Clan changes in the Camarilla: Near objectively terrible ideas.

[CTPhipps]

Ok.....so what I'm getting from CT and co are...."Because the writers wrote the Lasombra into a corner they are fucked and fans of them should be grateful that the writers didn't make them more fucked. Here is a way they can be slightly less fucked but still way more fucked than they were before they were fucked over. Why aren't you people happy?"

Paraphrased obviously.



( An attempt to add levity to a fairly hostile thread......please no ban.)

I feel like that's a weird complaint because, isn't that just, "Harry Potter's life sucked! It's almost like as if a fictional character had things happen to him because a writer wrote them in!" I mean, yes, bad things happened to the Lasombra because the writers wrote them in. The ONLY things that can happen to the Lasombra are things the writer writes in.

I mean, if your objection is, "I don't want the Lasombra to leave the Sabbat." That's fine. But I don't think its a silly idea that under a variety of bad things that are part of the metaplot, that a good chunk of the Lasombra backstabbed their allies.

Especially when the clan ideology is, literally, "Loyalty is for suckers."

Given the writing of V5 I have no clue if Lasombra is f*cked or not. Killing an elder seems to be a big deal though and I doubt that every defector has to "kill a bunch of their fellow Lasombra" to get out.

To be fair, the terms Kevin Jackson put out are more, "Kill a Sabbat older than you." Which is extremely flexible. Also, the Amis Nocti and others like them have their own deals separate from the Lasombra as a whole.

Sierra, the Lasombra who negotiated the terms, killed a Lasombra veteran of WW2.

[Ragged Robin]

Your argument seems to be why they shouldn't defect but they've already decided to defect. So it's a matter of them making sure when you leave Don Corleone's business, you make sure he can't put a hit on you afterward.

It's like, "It's a pretty bad idea to kill the people who are already going to try to kill you." Except it isn't because, again, they're already committed to leaving the Sabbat. Which they are because they don't want to fight in the Gehenna War and feel its suicide.

Is there an argument not to join the Camarilla if they have have already decided to defect? Just curious.
.

Why yes there are several options
1) scrap the idea because its terrible and isn't panning out. Investment fallacy swings both ways
2) join the anarchs instead.
3) make it clear that joining the anarchs or remaining in the Sabbat are preferable options to what is currently proposed and neither of which will benefit the struggling carmarilla and provide counter proposals.
4) pretend to agree to the moronic demands, purge every ivory tower advocates as your "sacrifices' and take the opertunity to riddle the carmarilla with deep cover agents. Play the whole thing off as a false flag operation and wait to see how things pan out.

[CTPhipps]

Why yes there are several options
1) scrap the idea because its terrible and isn't panning out. Investment fallacy swings both ways
2) join the anarchs instead.
3) make it clear that joining the anarchs or remaining in the Sabbat are preferable options to what is currently proposed and neither of which will benefit the struggling carmarilla and provide counter proposals.
4) pretend to agree to the moronic demands, purge every ivory tower advocates as your "sacrifices' and take the opertunity to riddle the carmarilla with deep cover agents. Play the whole thing off as a false flag operation and wait to see how things pan out.

Well it doesn't work for you and I hope you continue your version of the old version.

Personally, the Lasombra probably would have been better at home in the Camarilla from the beginning. After all they'd never fit in a sect that emphasizes egalitarianism and freedom.

I am really surprised you don't see the Camarilla's demand as nothingburger, though. The Lasombra won that one by a long shot. It's being paid to do something you'd do for free.

[Sergeant Brother]

The Lasombra would have made sense as a Camarilla Clan from the beginning, maybe Tzimisce too though that’s more controversial.

If there is an actual demand to kill an older vampire to gain entrance into the Camarilla, then that isn’t nothing. That is an outrageous insult of a demand that Lasombra should reject for the sake of their dignity even if there are victims that they could easily supply. Even if the Lasombra saw such killing as good for some kind of Social Darwinist reasons, I can’t imagine that many would want to so thoroughly humble themselves by capitulating to such a humiliating condition.

[CTPhipps]

The Lasombra would have made sense as a Camarilla Clan from the beginning, maybe Tzimisce too though that’s more controversial.

If there is an actual demand to kill an older vampire to gain entrance into the Camarilla, then that isn’t nothing. That is an outrageous insult of a demand that Lasombra should reject for the sake of their dignity even if there are victims that they could easily supply. Even if the Lasombra saw such killing as good for some kind of Social Darwinist reasons, I can’t imagine that many would want to so thoroughly humble themselves by capitulating to such a humiliating condition.

But how many Sabbat would they have to kill to prevent themselves from being hunted down as traitors anyway? I mean, the Lasombra Revised Clan Book said that the Lasombra Clan aggressively hunts down traitors even to the deterrent of the Sabbat as a whole.

[AnubisXy]

Is it short sighted, though? The Camarilla exists to benefit a privileged few and always has. It's why it's Gothic PUNK. What could hurt the Camarilla in the long run probably won't hurt the individuals of the Camarilla who might benefit from the Lasombra being a High Clan.

Does it though? I was under the impression that the entire point of the Convention of Thorns, which was really what formed the Camarilla, was that the Anarchs and the low clans would gain some measure of equality with the high clans. That the Camarilla signed for peace with them and allowed them into the Camarilla because they realized that fighting them was a losing prospect since continuing to fight would only end up pulling hunters down on everyone. This and the Masquerade were the big, important parts of the founding of the Camarilla.

If the Camarilla only existed to shit on the low clans and benefit the high clans, I have a hard time imagining that Anarchs or the low clans would have ever bothered joining. Instead the Camarilla, from its founding, pretty much existed as a system to guarantee that the anarchs and low clans would have an arena in which they could equally compete with the high clans and would be able to bring their grievances forward to be heard - something that the high clans found preferable to the other system in which they were chased down and eaten.

Even then, the short term benefit of the Lasombra is pretty impressive too, which is to cause immense permanent damage to the Sabbat and their morale.

As we're getting a Sabbat book, it's not a killing blow to the Sabbat but those Camarilla members who hate the Sabbat are still doing a lot of damage.

To some degree it doesn't really matter how the Camarilla treats the Lasombra traitors. It's not like they can go back to the Sabbat ("Haha, murdering you guys was just a prank bro!") They already sacrificed everything to make a deal with the Camarilla and they're basically stuck with it. At worst they could leave the Camarilla and join the Anarchs, but that would still be an absolute win for the Camarilla since they inflicted severe damage on the Sabbat (plus if all of the Lasombra left it would mean fewer chances for Manchurian Agents or Double Agents so that wouldn't be a terrible thing).

Meanwhile treating the remaining Brujah or Gangrel poorly is going to see them leave the Camarilla, and that's going to hurt. They do things and deal with territories that most of the other vampires in the Camarilla don't touch. They do things and go places most of the high clan vampires can't or won't. Meanwhile if the ex-Sabbat Lasombra leave, you've still got the Sabbat Antitribu. And, of course if you treat your low clan and rabble members like crap, that risks the Malkavians, Nosferatu and other low clans thinking they'll be the next ones to get treated like shit so maybe they should start thinking about leaving too.

Even a billionaire who hates and looks down on poor people recognizes that he needs poor people. Who's going to clean his bathrooms and shine his shoes? Without poor people he'll have to do all of that himself. That's the direction the Camarilla is heading with the high clans sitting around complaining about the Anarchs howling for their blood just outside the door and how it's so hard to find good help these days.

[Sergeant Brother]

Really, the idea of High Clans and Low Clans makes no sense. An elder vampire is royalty among the undead, regardless of the Clan or Bloodline. An Englishman might hate Spain and think that Spaniards are trash, but when he has an audience with Queen Isabella, he had best bow, call her “your majesty”, and generally show her the difference she’s due. If you’re a Ventrue or Toreador ancilla and you’re meeting a Nosferatu elder, it doesn’t matter if you have a gown made of diamonds and the mayor is your personal ghoul, even if the elder lives in the sewer and is covered with shit, you show respect to your better.

But how many Sabbat would they have to kill to prevent themselves from being hunted down as traitors anyway? I mean, the Lasombra Revised Clan Book said that the Lasombra Clan aggressively hunts down traitors even to the deterrent of the Sabbat as a whole.

If one in a thousand vampires defects, you can put resources into hunting them down. If a third of the Clan defects, then it’s just not possible, especially considering the fact that the Sabbat has a lot of other stuff on its plate right now. Of course, some Sabbat Lasombra would have to die in this process, but one for one isn’t feasible.

In fact, requiring that is a slap in the face. If the Lasombra are so prideful that they don’t even like defectors, how are they going to react to the Camarilla telling them to come lick their boots before they get the privilege of being second class citizens? I don’t think they’d go for it.

Especially with the Anarchs as an independent group now. Even if staying in the Sabbat was certain death for them, they could join the Anarchs instead.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Genuinely, when I was writing this thread, I was also tempted to make another about how HC/LC is bullshit. I do think the setting should have a healthy dose of Clanism, but drawing the line like that is... silly.

[Sergeant Brother]

Genuinely, when I was writing this thread, I was also tempted to make another about how HC/LC is bullshit. I do think the setting should have a healthy dose of Clanism, but drawing the line like that is... silly.

Low and High Clan is an old issue, so I guess it’s a little off topic, though as we see there is a connection. Of course, Clan loyalty and politics are going to be important, some Clans might have more power than others, but there aren’t going to be any Low or High Clans.

[Theodrim]

...I can’t imagine that many would want to so thoroughly humble themselves by capitulating to such a humiliating condition.

Because they don't view it as capitulation.

It's what they were going to do anyways; they're Lasombra. The weak nourish the strong, and those that died were simply proven unworthy of the blood. The "harshness" of those terms are simply, to the Lasombra, proof of the Ventrue's own hubris and short-sightedness for not having pressed for real terms of entry.

And, more importantly, look at this from the "outside"...

This Lasombra, who's certainly been a monstrous pain in the ass to the Camarilla for decades, having proven themselves in war against the Camarilla, and been hunted by the Camarilla for that entire time to no avail -- and likely, the Final Deaths of many an overly ambitious neonate -- shows up in Elysium. They bring a staked vampire who, simply by merit of being older, has been an even bigger pain in the Camarilla's ass, cost even more in terms of lost domain and unlives, and who the Camarilla was incapable of dealing themselves. And if the Lasombra isn't older than half the vampires in Elysium, the elder they took down is.

Ostensibly, this Lasombra took out that elder on their own.

And the rest of their pack. Or the pack that guarded them. Probably their ghouls too, for what that's worth. Maybe even a childe or two, if said childer took issue with the elimination of their sire at the time.

And they likely had to overcome the vinculum to do it, since inter-pack Vaulderie is not uncommon, particularly among priests and ducti and with their relevant bishops and archbishops.

Under the Second Inquisition's nose. When their clan flaw makes them glaring, unmistakable, undeniable, beacons of the supernatural. At an ever-heightening peak of public surveillance, and warrantless, secret, private surveillance.

What part of any that says, "yeah this is totally a vampire to be trifled with, and treated with disregard or disdain one would reserve for neonates and low clans"?

Dunno about you, but if I'm at the local lodge (because I live in a rural area) and some Grizzly Adams motherfucker walks in with a mountain lion corpse riddled with stab wounds and was like, "...damn gun jammed so I had to take care of it myself", I know who in that room is the last person I'd want to fuck with.

[Spencer from The Hills]

What's all this about Lasombra being "prideful" or "fucked"? It's a rite of passage for prospective Lasombra to lose everything, endure it and bounce back. They know humiliation in a way that many Ventrue never had to. "Oooh, I'm not a bishop anymore!" "My pack is gone!" "I have to kiss Ventrue ass!" Those Lasombra who can't get over it and make themselves powerful again are mistakes and we know the Amici Noctis policy on mistakes.

[archderd]

What's all this about Lasombra being "prideful" or "fucked"? It's a rite of passage for prospective Lasombra to lose everything, endure it and bounce back. They know humiliation in a way that many Ventrue never had to. "Oooh, I'm not a bishop anymore!" "My pack is gone!" "I have to kiss Ventrue ass!" Those Lasombra who can't get over it and make themselves powerful again are mistakes and we know the Amici Noctis policy on mistakes.

you forgot the other lesson almost every lasombra learned before their embrace which is that kissing the ass of incompetent arrogant fuckwits that are only in a better position then you because their dad owns the company is a complete waste of your time because they'll steal all the credit for your work leaving you with nothing until they've wringed everything they can from you at which point they'll discard you like your the shit on the bottom of their shoe.

[Taggie]

Genuinely, when I was writing this thread, I was also tempted to make another about how HC/LC is bullshit. I do think the setting should have a healthy dose of Clanism, but drawing the line like that is... silly.

Yes and no, HC/LC was a feudal (and older) division, and changed by location anyway, but at heart it's the us and them clique in full flow, as happens in every organisation ever.

[Taggie]

you forgot the other lesson almost every lasombra learned before their embrace which is that kissing the ass of incompetent arrogant fuckwits that are only in a better position then you because their dad owns the company is a complete waste of your time because they'll steal all the credit for your work leaving you with nothing until they've wringed everything they can from you at which point they'll discard you like your the shit on the bottom of their shoe.

Which makes them signing up for an eternity of that, in the aristo-corporate club that is the cam even weirder.even if they seized power they are still stuck with an ineffective failure constantly dominated and denigrated by the Anarchs...some how, and who picked up an idiot ball so spectacularly huge must threaten the gravitational stability of the solar system, while possessing it's own event horizon, and surrendered territory to the Anarchs, rather than finishing off the remnants of that plot tumor.

[archderd]

Which makes them signing up for an eternity of that, in the aristo-corporate club that is the cam even weirder.

you might want to read that comment again cuz that was kinda me point