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When one imagines the organizations of the Kindred world, there are the Sabbat, the Camarilla, the mysterious Inconnu and those vampires who claim to stand outside all sect concerns, but in that act, are themselves parceled into organization - the independent clans, the anarchs, the Autarkis. One, however, has fallen from the great heights of secrecy and self-claimed mastery into destruction and diaspora. The passing of the "True Black Hand" has reverberated through the Sabbat and into the World of Darkness itself. There are few certainties regarding the cult - after all, anything that has its origins in human prehistory must be clouded with supposition. Most cults rarely leave step-by-step instructions regarding their world domination plans. Even the survivors continue to sweep away their tracks with rumor and legend. All that remains are fragments pieced together from the accounts of survivors, describing what is both horror unimagined and hubris unchecked. The True Black Hand was said to have sprung up in the ancient Middle East, long past the nights of the First and Second Cities, founded by a cult of mortal magicians studying death and the afterlife; some called this gathering the Tal'mah'Ra. The early magicians made contact with Cainites, and the two groups traded knowledge, each attempting to understand the other's craft, without success. Cainites could not learn mortal magic nor could the magicians learn Disciplines. In pursuit of knowledge, some of the magicians accepted the Embrace at the cost of their mortal gifts. As the new vampires learned more of the mythology behind their condition and shared their knowledge with their mortal brethren, the cult determined that the loss of the Antediluvians held back the world from its potential. Henceforth, the cult would bend its entire effort to the revival of the Third Generation, ushering in a new age of magical potential under the will of the Antediluvians. In modern parlance, the group would be considered a Gehenna cult, albeit one that had both mortal and vampiric followers. Late in the last century, a number of events led to its fall, but few have any true idea of what happened, and those that survive aren't talking.
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