                               THE TRUE BRUJAH



   By Sean O'Connell

   Carthage was Utopia. It is a living dream. Millennia ago, we Brujah
   created a city where Kindred and kine could live together. We strove
   for the heavens only to see others grow jealous. They betrayed us and
   destroyed the dream. Now we are divided, and we have gone from being
   scholars and philosophers to cretins and clowns like your sire,
   Smiling Jack.

   - Critias to Dre, newly Embraced Brujah

   At one time the Brujah were not all rebels. At one time they sort to
   understand, not to destroy.

   Before Carthage. To many of the Brujah of the time, this was a dirge.
   Their dream destroyed, their plans unravelled. Many were claimed to
   Hunters, to the plots of the Jyhad, as they fell into despair, and so
   into carelessness.

   Some, however, did not grieve. They were angered, seeking vengeance.
   These Brujah were the basis of the High Council of Clan Brujah. They
   met in secret in the ruins of Carthage, and formed their plans for
   revenge.

   Each time they had given their dreams flesh, the other, jealous clans
   came and destroyed what they had built. Even with their wide powers
   over the elements, their powers of Presence and their Potence-enhanced
   strength, they did not have warriors to fight the other clans.

   A plan was conceived to give them these warriors. From this point
   onwards, the High Council would conduct a 'breeding' program for
   Brujah warriors. Those who Sired were to find those with the fighting
   spirit, who were high of temper, who could defend their Elders. They
   were no longer to be taught their Sire's powers over the earth, but
   instead were to be taught to move with the speed of lightning.

   The Council believed that the combination of Potence and Celerity
   would give their warriors the ability to defend them, to create a
   warrior- class within the Clan. Those who created Childer against the
   Council's edict were held to be in violation of the Third Tradition
   and were either destroyed along with their Childer or ostracised and
   no longer granted the clan's protection.

   There was more to this policy however, that met the eye. For the
   most-part, it was Troile's Childer rather than Brujah's that had
   somehow learnt the discipline of Celerity, and thus it was they more
   than their siblings that Sired Childer. As a result, over the
   following two centuries the number of true Brujah fell, and the number
   of Troile's Childer increased.

   These Childer were taught nothing of their Sire's original abilities,
   but simply assumed that they too were masters of Celerity. They were
   also instructed to destroy any Kindred they saw using the Elementalism
   discipline, described to them as a form of Blood Magic.

   The years passed, and the warrior-Brujah's childer became more
   populous. They either forgot or did not learn their Sire's heritage,
   and the High Council faded from sight, so as not to present a target
   to the other clans. The Ventrue, the Malkavians, the Toreador, all
   assumed that the elder Kindred of the Brujah had been destroyed or had
   fled, or melded with the earth, no longer a factor in Kindred
   politics.

   The other clans of the kindred noticed this change in the younger
   Brujah, but did not pay it much heed, often to their dismay when these
   new Brujah went mad, destroying all in sight. For since the fall of
   Carthage, the Brujah had been always on the edge of Frenzy. Some
   theorised it was the rage of Troile, echoing down through his
   bloodline. The High Council considered it to be an unfortunate
   side-effect of their new Childer's posession of Celerity, one that may
   reap its own benefits when they used their Childer in battle in the
   centuries to come.

   This situation continued for a thousand years. The High Council, from
   their various Havens and hiding places watched, and their warrior-
   childer ravaged the Kindred world, increasing in numbers and
   generation. The Council cared not for their Progeny's fascination with
   the Anarch movement, regarding the battles against the other Elders as
   good training.

   Indeed, when the Sabbat was formed, they would have collected their
   Childer and fought against the Ventrue and other clans. Except for one
   thing.

   The Inquisition. Their fascination with their own Childer, their
   tweaking of their destinies, led the inquisitive mortals to
   themselves, the evil ones who sat in the background like the
   puppet-masters. And why, came the argument in the mortal councils,
   destroy the puppets when you may destroy the puppeteers

   By flame, by stake and by sunlight, the mortals found and destroyed
   the true-Brujah, one by one. Their secrecy from the world of the
   Kindred, long their shield, became the sword used against them, as
   they could not even call for their warriors.

   And so the majority of the High Council passed away, their plans
   flapping lose in the winds of history. Without their subtle control
   upon their behaviour, their childer raged unchecked... the Sabbat, the
   wars of the Jyhad, all would have been lessened with the intervention
   of the High Council.

   Not all of the council was destroyed. A small number of those that
   knew the truth escaped the flame, and fled into hiding, seeing this as
   a repetition of the destruction of Carthage. They lost much of their
   will to live, and slipped into Torpor.

   The years passed, and their grief lessened, even in Torpor. The
   remainder of the High Council awoke, and took stock of the world
   around them. Times had changed since the dark ages of the Inquisition.
   New Empires had arisen and fallen, new thoughts and philosophies to
   light.

   First in priority was regaining their control over their breeding
   experiment. This was complicated by the existence of the Sabbat. No
   longer was there a single Clan Brujah, but now there were the Brujah
   antitribu. These childer had conceived a plan to free themselves from
   tyranny, and in this they mirrored the true beliefs of the High
   Council - freedom and self expression.

   Yet once again, a Brujah's dream was shattered by the other clans. The
   Tzimisce and Lasombra clans took control of the dreams of freedom and
   turned them to anarchy and chaos.

   Even their warrior-childer had split into several factions. The
   Iconoclasts were the chaotic and devastating warriors that the
   breeding program was designed to bring about. The Idealists on the
   other hand were extremely suspect to the High Council. Many of them
   decreed them to be the "legacy of Veddartha", and their attitudes of
   controlling all of the Brujah were termed "Ventrue-syndrome."

   It was the Individualists that surprised the High Council the most.
   Even after 2,000 years, the true Brujah spirit seemed to spring anew
   from their chaotic childer. Many individualists were secretly
   sponsored by the High Council, and the most promising were led subtley
   towards an 'apprentic- ship' - an apprenticeship that ended in them
   being taught the true history of the Brujah, and led into their full
   legacy.



  TRUE BRUJAH



   Nickname: Witches.

   Appearance: The appearance of this clan is fairly sharply divided
   between the Elders, who are often at least 300 years old, and often
   prefer to dress in the styles of their lifetimes, at least in private,
   and the younger Kindred.

   These younger kindred often are a strange mix. Scholastic backgrounds
   are mixed in with very fit sportsmen. The members of this clan tend to
   dress casually but conservatively.

   Haven: Their Havens are either their Elder's Haven, or in homes or
   apartments near Universities.

   Background: True-Brujah are always intellectuals of some degree. Many
   of the newly-Embraced Kindred have university degrees, and no small
   number were teachers in their mortal lives.

   Character Creation: True Brujah often have a Pedagogue or Scholar
   background, but many of them are quite fit as well. Visionary, Deviant
   or Architect demeanors and natures are common. Mental Attributes are
   usually primary, but Physical Attributes are often quite high.
   Knowledges are almost always primary. True Brujah commonly have
   Contacts and Mentor as their backgrounds.

   Clan Disciplines: Elementalism, Potence, Presence.

   Clan Weakness: The Blood of Brujah has the strange characteristic in
   that it is almost impossible to form Blood Bonds with it. True Brujah
   have theorised it is the spirit of Brujah herself that prevents these
   bonds, as she was known to hate any form of compulsion or binding. In
   order to Blood Bond someone to themselves, the Thrall must drink 9
   times from the Kindred, rather than the standard 3. [Alternatively,
   the blood is _incapable_ of forming blood bonds.]. This does not apply
   when the True Brujah herself is the Thrall, it takes the standard
   three seperate drinks to blood bind a true Brujah.

   Organisation: The true-Brujah part of the Brujah clan is so small in
   comparison to the other clans that at this stage they are still
   relatively closely knit. They rarely have formal meetings, but instead
   the clan is organised around an Archive, with one Elder and his
   childer in a city.

   These true Brujah often masquerade as Intellectualist Brujah, so as to
   allow themselves to move easily within the Kindred world.

   Quote: We must take control of our Sibling's Childer, as we control
   ourselves, and bring them back into the fold.

   Stereotypes:

   Brujah: These lost Childer need to be brought into line, not by
   wholesale destruction, but by pruning the bad from the good. Our
   program has not failed; it has suceeded beyond our wildest dreams. It
   is simply the fact that it is now out of control.

   Ventrue, Malkavian, Toreador: They destroyed Carthage. We will have
   only the minimum interaction with these clans, and we will play our
   cards very close to our chests when dealing with them. If their Elders
   suspected the truth...

   Tremere: This clan is _fun_. No other clan presents such an
   opportunity to play with their minds. Our elemental abilities confuse
   them, and their manipulations disgust us. Simply take care that none
   of them gain your blood.

   Nosferatu: Watch them. If they learn the truth they may sell it to
   others. A pity, as they have learned much.

   Gangrel: They have helped us in days gone past, and it is said that
   they helped some of us escape Carthage and then the Inquisition.
   Respect them.

   Camarilla: A perfect opportunity to watch our opponents move. Forget
   not that this runs both ways.

   Sabbat: A waste. Deluded Kindred, believing themselves free from their
   Sire's Sires. This group is one of the areas to be pruned.

   Setite: Trust them not. They are our cousins, but they are lost to the
   darkness within themselves.

   View Elementalism discipline.
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