Clan Anayama

## Description:

Clan Anayama is a Taoist extremist monastic order that operates primarily within the Continent of Pilbo's Methamura Shogunate and the surrounding area. The Clan has undertaken their "obligation" to act as a force of destruction in the world, tearing down people, places, and organizations that they believe are at their peak so that something new can grow in its place; the Clan participates in a twisted form of Taoism that allows for this strange ideology, an ideology which has put them at odds with almost every other faction in Pilbo. Even other Vampire Houses fear the destructive glare of Clan Anayama.

Very few people inside the Continent of Pilbo are aware of Clan Anayama's existence, and fewer still outside of Pilbo have ever heard the name. The monastic order maintains a strict policy of secrecy, and allows only special members to leave their fortress for extended periods of time.

### Organization:

#### Capital: Unknown

Clan Anayama is led by an unknown patriarch of great skill and power; this leader is known to be a Vampire of incredible strength responsible for the organization's founding in the Continent of Pilbo, although his true identity remains a secret. This mysterious figure directs Clan Anayama at all levels of its existence, guiding new members and sending out agents on their missions across the Continent. Beneath this unidentified monk sit the Vampires of Clan Anayama, organized according to their seniority and skill; these Vampires are the masters of the Clan's techniques and tactics, warriors of unmatched brutality and ferocity. The Vampires lead groups of lower-ranking members and train those beneath them; Vampires are also the only members of Clan Anayama that the Clan will send out on long-term missions. Under the Vampires are the mortal members of the Clan; they carry out the more mundane tasks of the Clan's day-to-day operations, working to maintain the Clan's holdings or maintain equipment. The mortal Clansmen live in worse conditions than their Vampire superiors, and train constantly so as to eventually reach Vampirization. Beneath the mortal members are the Thralls - the mortal spies that live amidst the wider populations of the world, living double lives as cultists that worship the Clan as gods of destruction. The Thralls aid their agents in a great many number of ways, from sabotaging investigations to aiding Vampire agents to smuggling supplies or providing money and resources. The Thralls may eventually be accepted as full mortal members, at which point the Thralls' practice of Neidan will void their enslavement to their masters.

Clan Anayama accept recruits from anyone who is willing to join and willful enough to withstand their entrance examinations. As the goal of the Clan's teachings is to transform oneself into a Vampire through the practice of corrupted Neidan, however, the Clan does not accept anyone who is incapable of becoming a Vampire, like an Element-Touched or Helltouched. The Clan recruits at all times and accepts as many new adherents as they can in order to fill their ranks with loyal members.

Clan Anayama dedicates most of its resources to maintaining its fortress monastery within the mysterious mountains of the Shogunate, sending out Vampiric agents to continue the Clan's sacred mission, and attracting/training new recruits. The Clan has access to relatively few real resources; its emphasis on self-sufficiency ensures that it has little need for large quantities of supplies. Instead, the Clan spends its resources on its missions and the agents that undertake them, training and equipping the assassins intent on toppling foreign empires.

Clan Anayama maintains hostile relations with the JPCU, although the Clan is unaware of the organization with which they actively fight. The JPCU's clandestine operations to hinder the Clan are undertaken in total secrecy.

### Equipment:

The monks of Clan Anayama wear no armor and dress relatively plainly, clothing themselves in traditional Shogunate-style robes of black, grey, and/or red; their clothes are made of the finest silks, loose and maneuverable.

Being an organization based from the Continent of Pilbo, Clan Anayama's technological capabilities are limited. The group maintains a level of technology equivalent to that of the wider Shogunate.

The Clan's magical abilities are proportionally more advanced, however, in a manner similar to the rest of the Methamura Shogunate; the Clansmen are all trained in forms of mystical martial arts and taught to harness their inner power according to their practice of Neidan, turning even the mortal practitioners into dangerous combatants.

The Clan's most powerful tool comes from its practice of Neidan, Chinese "internal Alchemy." Neidan has allowed Anayama's founders to devise a way to induce death and Vampiric reanimation in the practitioner through sheer force of will, although this leaves a permanent mark on the user's sanity and Soul. This application of a twisted form of Taoist spiritualism has enabled Clan Anayama to devise their own form of Crimson Fonts, created in the Soul of the practitioner that grants them their Dark Chi and Vampiric transformation. This knowledge, deemed forbidden and incredibly dangerous throughout the Shogunate and wider Continent of Pilbo, is taught to all adherents within the Clan and shared with the masters of the order.

The Clan applies a great number of tactics and strategies to accomplish its goals. According to the Clan's doctrine, a practitioner should stop at nothing to obtain as much power as possible and destroy anything that provides an obstacle to said strength; as such, the Clan's members employ whatever means are necessary. Clansmen will use espionage and subterfuge, blackmail and extortion, bribery, murder, intimidation, and more to get what they want without hesitation; their missions are above the morality of mere mortals. Clan Anayama's members are feared throughout the Shogunate and spoken of only in hushed whispers in the surrounding regions, the stories of Vampiric warrior monks obliterating entire cities told to children as scary bedtime tales to ensure obedience.

### Vampiric Abilities:

Clan Anayama's unique form of Vampirism lends itself to similarly special abilities. Being only a few centuries younger than Taoism itself, Clan Anayama is over two (2) millennia in age and therefore one of the older Vampire Houses.

Vampires of Clan Anayama's higher ranks possess a number of abilities that are widely different from those of other Houses. Besides the standard enhanced senses, strength, speed, and reflexes, Vampires of Clan Anayama are also immune to the effects of sunlight; similarly, they are incapable of eating or drinking even Alchemical solutions like potions. They are also fertile despite their Undead nature, allowing them to mate with living mortals to produce living mortal children; two (2) of the Vampires cannot produce offspring, however.

Most strangely of all, however, is their lack of fangs and inability to spread their Vampirism conventionally. Vampires of Clan Anayama do not have fangs and do not drink blood, although they are able to do so and obtain the same euphoric effects from it like all other Vampires; Clan Anayama's Vampires obtain their Vampirism through their practice of the Clan's twisted variant of Neidan, meaning that the Clan's Vampires cannot spread their Clan's Vampirism. Instead, only willing practitioners that master the Clan's forbidden meditation techniques can attain the state of Undeath that their masters have. The Clan's practice of Neidan and rejection of everything external has granted these Vampires the strange mutations their House exhibits.

## Religion:

Clan Anayama practices a twisted version of traditional Chinese Taoism. The faith lacks gods and is extremely internally focused, centered on personal achievements and ritual adherence. Divine interaction comes from meditation, training, journeys, etc. The Clan's faith also includes accompanying forms of mystical martial arts, which are considered a form of worship and adherence in and of themselves. The Clan believes in a form of reincarnation according to traditional Taoist beliefs, although the Clan interprets the traditional ideas in a unique manner; where conventional Taoism claims that reincarnation is a natural continuation of a person's role within the wider universe's patterns, Clan Anayama believes that reanimation is a superior and legitimate alternative. While Undeath is not natural, it still exists as a powerful cosmic force within K2, a cosmic force that Clan Anayama has manipulated for use in a technique of achieving Enlightenment. The supernatural for the Clan's Taoist spiritualism exists in the form of Neidan's Three (3) Treasures: Jing (essence), Chi (life-force), and Shen (inner divinity); those three (3) concepts encompass the form of Magic practiced by the Clan and act as conduits for the other forms of Magic the Clan employs. Worship for the members of Clan Anayama come in many forms, including adherence to rituals, frequent meditation, success in missions to enforce the destructive process of natural entropy, practice of the Clan's mystical martial arts, etc. The Clan has no official holidays within their form of spiritualism.