How come none of the clans remember the Baali?

[Hello]

I suppose it could be why there are vampire infernalists, despite so much fiction telling them that deals with the devil are stupid and doomed. There are likely some vampires who think they are just dealing with deluded alien spirits. Essentially just engaging in something akin to Koldunism. They may not even believe in souls and think they are chumping these deluded alien spirits by selling them something that doesn't exist.

Fun fact lex luther did the same thing

[Sergeant Brother]

I suppose it could be why there are vampire infernalists, despite so much fiction telling them that deals with the devil are stupid and doomed. There are likely some vampires who think they are just dealing with deluded alien spirits. Essentially just engaging in something akin to Koldunism. They may not even believe in souls and think they are chumping these deluded alien spirits by selling them something that doesn't exist.

Despite the existence of magic, there isn't necessarily any evidence for any specific religion being true. Well, maybe there is, but not directly known by most vampires. I would imagine, though, that most atheists turned into vampires would instinctively turn to the religion of their community and/or family. I'm an atheist myself who was raised Catholic and if I were to be embraced, it might be irrational but I might give Catholicism another look. That would go double for anybody with an Abrahamic background, since most vampires believe that Cain was the first vampire. A vampire who was repelled with a cross would have an even stronger reason to believe in Christianity.

Though, the flip side of that is infernalism, which makes sense in a weird sort of way. If vampires are of the devil, then that's the side you're on so might as well make the most of it. The biggest hurdle is that within Christian theology, infernalists/demons/the devil are necessarily the losers.

[Aleph]

I would say Vampires have to be quite superstitious, in the face of all the weirdness they can and will find out there. But I want to make that a different claim from being religious

Beliefs in science would surely get a shock, but I would say actual religious sentiments would be similarly shocked for completely different reasons: Even if you can accomodate vampires into your religion (vampires are "canon"?), there's the whole thing that now you're one: The state of being a vampire it's damning for most religions. How do you cope with all that being a vampire entails?. Likely you could've seen as part of, so to speak, "the army of the damned" . This ain't no small deal, even criminals may seek salvation (and many do). Being religious, you can't just shrug this off.

Tipically, religious people are expected to go to their priests or equivalent when they're "forced" do bad stuff or have spiritual doubts, but that's a masquerade breach now, unless you can find a vampire-priest. But vampire-priests have a problem because religious restrictions for "holly people" are often a lot harsher than on the layman, so if you find some they're most likely very fishy or very heretical.

Most people don't envision themselves as those that deserve God's punishment, and yet something so momentous couldn't have been luck. Or could it?. Reactions may vary a lot, and would depend on the religion and the person, but it wouldn't surprise me in the sligthest if this would send some into atheism (In a "God wouldn't allow this happen to me!" fashion). In particular if they never found real proof.

It's a harsh world, if you believe you're trully damned. It could be dangerous w/o some serious guide. I imagine a religious person could run to the local priest at nigth, at the sligthest chance, hoping that with prayer and a confession, God will save him/her!. A sire can't allow that to happen, and probably there are various, tried and true, ways to avert this (I would imagine it happens a lot :P).

But superstition?, belief that "something, something, God and the Devil", and I'm not going to speak bad about Thor because, who knows?. That ain't so hard to live with. Prob. most vampires develop something like this in the face of magic and whatnot.

[Shadeprowler]

unless you can find a vampire-priest..

Giotto Verducci, progeny of Antonio DeFigio. Leader of the Abbey of Mount Zion (from Fountain of Bright Crimson ) who happens to be a Baali I'm sure gladly help any vampire in the mater of crisis of faith ^^
Jokes aside, I think its a bit hard to remain a devoted atheist as a vampire
Every age had its own version
Now Caine's story is the "accepted" with the curse of God delivered by Angels (and if these exist, demons are an added bonus in the pack)
Before that vampires tend to think they are the descendants of Ixion
The Einherjar traced themselves to the warrior Canarl, who was raised from the dead by Odin
Just to name a few
Of course, the fact some of the ancients loved to play Gods, like Mithras, Artemis, Odin, The All-High, Tiamat and every other blood-gods, a bit makes it hard for any vampire who chose to study vampire history and relegion to be a "true beliver"
But Demons (be alien entities from the edge of creation alá Churulu, Fallen Angels, or the Djinn, or god-to-honest Demons from Hell... or a certain Hell. ) are very real in Vampire and like a door-to-door sales man, tend to pop up to make an offer you probably won't refuse...

[CTPhipps]

I grew up in the American South AKA The Bible Belt, so I feel like I have a different perspective on what 1st Edition Vampire: The Masquerade had to say about religion versus a lot of international people or people from other more seuclar American communities who seem to think the book supports a positive Western interpretation of religion. I've always felt the fundamental mythology of V:TM was ANGRY at its Christian origins and distinctly hostile.

Part of this is the obvious influence of Anne Rice who has, as an author, a longstanding and very public feud with the Catholic Church due to the fact she's (sometimes) a devout Christian who utterly hates the teachings as well as hypocrisy of the church regarding women as well as gays (among other issues). So we have Louis who is a devout Christian and vampire who hates himself. Louis being the archetypal V:TM vamp (or at least High to mid range Humanity Toreador). We also have people like Marius who are genuinely CONFUSED by people like Louis since he predates Christianity and doesn't understand this whole, "We are damned and should hate ourselves" thing.

But in a very simple way, part of the mythology of Vampire: The Masquerade is embracing the concept of "unjust damnation." Which in the simplest terms is "God hates you." That through no fault of your own, you will be sent to Hell and are living a living version of it as a tortured monstrous psychopathic killing machine in a never-rotting corpse cursed to hurt those you loved in life and harm the innocent because a curse was placed upon you.

Your afterlife does not matter because you as a vampire are in Hell already.

I imagine it would be very hard to maintain any sort of faith in this sort of environment because no loving God would condemn his children to be tortured like this. Plus, you will eventually find out the afterlife (The Shadowlands) are effectively a very Jewish conception of Hell and everyone goes there.

Caine represents a somewhat Miltonish rebellion against God because he recognizes this curse is bullshit and shaking a fist at Heaven is at least a sensible reaction. Which is why Demon: The Fallen and Vampire: The Masquerade work well together.

Amusingly, you could also substitute V:TM morality for Black Spiral Dancers as they note Gaia curses all Crinosborn (we need a new name for them) and Garou similarly.

[Bluecho]

While a newly Embraced atheist vampire is not obligated to give up their atheism, it's difficult to square their new condition with a complete rejection of, if not the spiritual, then the supernatural.

Like, the vampire just discovered, definitively, that vampires exist. Something they were very sure weren't real until very recently. What else were they wrong about?

Obviously, any vampire can rationalize even the superhuman feats of vampires and even "vampire sorcerers" away. Characters are allowed to be wrong. There's at least one Flaw in VtM that directly covers remaining stubbornly skeptical about their own vampiric condition. So dogged refusal to acknowledge the supernatural is certainly possible. In practice, most would consider such an attitude somewhat foolish, in light of the circumstances. And when vampires wield terrible supernatural powers that violate all known physical laws, simple pragmatism will keep even a staunch atheist open to the possibility of things beyond their materialistic view of the world. It's only prudent.


All of this being said, we may be missing the forest for the trees here. A person learning about the Baali doesn't necessarily need to believe they can commune with demons.

They only need to be sold on the idea that the Baali think they can.

You don't need to believe in demons to believe demon worshipers exist. Nor do you need to think their powers are real to take them seriously as a threat. Their "infernal gifts", whether true product of a devil-deal or "merely" a weird expression of vampiric power, are still weapons a vampire must be wary of. And the kind of person who would pledge themselves to Evil, categorically, and engages in various forms of human sacrifice or the like, is probably not someone you want to hang out with.

If you tell the atheist vampire they're being targeted by Infernalists, they'll probably say, "oh, that guy sounds like a wackjob, that's not good".

[monteparnas]

I grew up in the American South AKA The Bible Belt, so I feel like I have a different perspective on what 1st Edition Vampire: The Masquerade had to say about religion versus a lot of international people or people from other more seuclar American communities who seem to think the book supports a positive Western interpretation of religion. I've always felt the fundamental mythology of V:TM was ANGRY at its Christian origins and distinctly hostile.

I'll get here later to better address the thread, but I want to talk a little about this now.

We know (at least most of us) that VtM's Noddism is an angry criticism on Christianity and not a mere validation of the faith. It isn't the problem.

The problem for the people that don't like Noddism's objective truth is that it limits the setting to a situation where only Christianity has any validity either to be praised or attacked. Every other religion is relegated to a secondary role where they're objectively false and make way for the great exploration of Christianity.

A good example of what we go through is already happening at this thread. Some posters, like Aleph, said that most religions see the vampire condition as damning. That's not true. This is one of the many, many assumptions people too used to Christianity make about religions in general. Many religions would see such a condition through wildly different lenses, and probably not as irredeemable evil or anything to this effect.

VtM is at birth a criticism on Christianity, on a particular type of Christianity, and a good one at that. But once the setting grew, keeping it at this at the expense of everything else only replicates one of the main issues that is Christianity making itself the only measure for all things spiritual, where your belief in something else is promptly reduced to a comparative role with it instead of its own thing.

[Lysander]

I got the impression that after the failures of Nergal and Moloch leadership of the bloodline. That the remaining members would keep a much, much lower profile amongst the children of Caine and would make an effort to make the other clans that they are gone extinct. I'm also thinking that your "typical" Neonate, Ancilla and Elder wouldn't have heard of them or believe that they even existed or were a faction of another clan. I remember in the revised Brujah Clan book that they thought that the Baali were a faction of the Assasmite/Banu Haqium.