Sages and Anarchists – Clan Brujah

Within the known Clans of Vampire: The Masquerade, the Brujah (pronounced Broo-hah or Broo-zhah) are a mass of contradictions. Hailed in the early nights of the setting as a clan of scholar-warriors, the Clan image in the modern-day setting is that of disaffected punks who rail against any kind of establishment for barely any reason (the classic rebels without a cause). The truth lies somewhere in the middle, lost to the passages of time between the Second City through to Carthage and into the Modern Nights.

As can be expected given the dearth of information on Clan Brujah (often-times contradictory information), this should not be considered a definitive essay on the clan.

The contradictions of Clan Brujah begin right at the top with the identity of the Clan’s founder. There’s very little consistent information in the various supplements over the years of White Wolf’s publishing. Some accounts state the Brujah Antediluvian (the Clan’s creator that predates the Flood narrative found in the Bible) was destroyed and diablerized by their childer, Troile. Others claim that Troile is, in fact, the Clan’s founder. For the purposes of this essay, I’m going with the claim that Troile replaced the Clan’s founder in the distant past.

The Clan founder was rumored to be a stoic, a creature prone to temperance in attitude and focused on cold logic. This trait was shared amongst all of the Founder’s immediate childer, with the exception of Troile, who exhibited a fierce passion that bordered on uncontrollable rage. It’s from this diametrically opposed viewpoint that Troile eventually diablerized her sire, consuming the very soul of the Founder and splintering the clan. Those few who continued the logical, dispassionate ideal of the Founder were called the True Brujah. While significantly small in number, they possessed the ability to temporarily control the flow of time, a modification of the discipline Celerity (superhuman speed and reflexes). Those who call themselves Brujah throughout history are the offspring of Troile and carry their sire’s insatiable passions and uncontrollable anger. This manifests in the Clan’s primary weakness: Rage. All Brujah who are of Troile’s bloodline have an unshakeable anger welling within them, which is difficult at the best of times to control.

After the fall of the Second City, the Vampiric Diaspora began, with the children of Caine scattered across the globe. It was in ancient Greece that the ideas of Athenian philosophers and orators first took root in Clan Brujah, inspiring them to seek to create a world where Vampires and Mortals could peacefully co-exist. Eventually, the first Brujah War began between Clan Brujah and Clan Ventrue, beginning a long-spanning rivalry between the two clans that would reach its apex in Carthage.

In the real world, Carthage is the site of the Phoencian capital city, a ruin left over from the days of the Roman Empire. At its height, Carthage was the center of an Empire that controlled much of the Mediterranean and almost rivaled Rome as the preeminent power of its day. In the World of Darkness, Carthage is the site of the grand experiment of Clan Brujah, an attempt to create a place where Mortals and Vampires could live in harmony. To the Brujah, the fall of Carthage (at the hands of the Roman Ventrue as well as other clans), is the lost utopia that can never be again, similar in many ways to the myth of Atlantis. For this transgression, a fervent animosity exists into the Modern Nights between Clan Ventrue and Clan Brujah, with both sides claiming their own version of the Carthage myth.

The truth, as is always the case, is never so cut and dry. While Carthage in the World of Darkness may have started out as a utopia where Kindred and Kine lived in harmony, that wasn’t what it ended up becoming. At some point in Carthage’s history (in the World of Darkness), the Baali (a clan of vampires devoted to worshipping and serving demonic entities) settled in the city. Troile, the “founder” of Clan Brujah, fell in love with Moloch, one of the ancient Baali that settled in Carthage. What began as a utopia became a charnel house, with humans sacrificing themselves and their own children to the bloody “gods” of the Brujah and Baali.

The destruction of Carthage at the hands of Roman Ventrue and their allies was not an altruistic pursuit (such things simply do not exist among the children of Caine). Instead, it was a means to remove both an infestation of demon-worshippers and ensure the dominance of Rome in the region. When Carthage fell, the city was destroyed, with many of the Brujah and Baali meeting the Final Death in the process. Troile and Moloch are rumored to be buried under salted earth, forever trapped in torpid slumber on the site of their greatest folly.

Lost after the end of Carthage, Clan Brujah eventually found their voice during the Anarch Revolt, an event in the 15^th century that saw many younger vampires banding together to tear down the structures of their elders and seek greater freedom for themselves (at least, that was the rhetoric used for the movement). Many Brujah who were disaffected by the constant power struggles of the Jyhad (the eternal war between vampire clans) flocked to the banner of the Anarch Revolt. Others in the clan focused on maintaining the existing power structures, believing that they could change the system from within.

When the Camarilla first formed in response to the Anarch Revolt, the majority of Clan Brujah joined as one of the founding Clans. While the penchant for revolution and fighting for change never dissipated, the Brujah by and large understood the necessity for the Masquerade (the cloak of secrecy that keeps vampires out of the public eye). Still believing they could change the system from within to reach some semblance of mythic Carthage, the Brujah became the most passionate defenders of the Camarilla, using their natural Disciplines of Potence (superhuman strength), Celerity, and Presence (the ability to project one’s personality in clearly supernatural ways) to fight for and defend the institution. Many Brujah, though, rejected this notion of fighting for what they saw as another tool of Kindred elders to remain in power. These Brujah joined the nascent Sabbat as Brujah antitribu (meaning anti-clan), utilizing their vampiric powers to serve as the front-line soldiers and generals of the far more violent sect.

As time wore on, an ideological split began to appear within Clan Brujah. On the one hand were the Iconoclasts, the prototypical rebel that everyone automatically assumes as the default image of Clan Brujah. The other group were the Idealists, those Brujah who strived to embody the Clan’s origins as intellectuals and scholars. The divide between the two groups is almost always an age barrier, with many Iconoclasts being the young and newly Embraced vampires whereas the Idealists tend to be vampires who have seen the passage of a couple of centuries.

The late 20^th century and early 21^st century saw the largest upheaval among Clan Brujah. A second Anarch Revolt began, largely focused on the Western United States (particularly California). While there are many Clans represented among the Anarchs, a sizable portion are made of young, unaffiliated Brujah who joined the ranks of the Anarchs, choosing to forego joining either of the two largest sects, the Camarilla and the Sabbat. The Anarch Free State became another attempt by the Brujah to recapture the myth of Carthage but like that mythic city, it was doomed to failure. Most of the territory gained by the Anarchs were lost back to the Camarilla in short order, save for a few holdout cities.

That changed when Theo Bell, a Brujah Archon (and former slave from the Antebellum South) assassinated two of the most notable Ventrue elders, Hardestadt (one of the principal founders of the Camarilla) and Jan Pieterzoon (Justicar for Clan Ventrue, one of the members of the ruling body of the Camarilla). Seemingly overnight, the entirety of Clan Brujah removed themselves from the Camarilla, fully throwing their support behind the Anarch movement. Losing one of the founding Clans of the organization dealt a heavy blow to the Camarilla while simultaneously bolstering the Anarchs with fresh bodies, many of whom were battle-tested from decades or centuries of warfare between the Camarilla and the Sabbat.

Combining intellect with passion is always a risky proposition, since it tends to fall to one side or the other. Clan Brujah best exemplify the duality of Kindred: slaves to their passion but striving to focus on a higher, more noble goal (as best as they can manage).

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