The Path of Caine
Followers of the Path of Caine, or Noddists, focus on Caine as the first and perfect vampire. All deficiencies of the Cainite condition stem from vampires' distance from Caine. A Noddist has two duties: To study every available scrap of information about Caine and the nature of vampires (including the duty to uncover more information) and to apply that knowledge to purging human limitations on the way to achieving vampiric completion. Noddists believe that academic study only takes them so far. It's good to read history, autobiographies and the like, but to really appreciate another vampire's experience requires more. Specifically, it requires diablerie. A Noddist who drains the essence of another vampires gets the victim's whole essence and sees the world, briefly, through another's eyes, sharing another's memories and thinking another's thoughts. Noddists never undertake diablerie lightly. It's a sacred moment on the step to unity with Caine's perfect state; it requires preparation beforehand and serious contemplation afterward. Cainite occultists created the Path of Caine in the 16th century. Ironically, they drew precisely the sort of inspiration from mortal affairs - in particular, the Enlightenment and its emphasis on reason anchored in historical study - that their Path rejects. The Camarilla's relentless advocacy of Humanity as the only safe moral code rankled the first Noddists. They had to acknowledge that most Paths force vampires into behavior that invites mortal reprisal but didn't want to accept the Camarilla's solution. Thus the Path of Caine includes its own version of the Masquerade while allowing (even encouraging) what the Camarilla abhors. At any given time, only a handful of vampires pursue the Path of Caine. It's rigorous and scholarly. Vampires who focus on the (un)life of the mind seldom flourish in the Sabbat, and very few non-Sabbat vampires would accept some of the Path's key tenets. Noddist scholarship doesn't always happen in cloistered laboratories: Noddists lead war parties, act as bishops and roam with wandering packs, all in the effort to understand Caine's life as a warrior, leader and wanderer. Modern Noddists often say that the Final Nights are a time of active scholarship, with passive book study waiting for calmer times to return. Vampires on the Path of Caine practice Conviction and Instinct.