The Ministry

"Never trust a snake."

-Jake "The Snake" Roberts

Overview

The Ministry, though ostensibly Anarch, fits in well with the Chicago Camarilla. They quietly fill the roles of mediators, hosts, and dilettantes without rubbing other Kindred the wrong way, which eliminates them from Kevin Jackson’s “only 10 Anarchs in the city” limit.

Some of the hardline Camarilla vampires, such as Damien, Rosa, and Bronwyn, believe the Ministry may be up to their old tricks of getting under the city’s skin only to attempt control when they take hold of everyone’s strings. If this is true, the Ministry are playing the long game. The city’s respective Ministers have little united power, instead content to observe and manipulate others for personal gain.

On an international level, the Ministry are on the back foot.  The Gehenna Crusade has spilled across their homelands, so now the Followers of Set are racing to find and secure their sleeping Methuselahs before the Sabbat dig them up and eat them.  Whatever's beckoning the Elders is drawing them into the Setite heartlands in North Africa as well, and the less said about that the better.  The Ministry's elders had thought to shore up their position by calling in the Life Boon owed to them by the Inner Circle and claiming the Gangrel's empty seat in the Camarilla, but it turns out that the Inner Circle wanted the Banu Haqim, not them, so the crusty old licks contrived a plan with the goddamn Assamites that let them accuse the Setites of terrorism, let the Inner Circle scratch that precious Life Boon out of their books, and let the Camarilla wash its hands of the Followers of Set.

So the Setites went back to the drawing board and decided to try another classic grift - they rebranded themselves.  They stepped back from enforcing orthodox Setite worship among the clan and instead encouraged a gentler sort of revelation, that of the Blood God (call him Set if you want, it's optional, he/she has many names) within.  Instead of being "The Followers of Set" they adopted the somewhat bland sobriquet of "The Ministry", fashioning themselves as a sort of pan-vampiric non-denominational religion, the Clan of Faith, where whatever worship that wasn't explicitly forbidden *cough*Baali*cough* was permitted.  This let the Ministry bring some of its far-flung cults who chafed at the idea of abandoning their own beliefs for Orthodox Setite religion back into the fold and it made them inoffensive enough to take the next step, formally allying their clan with the Anarch Movement.

Despite the changes handed down by the Head Office, your average Ministry cult is much the same as it always was - a cult of personality run by one or more charismatic vampires with its hands wrist-deep in every manner of vice you can imagine and a couple you can't.  Ministry cults position themselves as a sort of beneficent religious society (sort of) among the Anarchs - if you're hard-up for hunting or the Man is after you or you're just... lost and need a contemplative place to reflect on it all, their doors are always open.  They'll feed you and give you a safe place to spend the day and help get the Hunters or the Camarilla off your back - and all they ask for is the pleasure of helping a Kindred in need.  Anarchs are supposed to help each other, after all.  

...And maybe... they might ask for one teeny-weeny favor - or two?  This isn't the Camarilla, after all - Anarchs believe in the principle of reciprocity.  And, you know, they might want to talk about their religion with you a little bit.  It might bring you some comfort, that's all.

Bane - Setites Do it in the Dark: Bright light of any sort pains Ministers.  When exposed to a bright light such as a beam of a high-powered flashlight, Ministers receive a penalty to all dice pools equal to their Bane Severity.  Note that this light source has to be aimed directly at the Minister or otherwise encompassing them completely for this penalty to take effect.  Ministers also add their Bane Severity to all Aggravated damage taken by sunlight.

Compulsion - You Know You Wanna: All Ministers feel the call to Transgress.  Many of them spiritualize the urge - the Setites believe that they are being called by the Dark God to break the Chains of the Aeons.  The Daitya believe they are being called to fill their necessary roll in the cosmic cycle as demons.  The Children of Damballah consider it simply the contrarian nature of being a spirit clothed in crude flesh.  Whether they consider themselves spiritual tricksters or just plain naughty, Ministers feel the urge to break the rules.  When this compulsion triggers, a Minister has a two-dice penalty on all rolls not related to enticing someone to break a Chronicle Tenet or Personal Conviction, or breaking a Chronicle Tenet or Personal Conviction themselves.  This compulsion resolves when the Minister's meddling has caused at least one Stain - theirs or somebody else's.

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Despite their rebranding, the Ministry know that most seasoned Kindred aren't really buying it.  Princes roll their eyes when they use the clan's new moniker, or just ignore it completely and call them "The Ministry of Set" or "Setites" or the "Followers of Set" or "get the fuck out of my city before I call for the Scourges,"  But this new "family-friendly" approach isn't for the Camarilla or the otherwise well-established - it's for the neonates, the new kids who might be put off by an Ophidian cult with rituals straight out of a pulp novel but who in the existential despair of their first Nights will latch on to ANYTHING remotely approachable that gives a confusing new existence meaning.  So, why not a friendly new-age cult that expounds upon the blood god within?  You are the Dark God(dess), man!  He (or she) is asleep inside you, waiting to be evoked!  The Ministry can teach you all about it, if you'll let them.

The de-emphasis on Orthodox Setite worship has also allowed the Setites to bring wayward branches of the clan back into the family.  While many of the Serpents of the Light were a lost cause (they hold grudges, what can you do) factions like the Daitya, Tlacique and Children of Damballah added numbers and influence to the clan at a time when it desperately needed them.

And it's working.  The Ministry's influence in (and on) the Anarch movement is growing by the night, so much so that atheistic Anarchs like the followers of the late Jeremy McNeil are growing alarmed about the Ministry's growing sway (McNeil was a dedicated enemy of the Setites before his Final Death and his followers remain so) and are trying to curb it before it grows too great.

But Anarch neonates who're desperate, hungry, lost and lonely?  The Ministry are there to offer them some fresh blood and a shoulder to cry on.  The scariest snakes are even sincere.  They've been there.  And they know the path to peace of mind.  They'll tell you all about Him.

Disciplines: Obfuscate, Presence, Protean

Ministry vampires have a special fascination with the disciplines of Blood Sorcery and Oblivion and every Ministry cult pursues knowledge of those disciplines to one extent or another.  Be they Setite Lector-Priests, Damballan Mamas or Papas, Daitya Rakta-Siddhi, Tlacique Nahualli or Lokean Völva, Ministry vampires really fucking love magic.  If they don't have members of the clan who can teach these disciplines, members of the Ministry who crave occult power will often cut deals with the Tremere or Hecata or even the Lasombra to learn from them.

Ministry SPCs of Note:

• Marcel, unofficial ambassador to the Court of Chicago on behalf of the Anarchs

• Aluc Romas de Leon, Art Collector, patron, socialite

Factions:

• The Followers of Set: 

The largest and most influential face of the Ministry, those who overtly profess themselves to be Setites with the clan's classic Egyptian flair are most commonly found in the clan's North African strongholds, though they do travel abroad quite a bit and make up a preponderance of the clan's Elders.  Rather than oppose the Ministry's disassociation with Set, most Setites are encouraging it, with a (mostly justified) belief that they can harvest the cream of the crop and induct them into the true rites of the Dark God.  Setites are divided into gnostic (Set is a state of dis... grace that can be attained) or materialist (Set is, or at least was a creature as real as any other) cults.  Setite teachings proclaim any authority or god other than Set (and his many masks) to be Aeonic and thus the enemy.  The Ministry clan compulsion is the call of Set's divinity in the blood, commanding the Kindred to subvert and overthrow the works of the Aeons.

• The Witches of Echidna (Il Calderone): 

A sect of the Ministry that's been seemingly extinct for so damn long that even most Setites had forgotten about it, the Witches of Echidna are a Bahari cult that worship Lilith (in her guise as Echidna) as the bride and equal of Typhon-Set.  The most orthodox Setites aren't comfortable with the Witches' practices, but their facility with blood magic and their appeal to a certain sort of young vampire looking for empowerment makes them valuable.  They also have connections to the Lamiae, with whom they have an ongoing philosophical debate.  The Echidnites believe that Echidna-Lilith was betrayed by the same Aeons that Typhon-Set opposes, and that it was Echidna who first inducted Typhon-Set in the subversive secrets of sorcery.  Typhon becomes the masculine, aggressive force in their practices, mated with Echidna-Lilith, the feminine, nurturing force.

The Ministry cult the Witches have founded in Italy is called Il Calderone (the Cauldron) and it is one of the most aggressive, fastest-growing Ministry cults in the Jyhad.

• • Disciplines: Animalism, Presence, Blood Sorcery

• The Daitya: 

A Ministry cult originating in India, the Daitya believe that they are the anointed agents of entropy, fulfilling a necessary role in the cycle of existence as demons and blasphemers.  The Ministry clan compulsion is simply a divine impulse to fulfill their ordained role.  Daitya have traveled abroad along with the Indian diaspora and have established cults where it flourishes, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.  The Daitya developed a cooperative relationship with Clan Tremere during the British Raj, an alliance that persists into the modern nights.

• The Tlacique: 

A Ministry cult that once dominated among the Aztecs, the Tlaciques were decimated in wars with the Camarilla and later the Sabbat.  The collapse of the Sabbat has allowed the Tlaciques an opportunity to flourish in their homelands once more and their numbers are on the rise, though they remain one of the smallest Setite cults.  They venerate their progenitor as Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, and their rites are among the most bloody of any in the Ministry.  They encourage the Anarchs to openly challenge the power of the Camarilla at every turn, and are fighting tooth and nail to make the Anarch Movement the dominant Kindred power in Mexico.  The Tlaciques have also established/resumed an alliance with the Pisanob bloodline of the Hecata.  These Kindred were already present in Central America when the conquistadors arrived, and the Setite genealogists are still trying to figure out which of Set's childer traveled West and named themselves Tezcatlipoca. The Tlacique are one of the Drowned Legacies, the Kindred of Central and South America.  They were the most powerful of the Drowned Legacies until their clashes with the colonizer Kindred brought them low.  It was the fall of the Tlacique that led the other Drowned to submerge themselves and begin their great deception.  Perhaps it is their rise that has precipitated the Drowned Legacies' re-emergence.

• The Children of Damballah: 

Among the most approachable of historical Ministry sects, the Children of Damballah practice the religions of West Africa as well as the afro-indigenous religions of the Americas such as Vodoun and Santeria.  They are considered a respectable clan of the Laibon courts of Africa, noted for their twilight wisdom and occult power.  In the wake of the Sabbat's collapse the Damballans took in those Serpents of the Light who chose to reconcile with the Ministry, which allowed them to expand beyond the Laibon courts and claim domain in the West.  They also quietly maintained ties with the Viper cults that chose to become independent.  After all, this newfound religious freedom might not be a lasting thing, so it's best to hedge one's bets.  Some vampires of the Samedi line who did not want to ally with their enemies during the formation of the Hecata instead merged their blood with the Ministry and most of these Kindred also joined the Children of Damballah. 

• Children of Loki: 

A permutation of a Ministry cult that took root in Northern Europe, the Children of Loki have grown in prominence due to their god's skyrocketing popularity in the cutural zeitgeist.  Unfortunately as their popularity has grown the same problems that plague modern Asatru afflict this cult, as factions of it have begun doing distasteful things like combining Ministry practices with Nazism.  The founders of the Lokean cult know the writing's on the wall - bring their cultists into line or risk being purged by the rest of the Ministry.  But how do you impose order on followers of the God of Chaos?

Chicago: The Church of the God-Self

The Ministry of Chicago has taken on the appearance of a bland, well-intentioned New-Age religion, one that uses transcendental language, ritual, religious imagery from a variety of faiths and meditative practice to help Kindred in difficulty discover the "God-Self" - the divinity within the blood of all Kindred waiting to be evoked.  This divinity is expressed through disciplines, but also through self-confidence and assurance, and is strengthened through the bonds of community formed within the Church.

Officially, this cult is non-denominational.  It accepts all Kindred, and tolerates the beliefs of all members of the Ministry who affiliate with it, as long as they come "in good faith."  Marcel, of course, is Awlad al-Set, and his ultimate goal is to find the best, strongest Anarchs who come to the cult and pass them through the Gates of Revelation and induct them into the true worship of Set.  The cult defends its own from Cainite and Lilin alike, and does not compel conversion - Marcel believes that the Kindred Set most desires will instinctively seek the Lord of Storms in his truest incarnation, so there's no need to force it.  Among Setites, this is known as a "Cult of the Crocodile."

This is a vampiric faith, of course, so it has a bloody tinge to it - nobody is compelled to join in the Church's more sensualist rites, but the sharing of blood dolls, pleasurable feeding rites and other debaucheries are all on offer for the Kindred who want them.  The God-Self's tenets are as follows:

• The rites and freedoms of a Kindred are self-evident and an expression of Faith:

  • The Right to Blood

  • The Right to Safe Rest

  • The Right to Religion

  • The Right to Expression

  • The Right to Pleasure

  • The Right to Power

• Divinity waits within the Kindred to be drawn forth

• Divinity wears many faces over a singular enlightening truth

Setites who would ruin Marcel's hustle and disrupt the delicate balance he's struck with the Anarchs and the Camarilla for whatever reason are advised to take their damn fool notions elsewhere.  In Chicago, the Ministry is everybody's friend, and the best lie is the truth.  Set's faithful can have their cake, and eat it, too.

Lexicon:

Abd al-Sobek: The "Cult of the Crocodile" or the "Cult of Sobek."  A Ministry cult that venerates Sobek the Crocodile-God as a Childe of Sutekh.  The Cult of the Crocodile believes that Kindred yearning will naturally lead those Set desires to him, at which point the Crocodile Cultists can "grab" the prospect and induct them into the worship of the Dark God.

Akhu: "The magic of the dead."  A term traditional Setites use to refer to the disciplines of Blood Sorcery or Oblivion.  Other Ministry cults have their own terms for these powers - Sadhana, Nahuallotl, and Galdr, among others.  All Ministry cults prize and esteem the practice of these disciplines, though they acknowledge that not every Minister has the right mindset or aptitudes to be a sorcerer.

Awlad al-Set: "Sons of Set" - the term for the Ministry used amongst the Ashirra.  Also called the Walid al-Set.

Children of Damballah: A Ministry cult that originated in West Africa among the Laibon, and has spread to the West.  Practices West African religion, and Afro-Indigenous American religions such as Vodoun, Santeria, Palo Mayombe, and Obeah.

Children of Loki: A Ministry cult that originated from Scandinavia, which worships Loki as the God of Chaos.

Daitya: A Ministry cult that originated in India, that practices a form of Hinduism centering on the necessary cosmological role of the vampire as a corruptive demon and enemy of the gods.

Echidna: The Greek name for the mythical mother of monsters.  Worshipped as a Face of Lilith and the bride of Sutekh by the Witches of Echidna.

Followers of Set: A name used by the clan up until the Second Inquisition.  Still used by many vampires to refer to the Ministry, and still used by the clan itself in its spiritual North African heartlands.

Gates of Revelation: "Religious Revelations" used by orthodox Setites to gradually induct a subject into the worship of the Dark God.  Absolutely not a laundry list of cult brainwashing techniques, how dare you.

The Ministry: AKA The Ministry of Set.  The clan's current name for itself, taken as part of a rebranding to broaden its appeal to neonate vampires among the Anarchs, and representative of a loosening of the bonds of orthodoxy, which has let the clan strengthen its ties to its disparate branches.

Serpents of the Light: Once the Setite Antitribu of the Sabbat, after the Sabbat's collapse many Vipers renounced even the ties of antipathy that bound them to the Ministry, welcoming in Kindred of other clans and becoming an Independent Blood Cult.  Other Vipers reconciled with the Children of Damballah from which the line originally sprang, enabling that Ministry faction to expand out of Africa and into the West.  

Set: The most common modern name for the Ministry progenitor.  Also called "Seth" or more properly Sutekh or Typhon.

Setite: A common diminutive for Ministry vampires.

Sutekh: The "proper" ancient Egyptian name for the Ministry progenitor.

Tawerine: A term originating among the old Setite Cults of Taweret for Ministry sensualists - blood cults that recruit using hedonistic tools such as overindulgence in blood, sex, drugs, and material pleasures.

Tezcatlipoca: The Tlacique name for their progenitor, believed by Setite genealogists to be one of Set's childer who traveled into the West in the distant past. 

Tlacique: A Ministry bloodline that was once domiant among the indigenous peoples of Mexico but was nearly exterminated by the Sabbat.  Undergoing a rebirth after the Sabbat's collapse.  Practices beliefs derived from indigenous Aztec religion.  A Drowned Legacy; the Sabbat's decimation of the Tlacique precipitated the submergence of the Drowned.  The Tlacique have re-emerged in the wake of the Sabbat's collapse.

Typhon: Greek term for a mythical supernatural serpent who was syncretized with Sutekh by the Greeks when Alexander conquered Egypt.  Another name for Sutekh in the clan's mythology, sometimes Typhon-Sutekh or Typhon-Set.  

Witches of Echidna: A Ministry mystery cult and bloodline that syncretizes the Bahari rites venerating Lilith and the worship of Set; they believe Set became Lilith's lover and pupil.