V20 dark ages pdf download 4shared

Newsletter RSS Feed. Start Over Advanced Search. Products found in this section Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That's where you come in. Legacy of Lies includes: Basic rules for players V20 Dark Ages Companion Travel the long roads and deep seas in search of power and experience danger, or tackle the wilderness to hunt monsters and face death. Settlements large and small dot the black expanse with the promise of sanctuary, life, and community. These bastions of civilization present cold comfort, when playing host to vampire warlords and sadistic Cainite faiths.

Whether led by a Prince, a coordinated belief, But the truly wondrous, truly frightening truths require you look deeper. That you delve in long, lost places. These, my friend, are those long, lost places. Patricide looms. Young powers look up the ladder to the next rungs, and see stagnation and hypocrisy. They see targets. When they look down, they see humanity. They see a power that could change everything.

They see mortals organizing into universities and empires. See All Ratings and Reviews. Browse Categories. Rule System.

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Science Fiction. Phone PDF. Virtual Tabletops. STL 3D Model. Onyx Path Publishing. Pay What You Want. See all titles. Publisher Website. Follow Your Favorites! Sign in to get custom notifications of new products! Suffice to say, these places are tinder on top of coal. Any place where two or more vampires meet, you will have the potential for violence.

That may well be violence by the knife or word or deed. In those rare cases where a Keeper is good at her job, it is because she has an eye for architecture and art as well as security and secrecy. Or to put it another way, she provides a distraction from the backbiting, if you ask me. A clever thing, really, to give a position of prestige and power to an enemy you want close, then watch him crumble under the weight of it. The late Prince of London offered me the position once.

That communal tie must build strong alliances while weeding out the weak. Chamberlain Beside the Prince at least, beside the wise Prince is his Chamberlain. If the Prince is a force of might and power, then the Chamberlain is finesse. If the Prince is above the mud and stain, granted his position by power,. In London and the surrounding areas, only the most formidable elders speak to the Prince.

And she may well be. I know of a Chamberlain in Ireland who has carefully maintained her power base through seven different Princes.

When the Prince begins to reach for too much power, she simply arranges for rebellion and overthrows him. Then, she returns to her job. A fine job he must have, with so many hands handling things for him. In London, that mostly entails having a full understanding of the complicated common laws that make the London Domain what it is.

I spent many a night arguing law and procedure with the Rabble as well as the Lords in hopes of keeping the peace and protecting the Domain from chaos and lawlessness. Sometime a leader of a Domain will look out at her court, see among her courtiers a brute or a savage or a swaggering tough itching for a fight.

If she is wise, she will give that vampire a job breaking necks and spilling blood in a legitimate way. Sometimes that job is called Sheriff, but not always. In almost any Domain, the Sheriff is most likely to have his own territory and private hunting grounds, even over the Chamberlain.

Once, I talked with a Mongolian silk trader, a hardy type to travel so far as he did while Damned. He has his own words for all of this, mind, and assured me the functions were different, but that ultimately the Sheriffs were charged with looking after the interests of the elders or the Prince, respectively, and striking a balance to keep peace was their thankless duty.

Harpies, Scourges, and Others Each Domain has needs unlike any other. In smaller Domains without so many of us lurking about, one city position might do the work of two or three positions in a place like London or Paris, and some cities have needs so unique that the positions they make are like no other. Let me think if I can remember some. In cities with incredible populations, like Quanzhou far east of here, I hear that the court elects a group of socially deadly gossips to maintain social order.

Free Lances and Scourges: Rough and rowdy, a pack of savage dogs no matter what you call them or who pays for their services. We see no movement, no message, no evidence left behind. We just know that sometimes, an enemy of the Prince simply vanishes. We guess the Scourge, but really, no way of knowing. Always in secret. Meeting of Elders No matter the Prince, or how the court is set up, if there are old monsters in your home, they will meet.

And rest assured, there are old monsters in your home, wherever you live. When word gets back to London town about great sweeping changes in a city or even a region, know that old monsters met in the hoary darkness and either struck a deal or declared war.

Sometimes, the elders in a city meet formally, with acknowledgment or even recognition of the Domain. These elders may act as a governing body on their own, support the current Domain, or act as vassals in a line of lieges and lords. Sometimes, these groupings happen in secret, even forbidden by the Prince, though he would have to be a singularly powerful creature to make that sort of demand.

If two elders find themselves in the same place, one must flee or both die. I shudder to think of how. Tales of Damnation ye, where did we come from? Perhaps the most painful question for any of us to ask, and here you are, cheeks A red with blood, and you ask it so innocently.

The truth is, we may never truly know. I can tell you only what stories are told and treated as gospel inside Christendom. Outside of that, the stories are different. As you go about your unlife, you will likely be surrounded by those who believe the story of the First Murder.

Always question, my little bird. Brother Slays Brother I am supposed to tell you that the first vampire and the first biblical murderer are one and the same.

Or out of fear of his terrible father, depending on what translation you read. No matter which way you read it, he becomes the Dark Father of all of us. From there he wanders, and suffers, and meets many strange and terrible beings, and many awesome beings.

While he wandered, he made childer; the First Generation of the Damned, if you believe the stories. Out of love. Well, perhaps even more than age, or at least, along with age, it is a measure of the strength of your blood. Or like the common of us tend to think, your Generation is the thickness of your blood and the strength of your Beast. Traditionally, we count Generation from Caine and his first direct set of childer.

Then their childer, and their grandchilder and so on. This, of course, is rumor and hearsay. Nothing to concern yourself with too greatly. If we are sin in flesh, then this is the thing that even the wickedest of us shies from. I would rather not tell you about it; I dread to say the word out loud.

But it is vital you know about it so that you remain very careful who you let close to you and when. This most vile act we call the Amaranth, and to commit it is to drink the blood of another vampire. But not just his blood, the whole of him, even drinking his soul and destroying all that he ever was so that you can rob him of his power and increase your own.

Make no mistake, it is not a thing you can do by accident, and even if you found yourself needing to drain another of your kind to unconsciousness, there is still a chance to turn back and leave him in torpor or ashes, which is better than the alternative.

Believe me. If you so will it, if you push through your mind and sanity, resist, it is possible to complete the act, but never by accident. It thickens the blood. It strengthens the Beast. And what we do to you if we find out is very simple: we destroy you.

Nothing is ever that simple with the likes of us. No, A Generation also confers a sort of position and, in some cases, a title and a whole set of assumptions to go along with that title.

Most stories say there were only three direct childer of Caine, them that he made to live with him in the great city of Enoch before the flood. One, they say, was an impossibly beautiful woman, and the others are up for debate.

Wiser minds than mine look back over the history and assume that these first childer and Second Generation were destroyed in the flood right along with Enoch, because if not, they would be creatures of incredible age and strength now. Common wisdom is that the childer of the Second Generation went on to form the clans as we are now, though there are those of us who make claims that their lineage and clan comes from the Second and not the Third Generation.

Third Generation Once the childer of Caine began to Embrace, Enoch must have become one very large very dangerous family drama. The Third Generation, they say, is the start of us, the start of the thirteen clans of vampires.

We hear in stories that the first thing the Antediluvians did was get into blood feuds with each other and wrestle one another for power. There was killing, mayhem, and maybe the first cases of Final Death and the Amaranth in the streets of Enoch.

Is it any wonder we fear them, when so many of the stories are of powerful madmen who seem to know only war and destruction? If the end of nights is the rise of these monsters, the Antediluvians, then those nights will be beyond terrible. We only know that their touch is present in every trouble and strife any vampire feels anywhere in the world.

Is your sire cruel to you? He was probably made that way as a part of a grand scheme by an ancient that none of us will ever fully fathom. Did your Prince suddenly declare open war with a Prince nearby who had yet been her ally for a century? They meddle and they interfere and they manipulate out of a need for power and to perhaps, to destroy one another. If there are any who are seeking redemption and found it, it is likely that they are Antediluvians.

Useful, powerful, maneuverable, the most potent and dangerous holders of domain in Christendom come from these Generations, and we call them Methuselahs. In Arabia, they have another name, and so I understand, yet another in the distant East. Because they are the most powerful waking monster any of us should hope to see, their power and their lives are under constant threat.

Sixth and Seventh Generation These, my dove, are your elders, and you should steer clear of us whenever you can.

While the rare Methuselah may rule a large and ancient city, most domains belong to the Sixth or Seventh Generation. Remember, dove, even now, I may be your enemy, because I am old and I am hungry in ways you cannot yet imagine.

Stay on my good side, stay away from me, or else stay on your guard in my company. Remember also, that many of us at a certain age and a certain potency of blood can no longer sate ourselves on the blood of the living.

For us, the only way to satisfy the hunger is to feed on you. For the eldest, sometimes it is the vampire that is prey. If you find one of us has suddenly become overly kind to you and yours, she may be grooming a new herd.

These monsters may well be your sires, and they are lean and hungry. Though from every ancilla I have ever met, they seem to think they all have some greater, better way.

There is not a vampire in all the world more deserving of power and position than whatever ancilla you happen to be talking to. That said, recall that most of them are young enough to remember being human, and may come close to your way of thinking. If anyone can intercede on your behalf against the dangers of the night, he may be an ancilla.

That is, until he turns around and uses you against an elder he hopes to usurp, of course. Eleventh and Twelfth Generation These are your kin and your rivals, my dove, and there are a great number of them.

You have numbers. You have strong intimate ties with humanity as well as your own morality. Maybe you still have your faith or your wealth or your ability to travel. Without the physical power, the victim simply dies. Without the political power, some angry elder kills you both for the having the audacity to try it. Tragic wretches, one and all. We call them Thin Blooded and watch for signs that they need to be put down.

Wassail One sign we look for is reaching their final frenzy, or what we often call the Wassail. When a vampire entirely loses themselves to the Beast, when the man or woman they once were is gone forever, there is one final frenzy as the Beast seeks to destroy as much and as fast as it can manage.

The vampire becomes a raw force of destruction, and in that time, becomes more powerful and dangerous than they could imagine before they kill and eat and kill and eat and nothing else. There is no reasoning with the Beast in this form. There is probably no return. We put these plagued animals down as soon as we find them. That is the only sure way to stop the destruction. Of course, your Grandmother Penne has heard of a monster in the cold north woods that is a vampire in a constant state of frenzy.

It is old and powerful and can seem to plan and reason. It chooses its battles to ensure its survival. Is this what comes of a long period of Wassail, or a unique expression of the Beast? Who can say? Murdered by a fellow? Soul eaten by a nemesis? Become a wild animal to be put down? Fall asleep and never wake?

The story goes that you can make peace with your Beast, and find a balance between animal and human that grants you a state of beautification. You become like a saint among us. You retain your dark powers, but the sun no longer kills. You do not need the blood of others to survive. You cannot be stopped by a stake through the heart. Those of us who go looking for the blessed state of Golconda likely die in the process of looking.

Further, it is possible that the Antediluvians themselves have the secret and seek to keep it from the likes of you and I. Enemies and Mysteries enemy unless I have reason to be. So it is Well and true, we are meant to be Iamwithnotanyyourvampire. Even as we are a touch cannibalistic we are still first nepotistic.

We are not your only threats, and knowing us and knowing of us is not the only mystery to unravel in these dark nights. There have always been hunters, humans foolish enough to think that they have right and virtue to put us to ash.

Then again, being Damned, they have a point. The problem is not that sometimes humans find us and want to kill us. The real problem is that now they can gather and unify under papal decree. They can use torture and murder to root us out.

They can burn whole villages to the ground to get at just one of us. And they will. Werewolves Here is what I know about the Lupines. Lupines are roving packs of wild men that can transform to wolves and rip you to ashes, or so they are described. I have never seen one, but a beloved Gangrel friend of mine assures me that I have met a few. He says when they are in the cities, hunting for mates and the unclean, they are impossible to tell from humans.

This is, until you bite them and they turn into towering monsters and destroy you. Witches If there is a thing more and wretched than us, then it is the witches and warlocks of this dark time. Your Grandmother can remember a time when those rare humans with magical powers were revered instead of feared. In those days, they lived freely and were worshipped as servants of gods, if not gods themselves. Like us, they have since been chased into the shadows of humanity, living as a shallow echo of their past gloryand fearing the stake and the Inquisitor.

Unlike us, they cannot hope to survive to wiser more worldly times. Living in this world and also outside this world are the Others, the Shining Ones whose name you should never speak aloud. They are wild nature embodied, and unknowable to us. They are our opposites in every way, and you do not want to mix with them. Ghosts I have told you that you will kill, if you have not already. Whatever the reason, ghosts are as real as you and I, and you will make more than one before your Final Death.

And believe me when I tell you, ever there was a ghost who was upfront about the cause of their torment. They are no simple puzzles to unfold and destroy, no matter what our Roman cousins might tell us. Danger and excitement are around every corner, if you go looking for it or not. Dig deep enough in the ground, look to the trees and the deepest wood, under the Holy See or in your local crypt.

Know that there are deeper mysteries than the likes of me hopes ever to experience. Lexicon Amaranth, the: The act of drinking the hearts-blood or soul of another Cainite. While questionable in its ethics, it is highly effective as a means to gain an instant, significant increase in vampiric power. Tends to be between and years old and hungry for power. Antediluvian: Vampires of the Third Generation. Unknowable and perhaps only myth, the secret motivations behind the War of Princes is often attributed to the Antediluvians.

Blood Oath, the: The bond of blood that enslaves someone who drinks Cainite vitae. Book of Nod, The: An often-translated text purported to tell the story of the first vampire. Many translations exist, but none agree on every detail. Cainite: A vampire. Caitiff: A vampire with no claim of clan, or a vampire who was forced out of his clan.

Each clan has a unique collection of gifts and a unique curse to their blood. Damned, the: All vampires in any culture where the Book of Nod is recognized. A society of the dead. A domain can be as large as the vampire that holds it can maintain. Some are only so big as a building or a farm, while others are whole sprawling city states.

Embrace, the: The act of killing a person and birthing a vampire. Erciyes Fragments, the: A known collection of apocrypha from the Book of Nod, detailing the Cainite creation myth. Gehenna: The Final Nights when Caine and the Antediluvians will rise and battle each other over the final fate of the world.

Generation: How many steps a vampire is from their progenitor, which denotes how potent her blood is. Golconda: A state of balance between the Beast and the soul, achieved by a vampire making peace with herself.

Anything not a vampire or a ghoul. Kiss, the: The act of feeding, specifically the euphoric feeling in kine when bitten by a vampire. Laibon: African word for Cainite; this term eschews the Caine mythology. Lextalionis: The Traditions as handed down in the Book of Nod. Long Night, the: The dark, calmer period prior to the War of Princes. Lupine: A werewolf. Methuselah: Vampires of the Fifth and Sixth generation. The oldest active vampires.

Prince: A traditional city ruler, claiming authority over the Traditions. Road: Vampiric ethics and spiritual guidance that a vampire uses to justify the actions he takes and survive the ravages of the ages. Thaumaturgy: Blood magic. Third Mortal, the: Another name for Caine in Noddist regions. Traditions of Caine, the: The rules allegedly handed down by the progenitor of vampires through the Book of Nod. The wording and meanings of each Tradition is hotly contested. War of Ages, the: The ostensible war between Antediluvians, fought with entire clans, cities, and nations as pawns.

War of Princes, the: The current war for territory and control between provincial lords. She appeared a pious woman of great kindness. One must never trust a woman too giving, for she is a trap laid out by the Devil. The nest of vipers has afforded me a strange sort of kindness. My cell has a bed, table, and paper on which to write. I think that in their animalistic intelligence, they understand that I am a scholar and that writing is a way to keep me idle.

Brothers, I scarce believe these words will ever reach you, and I mourn for the wisdom I have garnered as it will die with me. We so long believed that the demon, the vampyre, is one species. We were so very wrong. I have come to find that these beasts vary in shades and means in an array and verity that we have never expected. And worse, these varieties of damned are each unique in the ways to combat and destroy them.

Heaven help us. Where is God in the face of it all? My keepers debate outside of my cell what to do with me. This is a nest; they live together though they are from varied family lines, as if they were different monsters entirely.

The beautiful one, she pretends at piety with skill enough to fool the saints, and sometimes I believe she believes what she says. She is begging for me to be treated with mercy. There is a brutish one, he wears the mark of a king on his brow, though his dress is of a common man. When my food is brought, he barks kneel, and Heaven help me, I kneel and stay knelt until he leaves the room. He is stronger than flames, I think.

He wants me slain. There is a wretch among them, a terrible victim of hideous birth with a face like a melted wax doll. She assures the others that there is always a use for a man who can write. The wretch is cunning, clever, and would be impossible for us to find and destroy if we were pressed to.

They are like rats, mostly harmless until they are not, and impossible to be entirely rid of. Oh God, what have you made?

Saints weep, she has come to see me and lay beside my cot. She weeps blood from her eyes and prays to the Virgin for deliverance from her condition. I believe her. He dressed as a priest, and commanded her with shadows in his soul. He spoke of a Dark Father with weight of true belief.

Jesus strike me down, please, least his compelling words sway me too. If you shouldst remove one head, another shall grow in its place.

Three create thirteen. The thirteen of the Third Generation created thirteen clans, which comprise High and O most of what we call Cainite society. While the thirteen clans are far from all vampires, they stand as a stark majority of vampires in the Dark Medieval World of They are the status quo. To most, the Salubri are no longer considered a clan, yet they boast clear lineage back to an Antediluvian progenitor named Saulot. This turned the Tremere into a de facto clan, as their eldest became Third Generation with the crime.

Over the past century, the Tremere have grown in size and prominence, and most Cainites recognize them as a clan, despite their ill-gotten status. So what constitutes a clan? Ultimately, it comes down to those groups with the gall to call themselves clans and the power to shut down any argument against the claim. Low Clans ainite society, and indeed Cainites in general, thrive on power differentials. At its core, a given region or city determines which clans are fashionable and aristocratic, while labeling others as less so.

This can vary widely from region to region. While there are recurring trends for example, the Ventrue and Lasombra are recognized as High Clans most the world around, and usually Nosferatu are recognized as a Low Clan , the rules are far from hard.

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