Via Bestiae

Society determines who lives and who dies. Human culture is a structure by which human beings decide what is murder, what is justice, and what is just an unfortunate but necessary evil. Society decides who starves in the winter, who doesn’t have the medicine to have a healthy baby, and who gets to spend all day playing chess and reading books while others struggle to make ends meet. By being a part of society, you become an explicit co-conspirator to murder and slavery, and potentially consent to your own death if society deems you somehow unworthy.

Cainites on the Road of Beast dismiss the most basic premise of society: the culture, the people, and those living among each other do not have inherent right, as a group, to judge each other. Or perhaps this manifests most selfishly in that society can do what it wants, but for the Apostate, society can make no claims of authority. To the Apostate, each monster creates her own rule and her own rights, and exists on her own terms. Any attempts to tie her down or force her to acknowledge an authority greater than her own is tantamount to attempting to murder her soul.

Nickname: Apostates

Ethics of the Beast:

• You have survived death, and now preservation of the self is the truest goal you can seek.

• The Beast exists to help you survive, not as some manifestation of evil.

• You have fought for everything you have, and have right to everything you’ve fought for.

• You cannot be led; you can listen to experiences gained by others, but no one determines the conditions of your existence but you.

• Civilization is a cushion that softens you and makes you weak. Exist beside it, but never in it.

Initiation: It is a common (if mistaken) assumption that those wild and alien vampires who drift from place to place come very naturally to the Road of the Beast. While this happens, it is rare. Most often, those vampires who come to the Road of the Beast come to it by manipulation or education. Often, the difference between those two ways onto the Road is hard to distinguish.

Sometimes, out of a sense of kinship from one outsider to another, a vampire on the Road will provide wisdom or guidance onto the Road. More frequently, a vampire on the Road will spot a vampire who otherwise cannot hang on to society and drags them into the metaphorical woods. They might sabotage the vampire’s life, driving him further and further from the comforts of civilian life until he has no choice but to embrace the Apostate life. From the outside, these lessons might appear cruel, as the Apostate destroys everything in the young vampire’s life. To the Apostate, though, this is the greatest act of kindness. Liberating anyone from the yoke of society and freeing them to be the predator that’s in their nature, no matter what it takes, is never cruel. It is for a blessed purpose.

Organization: It is antithetical to the Apostate to acknowledge any structure or authority beyond what she has created herself. There is nothing above the Apostate. Neither god nor vampire can tell her the best way to live. She exists only on her own terms and any compromises she makes are out of enlightened self-interest, not in pursuit of dogma or prestige. Still, at times, a group of Apostates may work and live together via a series of endless challenges for leadership or some kind of grudging neutral balance where no one is technically in charge. Some Apostates allow for a tense respect between teacher and student on the Road, though no one is likely to call the relationship out in such a way.

Rituals and Observances: Ritual suggests dogma, and in general, the Apostate rejects both holistically. There is at least one exception though, and that is in a sort of ritualistic relationship to the hunt. No matter how the Apostate comes to the Road, it is universally understood that the Beast sees the hunt as sacred, and in this, there is no questioning the Beast. There are uniform rules in which the hunt most be honored and treated as sacrosanct, but it should be clear that the hunt is separate from any other activity. Some Apostates prepare in silent prayer or meditation before going to hunt. Some wear personally precious fetishes or adornments to hunt. For some, a complicated series of songs, dance, physical demonstrations, and physical or metaphorical sacrifices precedes the hunt. To some Apostates, ritual to separate the hunt from her nightly activities is not just proper, but necessary. Some Apostates believe that hunting belongs to the Beast, and a liminal space where the Beast takes over without a full frenzy is necessary to hunt correctly.

Aura: Menace. The Beast is welcome in the Apostate’s skin, and it shows not only in the penetration of her stare, but in the flickering reflection of her soul. The Beast, in many ways, is her spirit, and its dangerous lust for survival at all costs paints savage shadows and blood all over her aura.

Virtues: Conviction and Instinct

HIERARCHY OF SINS AGAINST WHO YOU ARE

Score Minimum Wrongdoing Rationale

10 Risking your own life Survival is paramount.

9 Acknowledging a leader There is no “us”, only “me.”

8 Killing for pleasure Never waste.

7 Choosing to live in order over chaos Civilization softens you.

6 Cruelty for pleasure Cruelty is wasted energy.

5 Doing something for nothing Charity doesn’t feed the Beast.

4 Failing to kill when survival is on the line If it comes down to you or them, it must be you.

3 Not protecting what is yours Make it yours, keep it yours.

2 Having no things that are yours Mark your territory, mark your people, mark your herd.

1 Refusing to feed when hungry There is no balance when the Beast is denied.

## **Path of the Hunter**

If the Road of the Beast is about survival, a Cainite on the Path of the Hunter has honed her desire for survival to one single focus.

The Hunt is life.

The Hunter begins to think of her next hunt the second she rises at night. She falls asleep planning hunts to come. She might socialize with other monsters; she might even mingle with the kine in her periphery. She may find solace in the mental stillness of the animals she keeps as companions. But no matter what else she may do, she is always planning the next hunt.

The definition and methodology of planning varies from hunter to hunter and is a topic of hot debate when hunters cross paths. Some see the night as an endless opportunity to set traps and let prey come to them. Some see the ideal planning to involve absurd levels of physical prowess and talent. Some see the wisdom in playing some Cainite social games, if only because they can be leveraged to make her hunts go that much smoother and prevent poachers from invading her territory. Those hunters who do involve themselves with Cainite society tend to excel at it, because they have such clear focus of purpose.

Additional Ethics of the Hunter:

• Anything that is not the hunt, or meant to advance to hunt, is a distraction.

• Short-sightedness is the hunter’s only real enemy.

• Going hungry is the mark of a poor hunter.

• You are a predator, and part of the hunt, but not the only part of it.

Virtues: Conviction and Instinct

HIERARCHY OF SINS AGAINST THE HUNT

Score Minimum Wrongdoing Rationale

8 Ignoring potential threats to your hunt. Others will try to limit your hunting rights. Do not let them.

7 Acting without a plan A careless Hunter is a failure before she starts.

2 Hunting without ritual preparation The Hunt is the only sacred thing.

## **Path of Journeys**

What is the point of survival if you have only an eternity of playing it safe and no real stories to tell? Those on the Path of Journeys do not allow their unique condition to limit their existence to feeding and fighting. Instead, they see immortality as one endless adventure. Those who stay in one place, clinging to one way of existence and one faith might as well be dead. The vampire on Path of Journeys is an explorer who can’t help but turn the next corner, open another door, or crest just one more hill.

Most on the Path express it by abandoning one city, one region, and one culture after another in an endless quest to see what else is out there, and importantly, what else she can endure. Some vampires on this Path find smaller ways to express the endless journey. In ancient cities like Rome, for example, it’s possible to spend centuries exploring the ancient tunnels and catacombs.

Additional Ethics of Journeys:

• Stagnation is worse than death.

• Survival is a thing that must be tested, not simply accepted as important.

• The moment you are used to a place and its people, it is time to move on.

Virtues: Conviction and Self-Control

HIERARCHY OF SINS AGAINST JOURNEYS

Score Minimum Wrongdoing Rationale

3 Failing to explore You cannot know what lies around the corner if you don’t go looking.

2 Acknowledging ties to a land or people Reject their titles and their attempts to domesticate you.

## **Path of Liberation**

Civilization isn’t just a lie. It’s a trap. Humanity, and more importantly, all of Caine’s get should be free as they were in Nod, not tied up and trapped in endless cities built on lies and suffocating tyranny. If you have a leader, you have a murder, and anything short of regicide is simply slow suicide.

But seeing the cities and Princes for what they are, simply isn’t enough. To be truly righteous, to feed the Beast and return the world to a state that makes sense, it is going to take violence, destruction, and liberation of all hearts and minds.

Sometimes this means ingenious plans to overthrow and murder Princes. Sometimes that means kidnapping every whelp in the city to “liberate” them from the shackles of the cities of lies in which they live. Sometimes it means mass and illegal Embraces or shattering the Silence of Blood. The city is built on falsehoods. The vampire on this Path must pull down the city brick by brick, if necessary.

Additional Ethics of Liberation:

• The Vampire was in its truest state in Nod before the First City.

• Humanity was meant to live free, not in cities built to kennel them.

• Liberation is the only thing that matters, and any act that frees a mind is worthwhile.

Virtues: Conviction and Instinct

HIERARCHY OF SINS AGAINST LIBERATION

Score Minimum Wrongdoing Rationale

8 Failing to expose someone to a hard truth Liberation belongs to everyone.

6 Taking comfort in the city instead of dismantling it If it makes your life easier, it makes you weaker. Destroy it.

1 Empowering tyranny You create liberation, if they want it or not.