Carthian Movement
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Vampire: The Requiem |
The Carthian Movement is one of the five covenants in the World of Darkness role-playing game Vampire: The Requiem published by White Wolf.
The most modern of the five major covenants, the Carthian Movement is a political hodge-podge composed of those Kindred who feel that it is incumbent upon vampires to learn from the lessons of mortal government and economics, and to adopt a new, modern approach to social structure and rulership. The exact nature of this new society, though, varies in implementation from individual to individual.
Carthian Kindred are most commonly children of the modern age - the last century or two. Older Kindred are both too static and too familiar with ancient government to easily adopt the Carthian desire for change. Most commonly, Kindred of the revolutionary and later eras (the 1700s and on) find the Carthian Movement palatable. A few rare Carthians, though, stem from older periods, either due to disillusionment with ancient government, or because of their own revolutionary free-thinking tendencies even in earlier times.
The bane of the Carthian Movement is its lack of central organization. While the Carthians broadly agree that Kindred society could stand a great deal of improvement, they are wholly disunited in their opinion of how to execute such a plan, or even what form it should take. Carthians can be capitalists, ecologists, Communists, socialists, democrats, utopians, libertarians - anyone who has an idea for a different form of government or economy may well have a Carthian take. Quite a few also agitate for violent overthrow of existing Kindred social structures, especially the Invictus. Naturally, this leads to a great deal of friction with the usual leadership positions of Kindred society, but Carthian dogma is quite attractive to young (and often oppressed) Kindred, so the covenant is simply too numerous and diverse to risk alienating completely.
Despite this disorganisation, the Carthian Movement is very well connected. Although the Covenant has no leader or leaders, each member has strong networks of allies contacts and other Kindred. These strong knit connections are made possible by the Carthian's more acceptable and even encouraged use of technology. With the use of telecommunications that other more static Vampires often shun or distrust, the Carthian Movement can respond to threats with such speed the other Covenants cannot fathom how they achieve. This manifests itself in gameplay mechanics as every Carhian having to spend half the normal exp to upgrade their allies, contacts, haven and herd merits, rounding up when needed. Also, when the collective Carthians in an area are able to institute a reasonable degree of coordination and control, their combined force of will can manifest and affect the supernatural as well as the political landscape of a Domain. Known as "Carthian Law", this force of will manifests itself by potentially rendering Vampiric Disciplines useless. If the Carthians proclaim that a certain action is against the law, then attempts to use a Vampiric discipline (including blood magic) in such an illegal action will cause the discipline to fail, providing there is a Carthian around to witness the infraction. It is in this way that the Carthians reinforce the notion that they seek social change, reform, and revolution, rather than anarchy.
As might be expected, the Carthians' primary enemies lie in the Invictus, whose ancient feudal structure represents everything that the Carthians hope to overthrow. Most Carthians also have a significant distaste for the Lancea Sanctum, whom they view as intolerant bigots. The Circle of the Crone is a puzzle to most Carthians, but the Carthian appeal to a higher moral standard of governance sometimes puts the two groups at odds. Carthians deride the Ordo Dracul as inward-obsessed eccentrics, although the two covenants rarely have direct conflict.
