesnt exist but is effectively kept anyway, one can find those where the Tradition is supposedly inviolate, but nearly every Kindred in the city harbors one or two exceptional mortals who can of course be trusted implicitly.
Pity the administrators in these places, because if theyre found to be murdering or controlling the lovers, parents, etc. Yet if they do nothing, some slip might well bring disaster.
In most cases, they take steps to contain the danger wherever they feel can do so without discovery, but its a dangerous game, a high-wire act especially if their own noses arent spotlessly clean in this regard. Domain Domain is, in many cases, the issue that forces a Kindred to go Anarch in the first place, and youll find few willing to forgo their right to an opinion on the subject, however stupid. We almost all agree that the Kindred have a tragic propensity to provoke needless bloodshed over domain, and that the old feudalism of the Ivory Tower is utterly unjust, impractical and corrupt.
But what to replace it with? Some advocate the total abolishment of domain per se, and I have visited places where this is indeed the state of things, whether by formal agreement or by practical concession because no effective mechanism exists to enforce it.
The entire territory may be fair game for all resident Kindred, or even non-residents this is the law in several Anarch communes or else, each Kindred informally tends a core hunting ground, but acknowledges generous swaths of nomans-land between himself and his neighbors. He must settle any disputes directly, since there is neither an official assignment of domain nor an arbiter to judge.
Contrary to what some Barons will tell you, the world doesnt necessarily fall apart. After all, many Licks so fashion their existences that their vessels dont require the traditional. I know Gangrel and Caitiff motorcycle clubs that range freely over the rural counties of the Midwest.
Their domain is wherever they happen to be, and youre in a hell of a lot of trouble if you take issue with it. If theres trouble beyond their abilities, they move on without regret.
They might amuse themselves with tormenting a stranger, but have no pressing need to do so. Although their mortals may be inconveniently far-flung for elder tastes, all put together the herds provide plenty to go round.
In other places, such as Orange County and the greater Bay Area, so many vampires of every clan and no clan pass through that trying to keep any one fiefdom entirely free of interlopers can bring nothing but embarrassment, aggravation, and possibly even Final Death. In such places, you can usually get away with poaching so long as youre careful not to cause the nominal domain holder to lose face by doing it too boldly. I will restate that, because its so important: Most domain squabbles among Anarchs are actually about reputation and image, not any true scarcity of mortals.
If you remember this there I go, advising again! Forgive me, but I do wish this had been explained to me in my more hotheaded years. Anarch Mobility Add to this the fact that young Kindred of all sects are more nomadic than ever before. In much of the developed world, mortals now think little of moving hundreds or thousands of miles away from their families to marry, attend school, or take a job.
When they come into the Blood, that habit of thought remains. Many maintain active mortal identities as well, which requires mobility. If one insists on remaining in the same neighborhood for decades, then one must hide away like a hermit, because otherwise, even the most oblivious mortals will eventually notice. Its my understanding that the elders of the modern Camarilla are driven half to distraction by the wanderlust of their neonates.
Theres so much less to offer them, so much less to tempt and ensnare them with, when they refuse to put down roots. In the Movement, weve struggled with this reality for far longer. All of us must feed, which is our one common denominator, but we have so many different ways of going about it, and each method brings its own particular concerns and therefore its own conception of domain.
For instance, I know an old Toreador who practices as a curandera. She moves from town to town, and wherever she goes, she quickly develops an attachment to the Chicano people among whom she finds both her patients and her vessels. From her perspective, which street they live on has no meaning at all if she ministers to them, theyre her rightful herd. Shes had to spill more than one Kindreds blood to win her way on the issue, but how can any true Anarch claim that her way of looking at it is inferior to some land-bound medieval method?
And yet I also have a Nosferatu correspondent whos acted as the guardian angel of his old Catholic school for nigh on a century, and views the very ground it stands on as Gods personal trust delivered into his care.
Here they both are in the same political faction together with those bikers I mentioned and we wonder why its so difficult to agree on the meaning of domain! Fortunately, at the moment the Movement can sustain this multiplicity of opinion.
Were wide ranging covering territories not only throughout the Americas but also in Europe, Asia, and Africa and mostly self-governing. If you dont like the way feeding rights have evolved in one domain, none will question your moving to another. However our cities may teem with. Thus, new arrivals have little to fear, except for unknowingly falling afoul of local custom. And even that most leaders are wise enough to treat gingerly, as the diplomatic issue it frequently is punishing a stranger before you know who her friends might be is dangerous, and has led to war between domains more than once.
Progeny The Tradition of Progeny has long been a source of burning resentment between the generations. Perhaps less so than that of Domain, going by numbers alone but I can attest that hell hath no fury like that of a would-be sire thwarted, watching helplessly as Time wears away the vitality of the one shes chosen to accompany her for eternity.
This is especially so when the reason for withholding the prize is petty, such as a general mistrust of the young, or the belief that criticism equals treason.
Favors like the right of siring are the currency of the realm in many domains, particularly among the Camarilla, which forces its subjects to wait for years just to make the gift seem more precious.
Meanwhile, in the Sabbat they dont mind anyone Embracing on a whim, but theyre only so free with it because they fully expect m ost childer to die when the fires of the latest Crusade gutter. Were better than all that, at least if you ask us. In theory, were a community of responsible Kindred who can and must be trusted to judge for ourselves when someone deserves the Blood. In reality, however, we frequently suffer the consequences of unwise or too-prolific Embracing. Overpopulation is a word all but forbidden in elevated Anarch discourse so many of us have bad memories of elders pronouncing us surplus, and of course they play favorites in making that judgment , but Ill whisper it to you here.
Thus far, only a few of our domains genuinely dont have enough vessels to go around, but those few are witnessing carnage on a scale not seen since the first Revolt and what is their denizens response to it? Why, to Embrace more cannon fodder, of course. The peril to the Masquerade is enormous. In too many other places, the problem is more political but no less deadly. Our loose systems of government work best on an intimate scale, where everyone knows everyone and feels they have a secure grasp of the goings-on.
Too many Kindred make us nervous on a primal level, and yet we blanch at the idea of ordering a pogrom. It offends our idea of who we are. So the population grows, and resentment grows among the old guard to match it, and as it becomes apparent among the neonates that the central authority is too weak to control them all, petty tyrants arise to fill the vacuum.
Such a tug-of-war can only end up in one of two places: Either the older inhabitants quietly allow the leadership to assume powers of summary execution and a Baron is born, or the formal government falls apart under the burden of its own inconsequence, and a chaotic interregnum begins. The only happy consequence is that either way, the local Kindred population is likely to fall back down to a manageable level. Order without Tradition Needless to say, few regard either outcome as desirable.
Yet finding an alternative is no easy task. It doesnt help that so many of us believe it wrong for a sire to exercise coercive authority over a childe or that so many of our sires are little more than childer themselves. Those of us with some hard-won experience know that the very last person to ask about a candidates. Clearly we cannot simply go back to the old, flawed system of prestation and fawning, but there must still be some sort of failsafe, particularly in dense cities where one Kindreds trouble is likely to spill over onto others.
In any case, its clearly better to prevent undesirable Embraces in the first place, rather than retroactively ban them, with murder sanctioned by the local praxis. Accordingly, most stable domains use some sort of group approval process, but they must be very careful as to which group enjoys this authority. We generally feel it unwise to give the power to the same vampires who adjudge domain disputes, or beat the bounds, or liaise with mortal authorities.
At the least, it will bring cries of oppression, which only the strongest of Barons can afford to baldly ignore. Most often the matter is put to either a mass vote or an elected committee, which of course brings along its own sort of politicking and grubbing even if in theory, siring rights are portioned out equally among inhabitants, or granted as a reward for civic contributions.
I cant tell you how often its whats said during the debate over a candidate, and the egos and reputations that take a bruising, rather than the substance of the vote itself, that leads to violence later. Those who defy the judgment and Embrace anyway are usually banished, and their childe adopted by a prominent Kindred of the domain as both a gesture of mercy and a sort of hostage-taking.
There are also many domains that have instituted something like the frankpledge and tithing systems of medieval England, although they rarely call it that compact is the usual name, and Ive also heard circle, posse, cumann, and krew. In this method, Kindred citizens the more disparate the better are bound at random to each other in a sort of group oath. I dont mean a blood-oath, which would be possible but likely inadvisable. Within this group, which might be anywhere from six to 13 in number, each is formally answerable for what the others do.
If one of them commits an offense, the others must bring him in or else answer for his crime as if theyd all committed it. If one wishes to Embrace, two-thirds of the group must agree, and the entire compact then shares sires responsibility. When this system works as intended, its Kindred must inherently concern themselves with the welfare of others. The compact cuts across gang ties, clan prejudice, and mortal ethnicities.
The randomness of their selection process is gravely suspect, and compacts exacerbate local tensions rather than soothe them. These domains may soon be ripe for Sabbat invasion especially if they bring in those captivating missionaries of theirs, with their promises of true brotherhood in the Vaulderie cup and martyrdom to Caine. Accounting Fortunately, almost the only person who objects to a newly-Embraced childe being her sires responsibility is that childe. Everyone else remembers those first nights under the lash of the Beast, and marvels that they didnt do more damage.
How do you know when a neonate is ready to be released, though? Thats a far more controversial matter. In the Camarilla, the answer is simple, if frustrating: Youre ready when your sire and your Prince say so. Your Primogen may butt in with an opinion as well. If that takes a century of servitude and bondage, so be it. In the Sabbat, one must generally be blooded to claim any rights under custom. Again, you could be a hundred years old and still. As a rule, we Anarchs consider a handful of years sufficient to master the bare elementals of being Kindred.
But the elementals hardly make one an expert. Learning the gifts of Blood and the ways of undead politics, in enough detail to be self-sufficient, can take decades. Although we expect an unreleased childe to mind his sire, he also enjoys her protection in the eyes of other undead, and so remaining unreleased for a while is not without benefit. If you think otherwise, feel free to ask those Gangrel whove endured the ancient clan custom of abandoning a childe on the very night of turning.
Where you can find an Anarch consensus on this subject, its that sire and childe should agree on the time for release and that there is, or should be, some happy medium between neglect and possession. Whether anyone else need be consulted varies from domain to domain, and generally owes a great deal to the domains origins.
For instance, most of the California Free States tolerate squatters by law or custom, but those squatters have the same status as unreleased childer. To be a full voting citizen, one must swear allegiance to the individual domain. In some Free State domains it goes further, and one must concretely prove ones commitment to earn citizenship: fighting in the states defense, bringing in converts, writing propaganda, harrying hated elders.
Once youve fulfilled the requirements, the leadership fte you and any other new citizens in a grand Salon on Cinco de Mayo, and then publish your name in a commemorative circular, which they thoughtfully mail out to a select handful of Camarilla justicars and Sabbat prisci. The idea there, of course, is to ensure that youve gone too far to defect to other sects.
Myself, Ive seen enough startling defections to know that this is never ensured, but I support the principle of the thing. Its far better than what was originally proposed. I remember talk of putting the release of childer, and indeed all citizenship questions, to popular vote which is ridiculous. In the end, they decided that the tyranny of a majority was no better than that of an elder. These rights were fundamental enough that any Kindred should be able to earn them by the work of her own hands.
In other places, however, customs are very different. As you near Sabbat strongholds, youll find territories where their barbarisms have heavily influenced our brethren. In such domains, being released is more hazing than ceremony, and its partly by surviving the ordeal that you prove your worthiness. It may involve a duel, or a Wild Hunt of some hapless mortal , or a Trial of Courage, daring the Rtschreck of fire or sun.
Ive also encountered enclaves of self identified Anarchs who practice coming-of-age rituals they claim to have gleaned from Noddist scripture. The most harmless are medicine walks in which participants imbibe blood laced with hallucinogens.
As for the others, Ill pass over the details, but note that theyre generally based on the principle of blasphemy being of itself a sacred act. Hospitality It wasnt until I studied in a Brujah Athenaeum in Charleston that I came to understand why our elders so vex themselves on the subject of Hospitality.
Do you know it was originally a two-way obligation? In other words, while the visitor was bound to pay homage to his host and obey him, the host was enjoined to see to his guests needs and protect him. Many Princes and. Bishops, particularly of the Tzimisce clan, rigorously maintain their honor as hosts and so have some right to demand their due in return, even in our vulgar times but they are, alas, overshadowed by the hundreds of others who demand reverence but turn away travelers in need.
Certain of my fellow Anarchs are also history buffs, and between us weve tried to encourage a revival of this understanding of the Tradition. The expansion is released in PDF format.
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