The Need for Humility

I visit the palaces and halls of my kind, and find cold welcome there. 2 My attempts to bring to my brethren the truth that I have witnessed are met with public scorn and laughter. 3 Yet I persist in my efforts. Surely this willful ignorance must be provoking to the Lord! 4 Few and far between are the Kindred who humor me with a receptive ear or a kind word, 5 and they are reviled by the Romans for this conduct. 6 Yet I persist in my efforts. 

7 I cannot couch my message in the language of the philosophers and the arguments of Senators, and my speech is unimpressive. 8 Yet I persist in my efforts. 

 - Torments 4:1-8

Each of us have our strengths and weaknesses, our abilities and our shortcomings. As is evidenced by the failings of Longinus after he has received the message of his purpose, even those with righteousness on their side do not always succeed. A thing being right and just does not mean that it will come to pass in this fallen world. Yet conviction may drive us to strive ever harder in the face of adversity.

The fact is that though Longinus bore a message from God on the purpose of the Damned in this world, he did not have the skills to convey it at first. He persisted in his attempts until at last he proclaims in Torments 6:7 "I am too lowly a servant for this task."

In frustration and despair Longinus travels for a time, He wanders aimlessly, wrestling with these emotions. He admits to doubt in himself and his ability to succeed. He calls out to God. He weeps. He debases himself. In Torments 8:8 he has reached his lowest state: "I lie in earth like a pile of dung."

Longinus receives no word from God. He receives no sign of the rightness of his course. No angel visits him to spur him onward this time. Instead, he must reach within for wisdom, acknowledging his failures, but knowing that they need not persist forever: "I have failed in my ministry, but I cannot succeed while lying in the dirt." (Torments 9:2)

Longinus turns for solutions not to himself, for he has failed, nor to God, who has not answered his prayers directly. Instead, he turns to mankind. Though Longinus slew Christ, was Damned by God, and was visited by an angel to reveal his purpose in the past, he humbled himself before men so that he might learn. "With humility and faith I approach the teacher. 2 I come to him as yet another student and I beg him to impart to me his wisdom." (Torments 12:1-2)

Many nights pass as Longinus learns and studies at the foot of his teacher, a mortal man. When at last he has learned enough that he might better fulfill his purpose, he retreats to pray. "I fast and pray and beg the Lord for an answer, but all is silence. 2 I call upon my newfound wisdom, and decide that I must trust in man’s free will and God’s holy purpose." (Torments 14:1-2)

While guided by his experience with the divine, Longinus ultimately finds that God does not give us all the answers of how we might fulfill his will. That is for us to find. We find it in recognizing our shortcomings and in reaching out to others. We find our way in listening and learning, in the bountiful knowledge of humanity, and in ultimately placing trust in others. None can go it alone in this world. It is only with humility that we can ultimately succeed.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

On External Threats

Many view the Testament of Longinus as solely a religious document, but the fact is that it contains a tremendous amount of information on the kindred condition, kindred history, kindred abilities, and the matter which will be addressed here: external supernatural threats to the Damned.

A third night, Vahishtael came to me again, and said to me, “Come, and I will show you the creatures that you must know of, and understand. 

2 You shall teach your disciples of their existence.” - Eschaton 13:1-2

Within the Book of Eschaton, we find information about several threats to kindred, their creation, their abilities, and the means to combat them. Many of these threats remain with us today, nearly two millennia after they were first recorded in the Testament.

Larvae are the mindless kindred-like husks that can arise form sloppy feeding to the point of death. Belial's Brood are kindred who have "sold themselves to their sin" yet hold more reason than a draugr, including a cunning tongue with which they seek to convince others of their course. The half-Damned are part mortals who lure kindred with the most intoxicating scent of their blood, yet those who drink find it a poison. VII are those who bear the blood of Satan, which awakens every seven generations.

The strix, or Owls, are a most grievous threat which can inhabit the bodies of the dead, even kindred bodies, and bend them to their terrible will. Consider what the Testament has to say of them:

40 On the last page, I saw an Owl made of smoke. I trembled, for I knew that the Owls were more dreadful than any of the other monsters I had seen. 41 The Owl flew towards a dead man hanging from a tree and became smoke and entered into the corpse. 42 The corpse moved, and came down from the tree. 43 The Owl was in the corpse’s eyes, and they glowed. 44 The corpse with the Owl inside it waited by the street and ambushed the living who passed, and killed them and drank their blood. 45 And each time, it stole a new body from the people it had killed, now a soldier, now a Holy man, now a young woman, now an old woman. And always, the yellow gleam was in the Owl’s eye. 46 Presently, one of the Damned came by, and the Owl beat him down and entered him, and the Damned became his slave. 47 The Owl kept the body, and wreaked havoc with it, and the Assembly of the Sanctified was in ruins, as I saw the Owl whisper and make strife among the faithful. 48 And it opened the doors of the courts of the Damned, and a flock of the Owls came, and flooded into that place, and stole our bodies and crushed our souls, 49 and made the living suffer ten or a dozen times what we had, and not for the Purpose of God, but for the pleasure of it. Vahistael said, “Fear the Owls, and always remain vigilant. 50 Drive them into the sunshine, and do not allow the ones who deal with them to have any hope of survival, or any trial, or any forgiveness. 51 The Damned who deals with the Owls is cursed, and doubly cursed, and has no right even to Hell.” - Eschaton 13:40-51

This is but a hint of the knowledge contained within the Testament. Each of the threats above has at least a paragraph of information about them and the Church of Longinus has more recorded besides. This is one of the many reasons that the Testament's study is so vital to kindred society. Within its pages we find answers to questions that many who walk tonight have not yet even thought to ask. Yet here, for nearly two millennia, that wisdom has been recorded. Know that this body of wisdom is a thing to be shared with all kindred, that they might understand more of themselves and the dangers of the world we inhabit.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

On the Great Heresies

If any community shall be found to be in practice of heretical faith, they shall be expelled from the body of the faithful. Yet if they and their abbot shall make penance and recant all heresies, they shall be welcomed back to the community of brethren. - The Rule of Golgotha 7:19

A number of profound usurpations of the Longinian faith exist. These greatest heresies are persistent things, taking the essential truths of the Testament of Longinus and the teachings of the Lancea Sanctum and perverting them. What makes a matter heretical is that they adopt and twist aspects of the Covenant with God, rather than asserting their own separate and independent belief. While there may be spiritual errancy in a course that does not accept God or his plan for us, such matters should not raise the true ire of the faithful in the way that heresy does. Heresy is a blight that exists within the Church itself.

There are a number of great heresies, many of which commit the essential sin of taking the trappings of the Longinian faith and combining them with the practices of the more temporal covenants. These heresies are then a threat and affront to not just the Lancea Sanctum, but to the other covenant they seek to usurp and twist as well. I will present a brief overview of four great heresies and the manner in which they commit this usurpation of both covenants.

The Livian Heresy is the most familiar to many kindred. Livians combine the trappings of faith of the Lancea Sanctum with the reverence of the mother of Longinus as the Crone of the Acolytes. Livia is elevated to a state akin to Mary, but given the dark appellation of the Mother of Vampires or sometimes the Mother of Monsters. Livians seek to mingle the blood sorcery of the Circle of the Crone with the dark miracles of the Longinian faith. This mingling is clearly seen as antithetical to proper members of both covenants and has been seen as such for nearly two millennia.

The Crimson Cavalry is a much more recent heresy, born a little over half a century ago. It combines some parts of the Longinian faith, particularly its most eschatological aspects, with the most violent and anti-establishment impulses of the Carthian Movement. The Crimson Cavalry seeks to bring about the biblical end of days by overthrowing all established order in the world. Only once the world of kine and kindred alike is in a completely anarchic state, do they believe that the Second Coming of Jesus will occur. Clearly the extreme and violent nature of this heresy is an affront to the two covenants from which its ideology derives.

The formal Icarian Heresy is one which endured for a number of centuries from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance, with the threat of its originators dispersed. However, its general trappings are seen from time to time even unto this night. The Icarian Heresy is a blending of zeal of the Lancea Sanctum with the starkly political breeding and hierarchy of the Invictus. The heirs of Icarius created a familial dynasty, toppling rulers across broad swatches of land and replacing them with those who believed they were divinely gifted to rule over all kindred. This blending of the temporal and the spiritual is properly an affront to both the First and Second Estates, each of which should be kept distinct on focused on their own concerns.

The Masonic Heresy is another profoundly disturbing example of the inexcusable blending of covenants, one which appears alive and active in pursuing their agenda in these modern nights. The Masonic Heresy was founded by a former Cardinal of the Lancea Sanctum who named herself "The Carpenter" and began to utilize the secret practices of the Ordo Dracul in an attempt to seize God's power for her own. The Masons seek absolute dominion over kine and kindred alike through manipulation of occult forces to bind all in accordance with their will. They worship "The Carpenter" as a messianic figure. Their bastardization of the Longinian faith and the practices of the Ordo Dracul ought to make clear that they are antithetical to both.

One thing that is hopefully made clear in this discussion of four of the greatest heresies is that they present not just a threat to one covenant, but to all. Each seeks to upend the proper ordering of kindred society and assert their own misguided zealotry upon our society. While the Lancea Sanctum often engages in the most devoted efforts to identify and route out these dangers, they are a shared danger and one on which all kindred of good conscious should oppose and offer information where they possess it.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

On Inquisition

This week's exploration is of the role of the inquisitor, its basis in the Testament, and its ultimate purpose.

Perhaps the most blessed and most admirable scholarly pursuit, however, is one that takes as its center not the study of any one thing, but rather commits itself to the refutation and repudiation of heresies and slanders. We know that such Kindred that walk in these nights have intellects vast and creative. Their Damnation may have been given them before the coming of the Dark Father and his teachings, or perhaps they are yet newly Damned by sinful and impious sires, and so they use such gifts to harass and mock the fellowship of the Sanctified. 

Such scholars of the Sanctified as have talent for it must therefore bend their minds to the unraveling of arguments and the refutation of all points in these irreverent tracts and speeches. 

  - Rule of Golgotha 11, paragraphs 5-6

The words inquisitor and inquisition derive from the Latin quaerere meaning "to seek." An inquisitor then is one who seeks for something and an inquisition is the search for it. An inquisitor is someone who makes inquiry, who inquires, after something.

Within the context of the Lancea Sanctum, the inquisitor is one who searches for heresies and slanders that they might be exposed, laid bare, and confronted. An inquisitor in the Lancea Sanctum is concerned with matters that threaten the spiritual purity of the body of the Church, striving to identify and bring to the light any darkness that lurks within.

In order that an inquisitor might be able to identify errancy when it is found, it is important that they be well grounded in theology, comfortable with parsing rhetoric, and intimately familiar with the Testament and doctrines of the Church. Passing familiarity with any of these will fail to suffice, for those who go seeking darkness often find it in this world. If an inquisitor is not prepared to properly and clearly identify it, they are libel to wind up consumed by it. Any inquisition must begin and end within one's own heart, mind, and soul. If an inquisitor is not willing or able to look within and identify the weaknesses they themselves possess, sooner or later another will and turn that weakness to their own advantage.

In exposing errancy and challenging it within both the inquisitor and within the Church, an inquisitor brings about a more perfect Church, ready and able to fulfill God's will for kindred here on earth. While purity is much desired, it is also important to remember that an inquisition does not serve the ultimate purpose of purity. Ultimate purity is impossible given the nature of both the world in which we live, as well as our own Damnation. Ultimate purity would be the destruction of this world of sin, something that is not ours to fulfill. Instead, the ultimate purpose must be to enable the Church and its members to serve well and truly God's purpose for them. An inquisition must ultimately simply root out the worst of the errors within and serves as a reminder of the proper path. It is for this reason that the duty will last for as long as the world we inhabit, but that is right and just.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

L'Osservatore Longinian - volume 1, issue 1

L'Osservatore Longinian - volume 1, issue 1

On Kindred Rule

As kindred society finds itself in the grips of a fever with the underlying purpose being the creation of national bodies governing Clan and Covenant, my thoughts have gone to the following passages from The Rule of Golgotha 10:

We are not so innocent as mortal man, who professes that none shall be crowned except he who has striven lawfully. Man is hypocritical in his quest for a noble ruler; he will scheme and murder and bribe to gain what little earthly power he can, and then expects his comrades to hail him as a just and forthright man. The political mind is squirming and complex, twisting reason beyond recognition and pandering in all corners for the slightest advantage, both corporeal and spiritual. We need look only to the great cities of Rome to see and know that the governance of creatures of rational mind is a complex and bewildering undertaking. 

The pagan cities of Greece and of Persia and of the Far East have in their folly concocted mad stories of divine founding to justify the reign of one man over another. We know that there is only one divine city, the city of God which lies beyond death and is the eternal paradise. As sojourners in death we know that we shall not be given the death of the mortal, who may even with his last breath recognize the truth of God's presence on earth and embrace true faith. The city of God is not for us, and all mortal cities and courts are nothing more than dirt and despair. Thus, how much greater folly is it for us to say this unholy creature is more fit to rule than that unholy creature by virtue of his blood, or his sire, or his allegiances?

While this passage occurs within a particular historical context in the Testament of Longinus, the deeper question echoes across the millennia. In the fever of this new Crucible, we seem driven to seize upon some answer, whether that answer be right or wrong. I do not here wish to be sidetracked into the question of why this idea now burns within each of us, or of the fashion in which whatever answer is decided upon may mystically bind us.

Why, when, and how ought kindred rule over each other?

Kindred society is not now, nor has it ever been, a society of laws. We have found and accepted a few core Traditions that stretch back more than two millennia but, save for a few brief aberrations, there have been no empires, no far-reaching bureaucracy, no unified system of justice, and no common culture. Attempts to create each of these things have invariably led to bloodshed and violence, with kindred turning upon each other in bids either for their place at the top of the pile of corpses, or for freedom from the rule of another.

Kindred are not ruled, so much as policed within the bounds of the essential Traditions that we recognize as inviolable for our own survival. Much of the policing is and always has had to be done not by an elite few, but by each and every member of society. Certainly, titles exist, almost always local in nature, where the one who wears the title can regularly interact with those over whom they have some authority. That authority is granted and utilized by dint of ability, but also of acceptance. No one kindred is great enough to fend off all of the others within any but the smallest of groups. While variance exists, the relative parity of our powers requires a modicum of restraint. When one goes too far, they are inevitably brought low.

Some cry now that these modern nights are different. Kindred can rapidly communicate across the entire span of the globe en masse for the first time during a Crucible. Transportation likewise exists with sufficient speed to bring kindred together in the span of a few nights, no matter how great the distance between them originally. Surely, they argue, given these things, the possibility exists of real and far-reaching rule.

They forget that while transportation and communication may be possible, kindred at large remain relatively stationary beings. While some few might wander regularly a few hundred miles and attend the occasional gathering of a handful of Courts, this increased proximity is limited. Those who are present and involved with a local populace each and every night remain a true community. Distant voices may have weight, but presence rules our society. How many Princes rule for long who are only heard and seen upon special occasion? Why should we expect that it would be any different in this Crucible than in the past?

It is true that Clans and Covenants have deeper cultures and more common ties that do allow for stronger bonds across distances. It is for that reason that each typically possesses some form of regional structure. Yet, while these regional bodies may carry weight, few can be said to truly rule. The creation of far-reaching national or supranational bodies of kindred, given the disparate nature of our domains, the differing forms of our interests, and the native kindred drive to rebuke the authority of others over them, seems one doomed to be at most some fancy words on paper and a few new flourishes to an electronic signature if not well crafted with the reality of kindred existence in mind.

Whether, in our collective fever, we are able to tame the lust for power within ourselves and forge answers that are limited in scope to the reality of our condition, or if we are destined to fly too high like Icarus and burn up in the rays of the sun, remains unclear. I will pray that we have the wisdom to choose wisely and spare our society the painful cleansing by fire that has occurred in the past.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

An Introduction to the Longinian Creeds

Every kindred structure is riven with division. This is so because we are, by our natures, aggressive and confrontational. The Beast that beats within our breasts makes it so, raising its hackles whenever we encounter another of our kind. With such a nature, it is difficult to organize ourselves on a large scale.

The Lancea Sanctum is no different in this regards. The Sanctified are divided into as many (or more) Longinian Churches as there are praxes. Historically, each diocese of the Lancea Sanctum was its own self-enclosed body. It was established thus by this way because of an understanding of our natures, and of the vulnerability of corruption, paralysis, internal strife, or external assault in a unified structure.

This practice allowed the Lancea Sanctum to flourish in many places. In the ancient days, there was no need to wait for word to travel to and from a distant senior member of the Church. All matters were local and all decisions were local. This led to both a variety of practices and expressions of faith, as well as over time to the development of various creeds, broad sects within the Lancea Sanctum based on differing interpretations of the Testament and other early documents of the faith.

Broadly speaking, there are three major creeds within the Lancea Sanctum, a half dozen minor creeds, and myriad more diocese that operate without an espoused creed at all. In the modern nights in particular, as ease of travel has increased and the mixing of previously distinct cultures and races have risen cities around the world, many dioceses have Sanctified who adhere to differing creeds. This all makes for a very curious local Church where some worship using rituals that are clearly drawn from Catholicism, while others handle snakes and leap over bonfires in ecstatic displays of faith.

The most traditional and prominent within the Lancea Sanctum is the Monachal Creed, which yet makes up half of Sanctified around the world. The percentage may be lower in the United States, though no full census has ever been taken. The Monachal Creed draws its name from the Monachus, the first childe of Longinus, and draws heavily from the writings of the Monachus contained in The Sanguineous Catechism. Its rituals, as the oldest and most traditional of the Creeds, are drawn in structure from Catholicism.

The second of the major Creeds is the Westminster Creed. It is perhaps surprisingly modern, having only been penned and formalized in the 18th century as a delayed response to the Protestant Reformation that swept Europe two centuries prior. The Westminster Creed, while wishing to adhere to much of the traditional texts of the Lancea Sanctum, sought to shake free of many of the most ancient practices. It eschews the traditional rituals of the faith, crafted new and simpler ceremonies, as well as altered the names of various traditional offices within the Lancea Sanctum. It did so and blossomed in areas of the mortal world where Catholicism had never been or was no longer welcome.

The third of the major Creeds began here in the United States. The Tollison Creed was drafted in the 1920s by a former Pentecostal minister. In a similar fashion to Pentecostalism, where there is a belief that the Holy Spirit might move through any person at any time and direction from God is personal, so members of the Tollison Creed open themselves up to direct and personal experience with God, angels, or similar spirits. Theirs is a passionate and ecstatic faith, marked by extreme displays and personal revelations.

Some of the larger minor creeds include: the Iblic Creed, the Dammitic Creed, and Exotheists. The Iblic Creed, which was drafted in 1420 to reconcile the Islamic theology with the traditions of the Lancea Sanctum. The Dammitic Creed was founded in the 18th century to similarly reconcile Jewish traditions with the Lancea Sanctum. The Exotheists are the most modern of the minor creeds, following the publication of the Exotheist Manifesto in 1924, which eschews religious structures entirely while allowing that the Testament of Longinus might yet be an important philosophical treatise on kindred nature and how we might structure our requiems.

All of these creeds, and more, live under one very large roof within the Lancea Sanctum. The diversity occurred, at least in part, because of our earliest teachings and structure. We largely manage to reconcile ourselves in these modern nights, working together because despite our differences in our understanding of it, we do believe that there is an essential ordering to the world, and a place in it for us in accordance with God's plan.

Much more has and is required for a deep understanding of the Lancea Sanctum, and each of its many creeds, and the individual variations within them. However, I hope that this has at least presented some grounding for the diversity that exists and thrives under the auspices of this one covenant.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli
Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

On Covenants

It is from the Lancea Sanctum that the kindred meaning of the word covenant arises. Kindred are, of course, prone to endless variations in the structuring of their requiems, in their practices, in their faiths, and in their cultures. In the truly ancient world, blood ruled. The line from which one came was everything. Further, kindred were few and far between due to the generally lower population of kine, leaving what would come to be known as praxis small, general distinct populations, each with their own traditions.

The Lancea Sanctum changed that. The earliest members shared the words of Longinus to other kindred without regard for lineage, without regards for ethnicity as mortal, without regards for the temporary and shifting borders of kingdoms on the map, without regards to whether one had been born male, female, or something more complicated. The Lancea Sanctum offered a Covenant with God. They offered to any who would hear a logical ordering to all things, a purpose and place that transcended anything save commitment. Kindred who were male, female, slave, noble, of any clan or bloodline, all were welcome and all were equal.

It is in response to the Lancea Sanctum that other covenants, in the modern kindred understanding of the word, were formed. The Invictus came to be an understanding of the temporal structure and power of kindred society. The Circle of the Crone came to be a covenant, rather than isolated practitioners and worshipers, in response to the Lancea Sanctum's activities. In more recent centuries, first the Ordo Dracul and more recently the Carthian Movement rose, challenging the assumptions of the natures of each individual and our society respectively. Yet we know each and every one by the common word of covenant, a word that originated in the kindred world with the Lancea Sanctum.

Having said all of this, I will now say that the Lancea Sanctum is more than a covenant in the modern kindred understanding of the word. It is more than a clearly defined and delineated group of kindred, that has no overlap with any other such ordering of kindred. The Lancea Sanctum properly harkens back to the origin of the word. Its members hold a Covenant with God, which is more than a covenant with other kindred. In this distinction, I will use Sanctified to mean part of the Covenant with God and Lancea Sanctum to mean part of the temporal Church of Longinus.

What does it mean to be Sanctified?

There are many answers, but the most common can be found in the five lines that comprise the Monachal Creed, the most traditional understanding of this Covenant with God, and the one to which at least half of the Lancea Sanctum around the world yet adhere to.

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth. 

To be Sanctified is to believe in the God who forged and ordered the whole of Creation.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary to redeem Man from Sin through his death and resurrection.

To be Sanctified is to believe in the reality of the Christ, the virgin birth, and that through his sacrifice, mankind was offered redemption.

I believe that Longinus, by piercing the Savior’s side as he hung from the Cross, did reveal the divinity of Christ through fulfillment of the prophecies and that, while Longinus was rightly Damned for his blasphemy, his damnation was itself part of God’s Holy Plan.

To be Sanctified is to believe that the events described in the Testament of Longinus are true; that the spear bearer described in the Holy Bible pierced the side of Jesus Christ with the Spear of Destiny. This act was the culmination of God's Holy Plan for the mortal life of His Son and the deed was both an offering of redemption for mankind and damnation for Longinus.

I believe that for my sins I am damned to Hell and yet through damnation I may find my purpose in God’s Holy Plan.

The Beast beats in our breasts. Hunger threatens to overshadow our intellect. The Sun and the light of God are anathema to us. Each night we rise, we sin in our hearts, in our minds, and in the acts of predation that are necessary for us to survive. To be Sanctified is to know and accept this, that our damnation is eternal. Yet, through our Covenant with God, we have been shown a mercy; that we might continue to play a part in His Holy Plan and steer the living to the eternal salvation offered them by God.

Any who accept these five things can be Sanctified, whether they are a member of the temporal Church of Longinus, the Lancea Sanctum, or not. One need not be a member of the clergy to enter into a Covenant with God. Like Jesus's offering of salvation to all mankind, God offers a place in His Plan to all kindred who would enter into a Covenant with Him. How to do so can be found more fully within the Testament of Longinus, His Prophet sent to reveal this path to kindred society.

Sum Sanctus (I am Sanctified),

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

How Shall We Feed?

Feeding is one of the most basic functions of kindred. It is an essential thing from which none can escape, any more than a mortal man can survive without water. Some can endure a week or two at a time between feeding, yet ultimately each of us must feed.

It should not be surprising that the Testament of Longinus has much to say on the subject of feeding. Many things are forbidden. "You shall not feed on children" (Golgotha 3:6). "You shall not feed on the simple or the mad" (Golgotha 3:7). "It is anathema to feed among the pure and righteous" (Golgotha 6:6). While we are predators, we are not demons. Whatever acts of evil we might perform, one is to spare those who are blameless. The child, the mad, and the pure alike are to be protected from predation.

We feed to live, we do not live to feed. "You shall feed only enough to satisfy your hunger" (Golgotha 3:10). Indeed, those who can feed upon the blood of animals are called to do so in that fashion rather than upon man. "For those that can be nourished by beasts, let them be fed" (Golgotha 7:4).

Why is this so? It is because our predation, in feeding and in all other things, must serve a purpose greater than our own selves. We do not do these things for ourselves, but to enable us to pursue a purpose beyond our own individual requiems. All that we do must be for the salvation of man. "Where we walk, evil is destroyed" (Golgotha 1:4). Let us all take heed of this call for humility and service. Let us order our requiems, from feeding to that with which we fill our nights, that it might be in service to something greater than ourselves.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Inquisitor Generalis de Lacus Magni

Kindred Society

Those who show the sin of hubris and do not keep an unoffending facade when in the company of mortals shall surely bring doom upon themselves. For man is clever and when he finds an enemy he will find a way to destroy it. It is not the wolf's way to lie down with the sheep. Better it is that man should fear the night, the unknown and the predators therein. Punishment shall be great for he who brings the wrath of man down upon himself and his brethren. Be not prideful, lest your betters – be they Kindred or God – feel the need to correct you. - Rule of Golgotha 5:3

The Testament of Longinus contains some of the earliest recordings of what have come to be the major Traditions of kindred society. The above is clearly an admonishment that kindred should maintain what we now know as the masquerade. For all that the Testament is ultimately focused upon that which is beyond the temporal, it also provides insight into how kindred are to act, both with mortals and with each other.

In the two millennia since the Testament came into being, kindred society still operates by the same constraints. The wisdom within the words above are as relevant today as they were all that time ago, and will hold weight long centuries from now as well. This is so because while kindred and mortal alike may come and go, while locations and details may change, there is nonetheless a great underlying order to this world and its operations. While the realization of essential truths may be new to those who are themselves new, the truths predate us all. They are part of an essential ordering to the universe.

The Damned shall suffer yet more should they slay a fellow to take his soul from him. Your own soul shall become yet blacker in the eyes of God, for he shall not look kindly on one who would take a soul from the judgment of heaven. The call of Kindred Vitae is an insidious and enticing one. To take into one's own body the strengths of another, whether body, mind or soul, is a temptation to all but the most pious. To take a soul must therefore be nearly irresistible. To make oneself more potent, more brilliant, more charismatic, with no effort from yourself seems heavenly in its effortlessness. Know, however, that such things can be seen by eye of God and other Kindred, who will surely turn their hatred upon your sloth and pride. - Rule of Golgotha 5:7

Is this admonishment, this warning, not as true tonight as it was two millennia ago? Do we not immediately recognize its wisdom now, just as kindred did then? The modern Traditions, which every kindred of worth upholds, find their origin in organization and understanding in the words of Longinus. Other words may be used, often less flowery in order to appeal to a broader array of kindred, and yet we recognize that beneath it all, there is a common message.

Kindred society has existed since antiquity. We have had our struggles, our turmoil, our clashes, and our times of peace, far longer than any yet awake can recall. Modern turmoil is but part of a lengthy tradition, existing in a perpetual chain. It is nothing new, though we do engage with it in some vigor during a Crucible. To believe that there is anything new in this is to not understand ourselves or the world in which we live.

Throughout these long millennia, we have never required mystical bonds being placed upon all of kindred society to regulate us. Indeed, every broad attempt at bondage has provoked greater backlash and bloodshed in the long term. Stability bought through slavery rather than through factual understanding of our nature and the essential truths of the world and its ordering, is false. Let us then work as best we might to each understand that which is eternal, including even the struggle between ourselves. In doing so we can achieve a far more stable society than any that can or would be imposed upon us.

Sum Sanctus,

Simon Patterson Gloveli

Augustus Inquisitor de Lacus Magni