Editing Vampire: The Masquerade (section)

===[[Baali]]===
*'''Antediluvian - Possibly Saulot or Cappadocius'''
*'''Signature Discipline - Daimonion''' (Satanic shit)
*'''Sect - Independent, some sect infiltration present'''
*'''Clan Weakness:''' *Very* vulnerable to True Faith, killed on sight by everyone upon discovery, and as Daimonon level rises their appearance becomes more demonic up to zero appearance like Shaitan. 
[[File:Baali.png|150px|right]]
The go-to clan for [[Chaos|extreme edginess, Lovecraftian levels of horror and unadulterated, pure evil on the surface, but has hidden depths few can enjoy]]. Somewhere back in the ye good olde days, the happy clans suddenly faced a new threat consisting of an absolutely huge Bloodline of Vampires blatantly worshiping Demons and telling the rest to conform and die, making an enemy with every other Clan in existence, particularly the Assamites and Salubri on a bloody campaign of world conquest. In general they are considered evil in the extreme for appearing to try destroying the world, with their modern counterparts adding to the suspicions. Because of this, even the more blatantly immoral Clans like the Followers of Set, Tzimisce and Ravnos are enemies with them. 

(You know you done fucked up when Sabbat, the [[Edgy|edgiest]] immature vampire sect in the setting kills you on sight and devotes a secret inquisition to root out *anything* resembling Baali.)

Exactly how they came to be is unclear, but it's generally thought when Saulot (or Cappadocius/Ashur) was taking a walk down Asia, he decided to annihilate a monstrous clan of people [[Chaos|who fucked their children, mutilated themselves and sacrificed blood]] to eldritch horrors under the earth, and dropped blood on the pit of corpses he filled by slaughtering everyone [[Derp|because why not.]] Three survivors emerged, and swore hateful revenge. Ironically this was the start of the rollercoaster of shit ride as the said cultists were [[Grimdark|doing those atrocities to keep the demons satiated, thus keeping the world intact.]]

These assholes, somehow figuring enough of their condition to not walk in sunlight, decided that the best way to spend eternity was to keep worshiping the...things [[Demon: The Fallen|which might be Earthbound]], or [[Wraith: The Oblivion|Malfeans]] and somehow the Baali resulted in direct opposition of that tribe's reason for existence (Save for Moloch, but we'll get to that). In general the Baali are thought to have had three Methuselahs (4th Generation) Vampires leading them and they were largely turned extinct somewhere after the Dark Ages when Christianity was established enough that anything that didn't have a cross as its holy symbol was put to the torch. Their other havens in the Middle East got the shaft by the surge of Islam which managed to annihilate nearly all Baali that remained in the Arabian peninsula when Muslim Assamites shanked every last of the fuckers with a stake and left them in the sun after seeing their horrid practices (keeping a pit of rotting corpses tends to be hard when Arab civilization develops sanitation and you can't disguise the smell). In retribution, the Baali summon the Decani, the 36 aspects of Namtaru, an Earthbound demon and curse the Assamites with a thirst for blood.

So yeah, the "Children" Baali worship have qualities that somehow allude to both different entities. Since we know Baali contacted and harnessed the power of Namtaru, suffering under pure sunlight is a guaranteed Earthborn, we can assume the Baali worship Earthborn demons... Right?

But then, Black Hand: Guide to the Tal'mahe'Ra suggests the "Children" of the Baali may be the Malfeans, horrid entities dwelling in a phase of deathless Lovecraftian sleep. These beings have physical bodies in self-created tombs in the earth, but their souls and minds exist in the Labyrinth, forever dreaming. Most Baali seek to keep the Malfeans' consciousnesses from reuniting with their terrestrial bodies through sacrifices and depravity though some try to wake the entities. If this lore were correct, it would suggest, as the Wraith corebook does, that the Malfeans are indeed physical manifestations of the pain of death itself (literally taking on the form of flesh and soul forever severed). Also, Malfeans use a "Hive Mind" for their minions, and Baali's oldest (even pre-vampirism) morality is Path of the Hive which suspiciously sounds similar. So the Baali may be a tragic group of people trying to stop Malfeans before Saulot(or Ashur) thought about riding in and doing a Nice Job Breaking It Hero. As a final argument, Earthbound don't need depravity, they need Faith, channeled, organized religious fervor, so Baali committing horror rituals to keep entities satisfied means the entities they satisfy are Malfeans.

Except one of the three Baali sects, the Moloch's children called Molochim show some interest of being played without going sick fuck a la extreme. Molochim use the strange moral code called Path of the Hive, avoid killing and endangering mortals without reason, believe Abel to be the original vampire and think of themselves God's shadow on earth committing necessary atrocities to keep Malfeans asleep. Hell, abusing innocents and feeding forcefully from them is a Level 4 sin(which means MORE SINFUL than humanity's own values) which should speak volumes in a fucked-up world. Sort of like tragic villains, the True Black Hand and even a few mages actively cooperate with them to keep the BBEG's sleeping in the beyond because once the Malfeans are afoot, all politics would fly out of the window with a shitstorm that would make Gehenna look like a Disneyland story.

The few modern day Baali usually stay hidden in some isolated coven or infiltrate the Tremere for protection. Some theories suggest that the reason they do what they do, namely pissing everyone off and trying to turn the 3rd millennium into [[Grimdark|the 41st]], is because all the evil deeds keep the "Children" asleep. This is backed by the fact that the Baali symbol is an upside down version of Lucifer Morningstar's personal symbol, but the timeline is a bit vague regarding the issue. The Earthbound posed as the gods of ancient Phoenicia and the Baali were said to be their worshippers, so Lucifer's actions must have taken place during the height of the Sumerian empire. In this time Lucifer empowered the Baali to be his initial agents, only for the whole thing to fall apart in a millennium or two. There's also the chance that this is bullshit because what the Baali have done empowered them more than anything and post-1999 in particular there are multiple Earthbound as well as Fallen openly operating left and right after escaping the Abyss; and the Baali have done jack shit to change, if not going worse in edginess.

In any Gehenna scenario they fail to achieve anything and are trampled by the political changes.

Basically, most modern day Baali are stereotypical Hollywood Satanists, but in the middle ages, they were threefold: Edgy Gothic Satanists, [[Tzeentch|Lovecraftian researchers for True Names of beings]], and [[Tyranids|disgusting Hive-Minded literal insect worshippers who would make captives swallow maggots they would feed on the insides, and burst forth as flies and/or use their flesh and blood for the Swarm.]]

Baali elders have the ability to transform vampires of other bloodlines into a Baali bloodline; such a convert is known as an Apostate, and they get to replace one of their Clan Disciplines with [[Vampire:_The_Masquerade#Bloodline_Disciplines|Daimonion]].