| Samedi |
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The Samedi are universally reviled as the most disgusting of Cainites, for all of them share a singular curse: Upon the Embrace, a Samedi becomes immortal like other vampires but he has only an imperfect preservation of the flesh. Some appear leathery and emaciated, like unwrapped mummies, while others look like corpses in various arrested stages of decay with a variety of noisome features - foul fluids oozing from tattered skin, rotted noses, death-rictus grins and sunken eyes. The Samedi are a recent phenomenon, with none recorded as older than 250 years. The eldest, known only as the Baron, is said to lair in the Caribbean, where the line is said to have first appeared. The Giovanni are most often believed to be the parent clan of the bloodline, and indeed, enmity over some old wrong runs deep between the two groups. Occasionally rumors of Nosferatu involvement circulate, but neither group seems to give it great credence. For the most part, the Stiffs have little interest in sect politics beyond the good pay that princes or bishops fork out for Samedi skills as mercenaries or assassins, the Stiffs Embrace rarely and then only from a small selection of candidates. Generally, the Samedi include those who find a fascination in the study of death and its physical processes. Morticians, existentialists, houngans and death cultists have all been inducted into their ranks. Candidates come from a wide range of races and social groups; the only real requirement seems to be an appreciation for death in all its forms.
Roleplaying Hints: Death comes to all things in time; it simply came to you in an unusual way. Life itself is defined by the fact that it ends. Such beginnings and endings are your passion: The animating moments of life, the pains that it endures and the moment that it succumbs. This quest is not so much a spiritual one as a drive to know how the process of creation and cessation works. By extension, you learn about the vampiric condition, the means by which life is extinguished and true death held at bay. You will see death in many forms, whether you are a simple witness or a delivering demon.
| Disciplines: Fortitude, Obfuscate, Thanatosis |
Advantage: With their strong connections to the process of death, combined with a tradition of dark spiritualism and insight, the Samedi have a significant knowledge of the shadowy Underworld and its ghostly denizens. Although they must pay the additional Experience Trait costs usual for non-clan Disciplines, Samedi can learn the Necromancy Discipline and its paths without need for a Giovanni instructor - a great number of the clan's members are necromancers par excellence without any traceable instruction. Samedi necromancers start with the Sepulchre Path, as usual, and most extend their insight rapidly to the Bone Path.
Disadvantage: Like the Nosferatu, the Samedi are physically repulsive in the extreme. When a Samedi's true form is apparent, the creature cannot initiate any Social Challenges except ones involving intimidation. No Samedi can possess the Social Traits of Alluring, Gorgeous or Seductive, and they all have the Negative Social Traits of Repugnant x 3 which can never be removed.