Mother's Army

*"In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon
forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather
clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the
wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look
down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on
 the empty carpool lane of an abandoned superhighway."*

**Nicknames:** Wakeners, Luddites (derogatory)

**History:**

The origin of the Mother's Army is uncertain. Though the Army itself claims to have been around since the dawn of civilization, older members of the Circle of the Crone insist that the Mother's Army is an extremist splinter of theirs that emerged in direct reaction to the rise of the modern era.

Whatever the truth, the Mother's Army is a dangerous Kindred conspiracy with cells spread worldwide, pursuing their esoteric and apocalyptic goals, smashing or subverting other Covenants when they try to get in their way. Though all the other major Covenants make efforts to stamp them out, for they see them as little better than the Belial's Brood, the Mother's Army keeps popping back like an itch that refuses to go away.

**Ethos and Goals:**

The Mother’s
Army knows that the Crone is real, and that she birthed vampires. They know she’s
not human, she’s not vampire, and she’s something altogether weirder and worse.
They know all this because she’s out there. *Somewhere*. Sleeping beneath the earth—maybe in a glacier, maybe
beneath the seared desert sands, maybe at the tippy-top of some impossible
mountain. And from her earthen barrow she whispers. She whispers to anybody and
everybody that’s taken a taste of her blood. Which, by the way, is every vampire
within this covenant. The
Mother will only awaken and lead her people through the long dark night when
conditions are right, and the Mother's Army works to pursue these conditions, to see them realized.

So many
vampires believe so many silly things: they believe in God, they believe in
democracy, in royalty and transcendence. It’s all a precious waste of time. The
only thing that matters to the vampires of the Mother’s Army is the Beast and
the Blood, for those two things are the gifts the Crone has given them. The
things that make them *special*.

Every goal
the Mother’s Army keeps supports the ultimate uber-goal, which is to awaken the
Crone Mother herself. She is their foul and glorious progenitor, and when she arises
she will tear the curses afflicting the Damned asunder and change the world by
destroying it, ending civilization and ushering in a new age of primitivism.

Two goals
support this end result.

The first is, *awaken*
the Mother’s children*.* The Mother created the Kindred from her own monstrous flesh and blood, and those children, like her, are sleeping. They must first be roused from torpor. These children—often called
the *Igigi*,
orthe “second gods”—are sometimes thought
to be the clan founders, though nobody really has any evidence for that (and
the Mother’s whispers indicate that at least thirteen such children lay
slumbering, which obviously outnumbers the extant clans by more than double).

The second is, *learn*
all the Mother’s secrets*. Nobody knows exactly what this*
means, though the Crone delights whenever the conspiracy discovers a new Crúac
rite. (How can they tell she’s delighted? Because she screams and howls and
gibbers in what could only be described as a “frenzied paroxysm of ecstasy.”
And yes, every member of the conspiracy hears this in their minds and in their
Blood.) So, it’s easy to assume that once the conspiracy learns all her lost
rites, then that is the second piece of the puzzle. Of course, you know what
happens when one assumes...

**Weakness:**

The Mother's Army suffers from two severe deficiencies. First is, because of their overt monstrousness and Brood-esque disregard for their own humanity, as well as they are fanatical zeal, they often lack the ability to act in a subtle fashion. Many of their cells are discovered and destroyed by other Kindred or even Hunters because they could just not lie low when necessary.

Secondly, because each member of the Army hears the Crone, they view organization and structure as unnecessary. This makes it very difficult for cells to coordinate, and many of the Mother's Army's defeats can be attributed to their chaotic disorganization.

**Organization and structure:**

While the Mother's Army lacks cohesiveness, they have three universally recognised roles within cells.

*Persephone*

The Persephone—or “maiden”—is meant
to be equal parts “recruitment tool” and “sacrificial lamb.” This is how the
Persephone works: the conspiracy selects a vampire (often a female, though not
necessarily) to go amongst the other vampires and convert them. She is meant to
be non-violent, beautiful, even seductive. She walks among the other Kindred
and seeks to bring them over to the other side—always with honey, never with
vinegar. It rarely works out. Someone usually takes advantage of her. Often
enough she ends up on the wrong end of a beam of sunlight. And that’s okay. Because
when the carrot fails, it’s time for the stick; the maiden perishes, then the
conspiracy has full license to send in its howling throngs to tear out the
throats of the obstinate. What’s fascinating is, wise vampires *know*
the deal with the Persephone and thus choose to treat her well and not provoke
the “stick” reaction. But that means the Persephone has time to work her magic
and seduce other vampires over to the Mother’s side. So, by
not dispatching her, they’re potentially allowing the Trojan horse to open.

*Unearther*

If you were to think of these
vampires as “psycho-pagan ecstatic archaeologists,” you’d not be far from the
mark. These Damned of the Mother’s Army have a single purpose: to find the
secrets of the Mother and the slumbering Igigi and unearth them. They are equal
part “globetrotting academic” and “frenzied vampire clawing at the earth with
callused fingers.”

*Anakim*

The Anakim are the “children of the
Igigi,” or more easily thought of as the grandchildren of the Crone herself. Obviously,
a lot of these vampires remain in torpor, too (and most of them are over a thousand
years old, though from time to time the Igigi have awakened over the years and
sired younger childer), but a great number are awake and serve the Mother’s
Army in various forms. Some are wild siroccos of violence, where others are mad
oracles.

**Role in Princedoms:**

The Mother's Army is almost never tolerated. There are a few instances when a cell has decided to play the long con and the local rulers are too dismissive of them to stamp them out, but this is highly unusual. The Mother's Army does not really care about conquering or holding cities in the normal Kindred fashion, and thus, there are no Mother's Army Princedoms.