Path of Bones

[Tami]

PATH OF THE BONES

Nickname: gravedigger

Hierarchy of Sins

Rating Moral Guidelines

10………….Showing fear of death
9…………...Failing to study an occurrence of death
8…………..Accidental killing
7…………..Postponing feeding when hungry
6…………..Succumbing to frenzy
5…………..Refusing to kill when the opportunity presents itself
4…………..making a decision based on emotion rather than logic
3…………..Inconveniencing yourself for another benefit
2…………..Needlessly preventing death
1…………..Actively preventing death

Ethics of the Path

• Study death in all its permutations. This is the central tenet of the Path. If 10,000 years of civilization and a plethora of tools from astrolabes to the internet are insufficient to define even a fraction of what is known as “life”, surely Death (which is potentially more vast) will take all the more effort to comprehend.
• Determine when Death occurs; define it. For vampires, death does not some when the heart stops, when brain activity ceases. These physiological events occurred some time ago. Thus, all the medical lore of the First World is useless in answering the age-old question. The precise when, whys and wherefores of the moment between awareness and nonexistence, vital and inanimate, must be determined.
• Search for a purpose for death and the life that precedes it. In this goal, the Path is not so different from other philosophies and religions, not even those of mortals. Existentialists and spiritualist thought certainly has a place in the world of the Cainites, just as it does among all sentient beings. You simply ask different questions.
• Quantify the differences of death among various causes. From studies of ghost, it’s clear that means of death have a measurable effect on what lies beyond. Evidence exists that, just as different dyes stain clothing with different hues, so do different ways of passing cause significant and possibly eternal markings on the fabric of the spirit. Precisely what this means to those on “this side” or to eternity as a whole, is subject for debate. Nonetheless, the varieties of death and their meaning must be studied as must any significant phenomenon.
• Achieve comfort with death ad life – distinguish between salvation and damnation. The very terms “salvation” and “damnation” are permuted and perverted by kine and Kindred’s primal fear of the Beyond. Vampires refer tot themselves as “the Damned” and seek a false salvation I the bizarre hybrid-state of Golconda. When one has confronted the ultimate mystery, all lesser considerations are trivial.
• Hasten death’s arrival should it seem to be unnecessarily delayed. When God cast Adam from the Garden of Eden, God decreed that death was the ultimate end of mortality. Since that day, man (and Vampire) have devoted countless hours and labor towards cheating death, flouting God’s decree. Thus, it seems fitting that, as beings seeking to understand the universe’s plan, gravediggers repay a little of what has been stolen from death.

Virtues: Followers of the Path of Bones practice conviction and self-control

[Tami]

Basic Beliefs

Unlike some paths that uphold understanding vampirism as essential to spiritual development, followers of the Path of Bones view unlife as tertiary, perhaps even incidental. Undeath is clearly a part of the whole, it is merely convenient to have centuries over which to perform one’s work. Without understanding of the states of being beyond death’s veil, nothing will matter when Final Death comes. Even Antediluvians can fall. The Giovanni knows this all too well.

Still, the Beast can ruin the work of centuries in but a moment. Meditation is considered essential not only to comprehension, but also to control the monster within. Many grave diggers actually consider the beast to be the human side of their soul – the frustrated life principle, the urge to fight and eat and mate that dissipates in the tranquility of the other side.

Gravediggers play little part in the Jyhad, save as it serves to advance their own aims. If the Antediluvians exist at all, they are infinitesimal nest to the cosmic blackness that snuffs out the very stars. Thus, the path holds little opinion on the coming of Gehenna, save that it could prove to be an impediment to study or a great crucible for personal development.

God Decreed that death was the ultimate end of mortality. Since that day, man (and vampire) have devoted countless hours and labor toward cheating death, flouting God’s decree. Thus, it seem fitting that, as beings seeking to understand the universe’s plan, gavediggers repay a little of what was stolen from death.

Description of Followers

Obviously, the vast majority of gravedigger belong to the Clan Giovanni. Many outsiders perceive the path and clan synonymous. That is not the case. In fact, few Giovanni follow the path, seeing it as a questionable and dubious relic of a dead past. That said, the clan tolerates and humors path followers, because they provide most of its advances in knowledge and Necromancy. Materialistic members of the clan lack the patience and personably to develop the rituals and techniques that gravediggers eagerly invent and (not so eagerly) disseminate.

Giovanni adherents serve primarily as “scientist” and repositories of ancient lore. Among the path’s libraries is much of historical and pragmatic value for clan members as a whole. Gravediggers know this well and like all good Necromancers are shrewd and hard bargainers when it comes to exchanging favors with their less erudite kin.

Not all knowledge lies at the clan’s fingertips, though. Many ancient precursor sites are hidden and abandoned, guarded by fell traps and perhaps worse. Some gravediggers specialize in “tomb robbing” these ancient sites and those with an aptitude for the vocation are often retained by the Giovanni as a whole for other missions. Say, infiltrating a Temere Chantry or a primogen haven.

Some followers not only specialize in learning ancient lore, they talk to it. Gravediggers are the clan’s primary liaisons with ghosts. The path itself has much to learn from spirits, but the networks that have been developed over time prove useful for more than knowledge of the “other side”. Gravedigger “diplomats” with the dead often find themselves thrust into the jihad to recruit ‘allies”.

But devotees have ambitions and aims outside the clan Giovanni, and other Kindred of suitable mindset are occasionally inducted to the path. Tremere and their antitribu are the most likely candidates, given their scholarly bent and aptitude for magic. Nor is it a great leap between the philosophies of Bone and Death and the Soul, so some Sabbat neonates “defect”/In fact, path followers keep an eye out (when possible) for promising Death and Soul recruits, and attempt to lure them from their sect before their initiation is complete. Malkavians of all stripes occasionally have insight to offer the world beyond, as well.

[Tami]

History

Probably the most “religious’ of the paths, Bones came from the ancient spiritual practices of vampires who predated the Giovanni. Rumor has it that these creatures , rather than playing games of power or Jyhad, sought to reconcile themselves with the god of life and death who had cast them into the wilderness of undeath.

The mysteries posed by this path and its followers might well be as old as Neolithic burial practices. Indeed, they could predate Caine if the first vampire came from an established agrarian community rather than from Adam himself. It is speculated, though, that the philosophical bent of this following coalesced during the last millennium B.C., when Judaism and Zoroastrianism arose while “pagan” writers such as Aeschylus asked deep, dark questions of the greater void.
It is known that by this time, the precursors of the Giovanni had distanced themselves from the struggles of the other Antediluvians and Methuselahs, seeking solitude and communion with a higher power. Much of the ancient lore that was transcribed into the Path of Bones supposedly sprang from the litanies and plaints of that line’s Antediluvian, whose name is given as Cappadocius, Lazarus and Thanatos.
By the Middle Ages, the, the “Road of Bones” was known among the Cainites of Europe and the Near East. Travelers of the Road sought to “complete the journey” between life and death in order to take their place as the children of God. They saw their unloving bodies, filled with blood, as vessels by with the will of God could be made manifest on Earth. Unlike some other vampires, followers of the Road of Bones did not seek to actively enact the will of god, merely comprehend it.
The road took a turn, however, when the ancient bloodline was murdered and usurped by the Venetian servitor family, the Giovanni. Under new masters, the lore of the Road largely disappeared. Still, some Giovanni had pursued the road and over the next two centuries, they sight both to make peace with the calling’s few surviving lorebearers, and to distill the following into something with a more pragmatic bent.
They succeeded only partly. Over the next centuries, lore was consolidated and redistributed into a new form suitable for the nascent clan. As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, the overly religious trappings of the Path were altered into a more secular study of death. Rather than a path to the divine, death became a divinity or divine state in and of itself.
The large-scale conflicts of nation states in the 17th through 20th centuries spurred the paths development. Gravediggers haunted the battlefields of the Hundred Years’, Napoleonic, Crimean, American civil, Franco-Prussian and War to End All Wars, avidly gleaning knowledge from increasingly innovative carnage.
Since the development of the atomic bomb and other “weapons of mass destruction”, Kindred on other paths worry about gravediggers’ ultimate aims. Certainly, the potential means now exist for the greatest imaginable experiments in life and death ever conducted. Genocide, Too, is now more commonplace idea than it was in history. When pressed on the points, most gravediggers tend to stare calmly, neither confirming nr denying accusations.

[Tami]

Current Practices

Gravediggers value discretion and secrecy. They obscure their doings from the eyes of even their own clan mates, to say nothing of outsiders. Ritual, gatherings and experiments are conducted in out-of –the-way places, with no (living) witnesses.

The creation of zombies is essential to the practices of the path, simply because no living servitors can be trusted to perform tasks correctly and keep tier mouth shut. Zombie creation is also means of maintaining the “basics” and keeping one’s necromantic skills sharp.

Adherents are contemplating; study and meditation are central to advancement. Teachers, however, are more difficult to come by than one might expect. The greatest mentors often isolate themselves from the demands of clan and jihad, so they must be sought out by prospective students. Finding them can be demanding; merely unearthing the locations of teachers can be taxing research project.

With study comes experimentation, the overseeing of different means of death. Gravediggers sometimes set up havens with access to penitentiaries, war-torn locales, hospitals, morgues and other places where the dead and dying gather. Some experiments still require the procurement of active subjects, though. Practitioners don’t go out of their way to slay the healthy and vital, but they are not averse to helping the natural process along – even rudely and violently if necessary.

Some gravediggers act as Agents Provocateur, entering volatile situations such as border conflicts, sect wars or turf battles, and ‘stir the shit” to incite violence. These efforts sometimes coincide with the needs of the Giovanni, so much can occur in parallel with other clan business.

Conversely, some Gravediggers enter sect war zones as stabilizing agents. To make valuable study, death must not only be present, it must be well orchestrated. Such meticulous procedure is sometimes not possible in Kindred (or Kine) struggles. Like a conductor, a grave digger directs and focuses the carnage, ensuing that it serves his purpose in uncovering truths behind death as a whole.

In a more direct vein, a few devotees seek to improve their understanding of death directly, serving as clan warriors, mercenaries or assassins. Such creatures are prized by whatever master is fortunate enough to retain their services. With their knowledge of Necromancy, gravediggers prove to be effective killers (and even better resurrectionist). In this task, they occasionally come into conflict with members of clan Assamite. Battles between such undead can be spectacular as they a brutal.

Not a few gravediggers deal with the spirit world directly, acting as liaisons (or slave masters) for ghosts and spirits. Different path followers make pacts with various castes of the underworld, offering favors (perhaps to the living relatives of ghosts) in exchange for teaching and services. It’s rumored that a few powerful practitioners have even managed to enter the ghosts’ realm, to walk the fabled Iron City – or perhaps to be enslaved there, never to return to living lands.

A few gravediggers have taken it upon themselves to understand the relationship between the Underworld and the fabled “spirit world” of their Lupine foes. Thus far, efforts top contact such spirits have proven of little gain. Indeed, vampires can barely perceive such spirits, while some Lupines claim to interact with them regularly. Nonetheless, efforts to grasp and such aspect of posthumous existence persist, for their could be a wealth of power there, power of an unknown but potentially enlightening variety.

One duty that’s recently been assumed by the path members is the protection of certain mortal family trees, most often those connected to the Giovanni. A gravedigger “watches over” a family, either disguising himself as a member or simply observing nearby. In this fashion, he can oversee the mortals’ progress from birth to old age to the grave, while the family (theoretically) gains a protector and ‘guardian angel”. In practice, observers almost never lift a finger to stave off death from any source, though they thwart the effort of rival Kindred to control the families.

Obviously, development of necromancy powers and rituals is both a means and an end. Proficiency is a sign of aptitude and devotion. Gravediggers go to great lengths to discover (or rediscover) new, forgotten or lost techniques in the black arts.

Following the Path

Taking up the Path of Bones entails gaining an intimate understanding of death in all its forms. The first stages of the path are fairly strictly regulated, a prospective student is approached and taken through the imitation process by a group and then is apprenticed to a particular master. The student performs tasks and errands for her mentor, learning about death and the afterlife in the process. A task might involve ridding a mausoleum of the ghosts haunting it (perhaps by negotiating with them), or directing the deeds of a serial murderer.

As the vampire grows in age and maturity (and kills more and more of her victims), she is permitted to engage in self-directed research. At this time, she often leaves her teacher to set up a haven in a different city. Young members of the path often enter either Giovanni of Camarilla territory and offer their services in exchange for welcome and protection.

Once established, research is largely at the discretion of the individual vampire. Like any other scholarly group, gravediggers maintain contact through libraries and the Internet (The latter under several encrypted newsgroups and websites). Truly grotesque experiments often require the establishment of a labyrinthine retreat, where failed – or successful – creations are least likely to attract attention.

At some point in their studies, most followers establish spiritual communication with ghosts. They seek to establish havens in areas with access to sprits – often in graveyards or at murder sites. Through careful bargaining with wraith, a journeyman refines his knowledge into a sophisticated body of lore.

The central meeting place of the path is, not surprisingly, in Venice. It is not at the Giovanni clan loggia, however, but a small out-of-the –way villa in the suburbs. Here, oath members from around the world share knowledge, viewpoints and insight. Even the dullest locals know the place is “haunted”. A side effect of the numerous ghosts and spirits contacted in the abode.

The library of lore at this place is fantastic, even by Kindred standards. The warlocks of clan Tremere have tried for centuries to get their hands on it. Every attempt has been denied, and the path members are suspicious of Tremere initiates to this night (Though, ironically, they induct more members of this clan than any other non-Giovanni clan).