Camarilla (World of Darkness)
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The Camarilla is a fictional sect of vampires in the World of Darkness, the setting of White Wolf's role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. The Camarilla are composed of seven clans, and are the largest organization of vampires, and possibly of any supernatural creatures, in the World of Darkness. The symbol of the Camarilla is an ankh hanging from a necklace.
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[edit] Core Clans
[edit] Foundation
The Camarilla was founded during the 15th century (the first meeting cited was in 1450) in response to the Inquisition and the Anarch Revolt. Largely, it was formed by the desperation of the vampire elders of its seven main clans as a means to marshal their powers into a united front and beat back the Anarchs. This it managed to do after forty years of fighting, and the Anarch Revolt was officially ended at the Convention of Thorns in 1493. Nevertheless, some Anarchs refused to give up peacefully, and created the sect known as the Sabbat, with which the Camarilla is still at war.
In the modern setting of Vampire: The Masquerade, the organization is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The Camarilla is composed of seven main Clans, though the Camarilla considers that all vampires are, in fact, members, regardless of whether they want to be or not. The core group of seven clans dropped to six when the Gangrel officially became independent in 1999. Other bloodlines often affiliated include the Daughters of Cacophony, the Lasombra antitribu, and the Samedi.
Recently, a second, smaller Anarch Revolt has started. This new Anarch faction has taken power on much of the West Coast of the United States.
The third edition of the game has a different clan composition and puts more emphasis on political diversity within the Camarilla, and gives hints as to the eventual dissolution of the Camarilla, which is not yet considered archaic and exists even to the declared end of the Vampire: The Masquerade line of products by White Wolf. The third edition is not fundamentally different from the other editions, but does include more that was once published extraneously to the earlier rulebooks in associated game products.
[edit] Philosophy
Camarilla policy is that vampires should try to fit in with and hide from the rest of humanity, as to easily feed on them. For this reason, they created a web of lies and misinformation, called the Masquerade, to make the public believe that supernatural beings like vampires could not possibly exist.
The Camarilla also believes that the only way the vampire species can survive in these modern nights is if it unites - any breach of the Masquerade by any vampire risks exposing the entire race. Both viewpoints are fundamentally opposed by the Sabbat.
[edit] Views on Antediluvians
The official stance of the Camarilla on the matter of the Antediluvians, and Gehenna, is that it is nothing more than superstition. They say that the Antediluvians do not exist. This is in stark contrast to the Sabbat, who claim that Gehenna is approaching and that all vampires must prepare for it by readying to fight the Antediluvians.
After the Week of Nightmares, in which the Ravnos Antediluvian woke, certain upper echelon members of the Camarilla came to realise that Gehenna was an imminent possibility; however, the Camarilla's official stance did not change. This was especially notable when the Camarilla refused to lend aid to the Justicar Xaviar when he encountered what he believed was an Antediluvian, after which he led the Gangrel clan out of the Camarilla.
[edit] Vampire: The Requiem
In Vampire: The Requiem, White Wolf's Vampire game in the new World of Darkness setting, the sects have been replaced by smaller "covenants". However, the Camarilla is occasionally referred to as a society of long ago that united all vampires, before it fractured into the covenants. Likely this was a subtle statement by the game designers that, though they have moved on, they have not forgotten their old game line.
More specifically, the Requiem history states that the Camarilla existed during the Roman empire, endorsing the idea of vampires rising to public dominion of the human world. The Masquerade is stated to have emerged after the collapse of the Camarilla due to an uprising of Anarchs.
[edit] Links
- Vampire NPC gallery with Camarilla characters
