Editing Vampire: The Masquerade (section)

==Vampire Sects==
For most of the Dark Ages vampires could more or less get away with whatever as long as they obeyed the following six rules:

#The oldest vampires are in charge, because they are the closest to Caine.
#Respect the master of a domain. If you can keep a domain it's yours; if you can take it from someone else it's yours.
#Only embrace with your Elder's permission.
#Until you release your Childer, its sins are your own.
#Don't kill your elders.
#Don't reveal the secrets of the vampires to non-vampires, lest you forego the protection of the previous rule.

This allowed vampires a large degree of freedom to dick around with, messing with mortals for the lulz. Eventually they got fed up with this and decided to rise up during the mid-13th century. The fires of the Inquisition burned bright, and it turns out that even the more powerful vampires struggle when a mob with torches (vampires flip their shit when confonted with fire) and pitchforks (one good stab and the vampire is turned helpless) is coming at them.

The Elders quickly came to a solution to this problem: throw enough of their Childer at the problem until it was solved and keeping the door shut in the meantime.

This backfired horribly. The younger vampires declare they had enough and band together not just to annihilate vampire killing lynch mobs, but also their Elders and try to become the rulers of the world. In ancient times, most vampires made their childer drink their blood in three sips, magically binding them to serve their elders. It's called a blood bond, and effectively enslaves the drinker. These Neonates didn't like this one bit, and paired with all the other abuse they've been receiving they started the First Anarch Revolt. They escaped the blood bonds via a ritual granted to them by Kupala, a demon bound to the land of Transylvania. Via a blood-red flower granted to the Tzimisce Lugoj Blood-Breaker he was able to create the ritual of Vaulderie, which allowed him to break the blood bond and instead create a bond between individual vampires by having them drink each other's blood. As a result they make for incredibly fanatical warbands, and started their revolt.

This vampire civil war started out pretty well, with the Anarchs receiving backing from the Assamites who didn't mind killing a bunch of Elders as long as they got to snack on their blood. The initial stages even saw the deaths of two Antediluvians: Tzimisce was diablerized by his great-grandchilde Lugoj (but not really) and Lasombra was diablerized by his childe Gratiano de Veronese (but not really).

At this point the Elders of the other clans started to get nervous and decided to band together under a common banner: that of the Camarilla. They started to kick the shit out of the Anarchs to the point where a truce was called in 1493 during what became known as the Convention of Thorns. Knowing that their fun was over many of the surviving Anarchs decided to throw in their lot with the Camarilla, but the Lasombra and Tzimisce were angry that the other clans wouldn't go try and eat their Antediluvians. This came to a head where a Tzimisce called Myca Vykos invited the Ventrue representative Hardestadt the Younger to eat a dick, and [[wat|was kind enough to provide one by cutting off his own cock and balls and throwing them at Hardestadt's face]]. His final declaration was that [[Edgy|he would be beyond any gender since he no longer identified with humanity and took the name Sacha Vykos]]. Vykos is now one of the most feared vampires of the modern nights, acting as the Sabbat's chief torturer. And given that this is the ''Sabbat'', that should say something.

With this vivid statement the Camarilla's power consolidated, the remaining Assamites were pacified via a blood curse courtesy of the fledgling Tremere clan and the remaining vampires formed the Sabbat.

===Camarilla===
[[File:Camarilla.png|200px|thumb|right|The symbol of the Camarilla.]]
Now that the Camarilla got its shit together it could actually focus on its mission, which is... doing exactly what the Elders did back in the day. Except this time it's all done in the name of the Traditions (see below) and the Masquerade. Sure, upholding the Masquerade means that a second Inquisition won't break out any time soon, and with the current age of camera phones being connected to the Internet at all times means that the job has become increasingly difficult, but the Camarilla is still run by the Inner Circle: a shadowy group of Elders who pull the strings behind the scenes. The Camarilla also denies the existence of the [[Antediluvian]]s and [[Caine]], mainly to make sure that no mass hysteria breaks out within the ranks the younger Kindred in the Camarilla (most of whom being less than 200 years old) or have them join Gehenna cults to try and fight the Antediluvians or outright join the Sabbat. Of course, once a Neonate finds out that they've been conned they're either old enough to have become used to the way things are and play along, or lash out and join the Sabbat.

In hindsight, Camarilla are the best weapon against Gehenna from one perspective. Avoiding senseless vampire deaths keep Antediluvians asleep as every dying Kindred nudges its forefathers with a psychic backlash. Every dying Caitiff can disturb every Antediluvian, since its blood may be belonging to many via disciplines. Avoiding and hiding from the human population who developed modern technologies that can turn a soldier a far cry from a medieval serf with a pointy stick to a demigod that lays down fire enough to tear vampires apart is also smart, to speak nothing of nuclear weapons capable of destroying a city with a miniature sun. Suppressing the existence of vampires also prevents opportunist humans to poke/auction/steal a BIG BAD FUCKING VAMPIRE CANNIBAL IN A COFFIN out of curiosity and ending the world. Of course, Sabbat not lying on its ass and mass murdering, draining innocents rouses vampire hunters and more, particularly Werewolves eager to destroy "leeches of the [[Wyrm]]", e.g vampires makes Camarilla's job not any easier suppressing the news. [[Rules Lawyer|But still, Camarilla technically tried its best to avoid Gehenna using the lore's mechanics to the letter.]]

But of course, Gehenna happened, so it's all moot now unless you are a Vampire 20 canon worshipper.

====The Camarilla Traditions====
Part of the Camarilla are the half-dozen Traditions that govern their society. These Traditions are strict but limited in scope, allowing the local Prince to rule their domain as they see fit. No two domains are ruled equally, but all observe the Traditions. Failure to do so would incur the wrath of the Camarilla, the neighboring domains or even those within the domain. The Traditions are:

*'''1: The Masquerade'''
:The titular Masquerade entails that none of the Kindred may reveal themselves to the outside world, knowing that a full-scale Masquerade breach would result in the world uniting against them out of fear and hatred and the subsequent destruction of the Kindred. Princes tend to spend a lot of time and resources covering up breaches of the Masquerade, and those who break it will be punished severely. This tradition is the most important one, especially in modern times. Reasons notwithstanding like police, potential lynch mobs and mortal authorities, there are Mages who actively combat vampirism(they can one-shot virtually any Kindred once powerful enough), Werewolves who see vampires as [[Wyrm]]'s scum (good luck killing one with steel weapons) and most importantly, vampire hunters. There are vampire hunters who have a wide knowledge about how to kill Kindred. Then there are those who are ordained by the Pope himself. In a show of [[grimdark]]ness, those useful bloodbags sadly only manage to attack the most harmless, docile Camarilla Kindred living as an almost legal person, because Sabbat not only brutally hits back, but also turns the family of the hunter into vampires for spite. Either way, even the most powerful Kindred fear hunters.
*'''2: The Domain'''
:A Domain is the area of influence of any given vampire. This is most commonly used to refer to a Prince's domain, which often encompasses a city. Some Princes consider this to be the only valid definition of the term, but the more liberal ones allow other vampires to hold smaller domains within their own, as long as they recognize the Prince's authority of course.
*'''3: The Progeny'''
:According to this Tradition an Embrace may only be performed with the leave of the Prince, and failure to obtain this beforehand will result in the destruction of both the Sire and the Childer. In practice though only a few Princes enforce this Tradition strictly, and the ones that don't will have far larger populations within their Domains to the point of overpopulation.
*'''4: The Accounting'''
:Parents are accountable for the actions of their children, and this is not different with vampires. A Sire has to teach their newly-Embraced Childe the rules of vampire society, such as the Traditions and why breaking them is a Bad Thing. Until they're judged capable of surviving on their own in Kindred society, the Childe's fuckups are their Sire's, so a Sire failing to teach their Childe properly will be punished the same as the rule-breaking Childe.
*'''5: Hospitality'''
:When arriving in a new city a vampire has to present themselves to the local Prince; likewise, the Prince is obligated to meet with the visitor and decide whether they can stay in their Domain. Some Princes will keep tight tabs on all of their visitors while others are content with letting them stay as long as they don't get involved with local politics and observe the Traditions.
*'''6: Destruction'''
:Only the Elders of the Domain can sentence someone to death, and only the Prince may call for the Blood Hunt. The Blood Hunt is basically an APB crossed with a death sentence, calling for the Final Death of a specific vampire for some extraordinary crime. Almost anything is permitted against the target of a Blood Hunt, with a good number of Princes turning a blind eye to the target being [[Diablerie|Diablerised]] or Hunts coming in from another Domain.

===[[Sabbat_(Vampire)|The Sabbat]]===
[[File:Sabbat.png|200px|thumb|right|The symbol of the Sabbat. Looks [[slaanesh|vaguely familiar, and horny]] ]]

The Sabbat rejects the notions of humanity, but they still needed a way to keep the Beast in check. To this end they invented the Roads of Enlightenment, which is known to some fans as the Roads of Edgelightenment. These inhuman alternatives often justify things like murder, torture, self-mutilation and other such extremes as a way to keeping your act together, albeit with justifications (Path of Metamorphosis emphasizes evolution via pain to justify torturing captives with Vicissitude, and Path of Night forbids killing of innocents but allows killing of evil mortals to "harvest their sin"). That doesn't mean all Sabbat are complete monsters; some Roads of Enlightenment tell the vampire not to murder humans for kicks. A very few of their founders are even on good terms with Humanity, like the Malkavian Vasantasena. In theory, the Sabbat are still on their mission to destroy the Antediluvians in order to save the world. In reality... things aren't exactly like that. And not just that in reality most of them don't really care about the Antediluvians or their machinations as long as they can [[Drowtales|slaughter and torture humans for fun, and commit as many atrocities as possible while maintaining a semblance of righteousness]]. Made even more solid when the only decent Sabbat, the Path of Harmony followers, getting exterminated around the time of Revised Sabbat Books were published, and the "Ritae", traditional pastimes of Sabbat aren't making it any easier: some of them reek of individual bravery, such as Fire Dance which is pretty badass by itself but most are usually sick contests of how to skin humans alive, enslave two humans and make them fight each other to death for lulz, regularly hang captured humans from a ceiling, drink them dry and bathe in their blood...and just ways to horribly abuse and torture whatever they catch. For a sect that seems to "ignore humans or deem them beneath their notice", it raises a bit of a flags in mature roleplayers' minds.

Even funnier is that the Sabbat openly wants to rule the world and subjugate the human race. Which is not very likely: not only is Sabbat territory limited to Latin America, most part of Canada, Spain and the poorer parts of the United States with no grasp on any country's mortal militaries (Ventrue dominates the US Army, which is the mightiest war machine on the planet), they also have to compete with the other supernatural powers of the World of Darkness. Pentex is everywhere and is their prime competition for who can be the most cartoonishly evil and the Technocracy has fingers in every pie and is advanced enough to explore other star systems, make Terminators on the side and was able to ONE-SHOT Zapathasura when he awoke using space mirrors and magical nukes (and that was only a fraction of the Technocracy's full power, while the ENTIRE Ravnos clan plus the [[Kindred of the East|Kuei-jin]] fought the dude [[Week of Nightmares|for a night and a day]]) while the Sabbat's only contribution to that fight was pinning down their Ravnos pack mates and keeping them from joining their Antediluvian. And all that is discounting the Garou, Kuei-Jin, Hunters, Changelings, Mummies, the Traditions and the Crafts, the Fallen and the Earthbound, Malfeans that are the size of Godzilla and can sweep entire cities clean and... look, Sabbat victory is not likely. The Sabbat could have been a dark mirror of Camarilla, but in the modern nights they are little more than a swarm of borderline insane monsters autistically raging to beat imaginary monsters while committing atrocities beyond measure.

But that's not all. The Sabbat claim that the Camarilla are Antediluvian puppets ignoring the Masquerade as they see fit, and that only they are able to destroy the 11 remaining Antediluvians in order to save the world. In practice, the Sabbat is almost exactly like the Camarilla that they claim to hate. The Sabbat's inner circle, the True Black Hand, is ''directly serving the Antediluvians'', they have their own Masquerade (the Lasombra vampires pay off Mexican authorities to ignore them, ghoul families (particularly Zantosa) clean up messes, and the Tzimisce pretend to not be vampires in their domains in the old world), and instead of being a beacon of freedom it's a tyrannical shithole whose mortal population would go extinct in a single week if the Sabbat could openly do what they want; even their vampires aren't "free", they are blood bound to their packmates in mental slavery...Which is the very thing they swore to end. 

And those two Antediluvians that the Sabbat killed? They're not dead. Lasombra used his own diablerization in order to unshackle his soul from his body and enter the Abyss: he is now trying to merge with it. Meanwhile, Tzimisce has gone through a whole deal of stuff and is now currently a massive growth of flesh in the sewers of New York, biding its time. [[Lulz|So, good going there, Sabbat.]]

====The Code of Milan====
Because the Sabbat is filled to the brim with assholes, edgelords, and other creepy fucks, early Sabbat leadership realized that they'd need a code to keep the whole bunch of them fuckers in line. As such, the Code of Milan was penned and ratified to get at least some sense of coherency without betraying the founding principles of the Sabbat. The statutes are:

*'''I: The Sabbat shall remain united in its support of the Sect’s Regent. If necessary, a new Regent shall be elected. The Regent shall support relief from tyranny, granting all Sabbat freedom.'''
:Simple enough: the Regent is the boss. It's the Regent's job to make sure the Sabbat has the freedom upon which it was founded, and if needed a new one can be elected. Note that the wording is vague enough to imply that the Regent may be overthrown in case the Regent is an ass.

*'''II: All Sabbat shall do their best to serve their leaders as long as said leaders serve the will of the Regent.'''
:Listen to the folks who tell you what the Regent wants you to do. This is in theory free of the tyranny of elders because again there's the implication of said leaders being able to be overthrown.

*'''III: All Sabbat shall faithfully observe all the auctoritas ritae.'''
:The Auctorias Ritae are the religious rites that form the basis that bind the Sabbat together. All thirteen of the rites (The Binding, The Blood Feast, The Blood Bath, the Creation Rites, the Festivo Dello Estinto, the Fire Dance, Games of Instinct, Monomacy, Palla Grande, the Sermons of Caine, Vaulderie, the War Party and the Wild Hunt) are observed by proper Sabbat and foregoing their use will get you into trouble.

*'''IV: All Sabbat shall keep their word of honor to one another.'''
:If you give your word, you've given your word. With so many assholes in one place you'll need a way to keep them in check. The Tzimisce are especially big on this.

*'''V: All Sabbat shall treat their peers fairly and equally, upholding the strength and unity of the Sabbat. If necessary, they shall provide for the needs of their brethren.'''
:Help your peers for the good of the Sabbat. Within reason of course: if a particularly dickish pack tries to exploit this they'll find that there are limits to this hospitality.

*'''VI: All Sabbat must put the good of the Sect and the race of Cainites before their own personal needs, despite all costs.'''
:Speaks for itself, but the threat's gotta be pretty big to get the entire Sabbat on the same side. Otherwise certain Kindred will be too busy being dicks.

*'''VII: Those who are not honorable under this code will be considered less than equal and therefore unworthy of assistance.'''
:Don't be a dick or your ass is grass.

*'''VIII: As it has always been, so shall it always be. The Lextalionis shall be the model for undying justice by which all Sabbat shall abide.'''
:Be an especially big asshole and you'll have a Wild Hunt (the Sabbat name for the Camarilla Blood Hunt) called on your ass.

*'''IX: All Sabbat shall protect one another from the enemies of the Sect. Personal enemies shall remain a personal responsibility, unless they undermine Sect security.'''
:Civil wars are bad, so if two Sabbat have beef it's their problem. This does mean that if you manage to stretch the meaning of "Sect security" you can make this rule work in your favor with some planted evidence calling for Monomachy.

*'''X: All Sect members shall protect Sabbat territory from all other powers.'''
:There's plenty of Camarilla and Anarchs who'd love to set up shop in Sabbat cities and they frequently try to do so. Few Sabbat need the encouragement to kicks a bunch of Camarilla/Anarchs in the dick, so this is pretty easy to enforce.

*'''XI: The spirit of freedom shall be the fundamental principle of the Sect. All Sabbat shall expect and demand freedom from their leaders.'''
:The counterpart of statutes I and II: leaders have to give freedom while the common Sabbat demand it.

*'''XII: The Ritus of Monomacy shall be used to settle disputes among all Sabbat.'''
:Monomacy is the sacred duel between two Sabbat, but a disturbing amount of them will want to use it just to kill folks without repercussions.

*'''XIII: All Sabbat shall support the Black Hand.'''
:The Black Hand, also known as the ''manus nigrum'' have made it their job to hunt down infernalists and demons to destroy both, which is considered laudable by the Sabbat. ''Tal'mahe'Ra'' or True Black Hand is a completely different animal, even having Mage and other supernaturals aiding it. They are the ones who work for Caine and Antediluvians, with no one in the Sabbat having an idea.

On December 21st, 1933 the Code of Milan was revised after the end of the Second Sabbat Civil War. This revision added three addenda to the Code, which are to be upheld in the same way as the original 13 are:

*'''XIV: All Sabbat have the right to monitor the behavior and activities of their fellow Sect members in order to maintain freedom and security.'''
:Aka "you can spy on everyone as long as it's for the good of the Sect." Yes, it's [[Paranoia|written vaguely]] for exactly that purpose.

*'''XV: All Sabbat possess the right to call a council of their peers and immediate leaders.'''
:Sometimes it's better to talk than to fight, which became obvious during the civil war. This gives all Sabbat to call such councils to defuse otherwise violent situations, but at the risk of having to deal with violent reprisals if the council was deemed to be bullshit. This wisdom did pay off, with the Third Sabbat Civil War lasting only 100 days and ended with diplomacy.

*'''XVI: All Sabbat shall act against Sect members who use the powers and authority the Sabbat has given them for personal gain at the expense of the Sabbat. Action shall be taken only through accepted means, approved by a quorum of Prisci.'''
:A counterweight to statutes VI and IX: if leaders do start like the hated elders the rabble now has the right to take them down... with approval of course.

[[File:Anarch.png|200px|thumb|right|The symbol of the Anarchs.]]

===Anarchs===
In the Modern Nights, they have the spirit of the first Anarch Revolt mellowed into "live-and-let-live" schtick. So basically leftist libertarian vampires who keep their Humanity, and simply live free. They are now what the Sabbat were, what they aren't now, and what they should have remained as. They have a serious influence in California, and used to control Russia until [[Baba Yaga]] awakened. They are making a great come back in BJD, with many elders deciding to establish their own free states, such as Marcus Vitel (a former prince and Lasombra Antitribu, having sold Washington D.C. to the Sabbat, but eager and actually capable to take it back from Vykos, who most likely has the greatest pair of balls in the Sabbat, hopefully not literally), and <s>Montgomery Coven</s> '''Mithras''' (an awesome Ventrue Methuselah, who was once worshipped as a god, ruled London since it was a Roman colony, survived the German Blitz of London, decimated a Garou pack looking to tear him a new asshole, survived getting '''Diablerized''') deciding to establish London as a free state.

===Independent===
Vampires that roar '''FOR THE CLAN!''' Assamites, Followers of Set, Ravnos and Giovanni are considered independent clans, due to not being affilated with any sect. They share one common feature: All of these clans revere their Antediluvians, alienating them from the Camarilla, who (incorrectly) believes they do not exist, and the Sabbat, who hates the Antediluvians with gusto.

===Autarkis===
Existing outside of the regular Sect and Clan structure by either choice or lack of knowledge. Sometimes they stick to living on the fringes of civilization, while others set up shop in smaller towns and villages. The downside is that in such a situation the vampires are easy prey for the local Werewolves, unless the vampire is a mid generation (6th/7th/8th) Elder/Ancillae, in which case he/she can survive a attack by Werewolves. If the vampire in question is a Methuselah (4th/5th), then that [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|Garou Sept]] the pack of Werewolves belong to is '''fucked'''. If someone is a Autarkis, expect them to be either really weak vampires, or overwhelmingly strong ones. The Assamites calls the Autarkis among their ranks "The Dispossessed."

[[File:BlackHandSymbol.webp|200px|thumb|right|Symbol of the Tal'mahe'Ra]]
===Tal'mahe'Ra===
From the Ghemalish/Enochian language spoken in the ancient biblical city of Enoch, ''Tal'mahe'Ra'' translates to English as "''Hand Without Sun''" or "''Black Hand''".  After the destruction of the Earthly city of Enoch, the Tal'mahe'Ra began as an alliance between newly homeless Enochian vampires and [[Chakravanti]] [[Mage:_The_Ascension|mages]]; their initial base was the ghostly shadow of Enoch in the [[Underworld]] realm, in which they sheltered and worshiped the ancient slumbering [[Aralu]] vampires.  In addition to vampires and mages, the membership of the Tal'mahe'Ra also includes [[Lich#Liches_in_World_of_Dakness|liches]], Abominations ([[Werewolf:_The_Apocalypse|werewolves]] turned into vampires), [[Revenant#World_of_Darkness|revenants]], [[Wraith:_The_Oblivion|wraiths]], and [[Mummy:_The_Resurrection|mummies]]. They're also remembered for [[Exterminatus|getting nuked]] so hard that Oblivion shat itself, triggering the Sixth Great Maelstrom that utterly fucked up the Underworld's status quo. The order somehow managed to survive Enoch's destruction and now recruit from nearly all clans and bloodlines to rebuild their numbers.

The Tal'mahe'Ra once forbade most from joining their ranks, only accepting "special snowflakes" like the True Brujah, the Old Tzimisce and Cappadocian remnants. Now they allow anyone in their ranks except for modern Tzimisce (They HATE Vicissitude) and the Setites (They HATE the Egyptian gods even more, especially after Enoch was nuked in their name). They're also the only major faction that tolerates Baali (and this ONLY applies to the Molochim (and that that took a lot of convincing)). Nergali are killed on sight like everywhere else.

===Inconnu===
The Inconnu are a bunch of Illuminati-on-Steroids-crossed-with-Obfuscate-10 grade conspirators. ''Inconnu'' is a French word meaning "incognito/unknown/stranger".  The Inconnu have Monitors, who are vampires seeking [[Golconda]] and manipulating things behind the scenes. Members include a Malkavian who helped in the sacking of Constantinople back in 1204, the Prince of Switzerland and Liechtenstein Guillaume and even Vlad Tepes himself. Another such member is the Monitor of Istanbul, Mahatma, is a 4th generation Cappadocian who was trained in the way of Golconda by none other than Saulot himself. He now keeps an eye on Istanbul, training those whom he finds promising in the ways of Golconda while destroying those who pose a threat to the city's status quo or those who would draw attention from the Inquisition. Mahatma acts via intermediaries to do so, and even has an agent in the Prince's court. Istanbul is a complete cosmopolitan mess, with Sabbat tolerated amongst the Camarilla majority and even has some D'habi, the Baali Revenant family maintaining an estate somewhere along the Bosphorus (which would probably explain the strange, seemingly unused mansions along the coast IRL). On top of that, [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|Pentex has its regional HQ there, and the city's got quite a few Silver Fangs and Bone Gnawers running around]]. So whatever the fuck those Inconnu are up to is some kind of bizarre mix of extreme vampiric political correctness, a weird experiment or utter ineptitude.

Their headquarters, Hunedora Castle, is a former Tzimisce castle in Western Romania. During the First Anarch Revolt the leaders of the Inconnu, the Council of Twelve, were out of options and as such saw themselves forced to summon a demon. The lucky fiend was [[Demon: The Fallen|Nikanuuranu, an Earthbound Fiend]] who agreed to a pact: mass human sacrifice and a drop of Vitae every year. This in turn results in the use of the Demon using its powers in the form of Portals 5 and Light 5 to hide Hunedora from sight and from being physically reached in order to protect the place. It's a pretty sweet gig: not only does Nikanuuranu have access to eight dots of all the Disciplines possessed by the Council of Twelve, he has a yearly massive donation of Faith (this is where the strength of the pact comes from: not from the powerful Vitae of the Twelve). On top of that, if one of the twelve pacters leave the castle grounds for any reason they have 10 minutes to get back. If they fail they immediately suffer Final Death. Of course, one wonders how such a heinous pact involving mass murder(which is pretty much a minimum 3 on sin scale, more likely 1) does not degenerate the vampires' Humanity to zero, who should be keeping it minimally 7 for even an attempt of Golconda...

[[File:HecataSymbol.webp|200px|thumb|right|Three-faced goddess Hecate, symbol of the Hecata vampires]]
===Hecata===
A ''sect''?  Just kidding; the Hecata are not referred to as a ''sect'' in the published material, but they should be.  In ''V:tM'' v5 [[White Wolf]] decided to sloppily unite all of the necromantic bloodlines together into a single "clan"; as the majority of necromantic bloodlines are [[Cappadocian]] bloodlines this could have made sense except for the fact that the authors also lumped in the [[Nagaraja]], who are not a Cappadocian bloodline.  Despite the inclusion of the Nagaraja, the authors still opted to confusingly misuse the established term ''clan'' instead of calling the Hecata what they actually are: a ''sect'', a.k.a. an alliance of bloodlines.  One benefit of the merger is that any member of one of the merged necromantic bloodlines can trade their previous bloodline weakness for the painful bite of the [[Giovanni]].  Further, all of the [[Necromancy|necromantic]] and [[Obtenebration|obtenebrous]] Disciplines were combined into a single Discipline called ''Oblivion'' (which would have been cooler if the authors had not [[nerf|nerfed]] 3D obtenebrous tentacles down to cartoonish 2D shadows).  The symbol of the Hecata is three-faced Hecate, Greek goddess of necromancy.  The v5 material indicates that the Giovanni [[Antediluvian]], Augustus, was [[Diablerie|diablerized]]; as the Hecata are still described as a "clan" though, and their default clan Disciplines are those of the original Clan Cappadocian, this all implies that Augustus was diablerized by a [female?] Cappadocian [[methuselah]] going by the name/alias ''Hecate''.