Clan Tremere Primer

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Clan Tremere

Editorial Notes

Note the first: This page represents the degree of IC knowledge a Tremere character should have about the House/Clan's history. It is a redux of the various books and presented as an IC understanding of the history. Certain things are presented as known and factual that, in the books, are expressed as uncertain from a historical perspective. This is an editorial decision to create an established dogmatic doctrine, which is how House Tremere work.

Note the second: Within the halls of the Chantry, Tremere refer to each other as House Tremere. In general, when talking to other Vampires, they refer to the Clan as Clan Tremere. Only if you're being haughty and arrogant would you use 'House Tremere'. And that's a tool best used infrequently.

Note the third: Tremere characters know this. Any Tremere character found discussing the secrets of House Tremere with any outsider, regardless of how much the outsider claims to know already, should expect instant death. House Tremere spent centuries estalbishing themselves as cornerstones of the Camarilla.

Hidden History

By the dawn of the 11th Century, the world began to disbelieve in the supernatural and magics of the Order of Hermes began to fade. Goratrix, a member of one of the Houses of the Order of Hermes, devised a ritual to provide immortality and thus safeguard the legacy of House Tremere's magic. Goratrix, Tremere and six of the leadership underwent the ritual, entered a deep slumber and awoke with their Avatars. Little by little, House Tremre were Embraced, each blood bound to the Pyramid to ensure loyalty and structure; the pyramid being one of the sacred symbols of enlightenment.

Clan Tzimisce, in retribution for Goratrix' use of Tzimisce; Gangrel; and Nosferatu Kindred in his experiments devising the ritual of immortality, began a war that would last for a little under a century. This conflict, known as the Omen War, lead House Tremere to create the Gargoyles as their foot soldiers and, eventually, to discovere and diablerize the Salubri Antideluvian Saulot. Casting their lot in with the Princes in Europe, mostly Ventrue at the time, Tremere proved themselves ideal viziers. Cultivating deals which they adhered to unwaveringly, providing their unique blood magic to the clans. Clan Salubri were villified in this arrangement, cast as diablerists and demon worshippers by an impeccable propaganda engine.

The Black Death was the first turning point for House Tremere, their blood magic removing the threat of plague from Ventrue Herds. This provided an opportunity for them to both ingratiate themselves with the power elite and to present Thaumaturgy as a tasteful, noble, sanguine Discipline and not at all the bloody, inhumane, inhuman, sanguine thing it is. It was not long after this that the Inquisition began its war on the Supernatural, in particular Vampires. Many of the House Chantries were burned down, but this provided House Tramere the second opportunity to insinuate itself as reliable and upstanding members of Kindred society. Turning their magic to the protection of Kindred society, once again, the Inquisition found papers missing, their scouting missions hexxed, their investigations quite literally cursed.

Then, which House Tremere consider their crowning achievement, came the Camarilla. Though, of course, Clan Ventrue take the credit for the formation of the Kindred authority and enshrining the Masquerade, and Clan Toreadore for making it culturally necessary to join; it was House Tremere's magic that allowed Kindred to survive the Inquisition. After the foundation of the Camarilla, the Anarch Revolt was brought to a swift end with the Convention of Thorns. It was the cursing of the Assamites, preventing them from committing diablerie without risking death, that cemented House Tremere as the singular authority on Thaumaturgy within the Camarilla.

Modern Nights

Thaumaturgy