Morotrophian
From London Requiem
Current revision as of 23:27, 27 February 2009
‘’“Go ahead and bite her. Tear her up. Don’t bother to lick the wound. She can’t move in those straps. Between her therapy and the propranolol, this will all look like a relapse.”’’
Contents |
[edit] Morotrophians
In the darkest moments of the night, when the halls and corridors of hospitals have fallen quiet, monsters come out. Creeping from their dark holes and hiding places, they assail the old, infirm and mentally ill. While liver spotted hands are tangled in IV tubes and mad eyes roll like those of panicked cattle, bodies restrained by straps and masks, these victims are abused again and again, their very lives made forfeit. Worse still is when survivors babble their stories through tears and lips flecked with spittle, and their caretakers laugh at them, mock them or slap them until they fall silent. Sometimes, however, caretaker and dependent look into each other’s eyes and see that the same fear haunts them both.
The perpetrators of these horrid abuses are the Morotrophians, leaches who prey upon the lost, desperate and mad during victims’ greatest weakness. For hundreds of years, the bloodline has focused its attention on dominating enclosed institutions where captive and voiceless populations are turned into a constant, constrained and inconsequential buffet for their wicked appetites. Even other Kindred are repulsed by the “Monks’” habits, though such revulsion is not enough to preclude them from retaining the offenders’ services. The liberty to access an imprisoned vessel for weeks on end is a profane joy that few Kindred have experienced in centuries, and the Morotrophians can offer such delight on a nightly basis.
Contrary to perception, not all Morotrophians haunt the sterile halls of mental institutions and retirement homes. Though such havens do make for a majority of the bloodline’s domains, members’ focus is wider. The Monks slip through the cracks and hide in the shadows of any enclosed, controlled facility. In medieval nights, the then “Abbots” preyed on monks or nuns trapped behind monastery or convent walls. Some still follow that tradition, though in modern nights they’re more likely to lurk in the gloom of cult houses where mortal pawns use charisma and religion to bind kine with dependence and the need for acceptance. Others dip their withered fingers in the pies of orphanages and rehab clinics, and a few have even managed to infiltrate prisons (though the last are dangerous places for any Kindred, given tight government control and constant surveillance). Any place in which there is a restricted, contained and mostly voiceless population is prime territory for members of this lineage.
And yet, in the modern nights, Morotrophians face a new challenge as the Malkovian bloodline spreads into one of their traditional seats of power — the mental asylum. The few Kindred who know of both lineages think of them in much the same way (or as one!), but the truth is the two could not be more different. Where the Malkovians are mad, the lunatics running the asylum, the Morotrophians are stone-cold sane. They use the madness and dependency of others and hold Malkovians in contempt. While it may come back to haunt them, the Morotrophians are certain that it will be they, not the Lunatics, who will rule the roost.
[edit] Parent Clan
[edit] Nickname
Monks or Abbots, Abbey Lubbers (insulting)
[edit] Covenant
The majority of Morotrophians are members of the Invictus, as that group’s insularity and respect for rank and position suits the Monks’ institutionalized mentality. The normal lack of advancement that troubles young Invictus neonates strikes the Morotrophians less severely. They expect to have to earn their place with years of work, and need the security of belonging to a group more than they need immediate opportunity for progression.
The Lancea Sanctum numbers the second most Monks, as the old religious ties of the bloodline have not faded completely. Those Abbots who still fraternize with cults and secluded religious institutions often join with the Sanctified, seeing themselves as brothers in monstrosity. Not all in the Lancea Sanctum share this bond, however, as some orthodox view Morotrophians as particularly noxious abusers of faith. Some Monks have overcome this stigma by assuming the role of “invisible angel,” punishing the wicked on their hunting grounds and bringing death to those in pain. These angels consider themselves to do God’s work, and gain respect for it.
The Morotrophians have a minor presence in the other covenants. There are a few powerful if not respected Abbots in the Ordo Dracul. These Monks bitterly resent their weaknesses and limitations, and strive to overcome them. In doing so they often attain great mystical understanding, but their reliance on human weakness offends many members of the Order, and attempts to escape the bloodline’s history insults brethren. The Carthians tend to be too idealistic and egalitarian for the manipulative and cloistered Morotrophians, though a few reformers whose ideals outweigh their vested interests occasionally join up. The Circle of the Crone includes almost no Morotrophians. The wild, mercurial nature of the Crone is at odds with the conservative, siege mentality of most Abbots. Occasionally, a line member whose influence over a particular institution has brought down condemnation has decided to spend his Requiem alone and unaffiliated, to enjoy his self proclaimed haven and hunting grounds for himself.
[edit] Appearance
Unlike some of their Nosferatu kin, Monks are rarely outright monstrous in appearance. The mark of the Blood is more subtle than that, and perhaps more damaging in the long run. Every Morotrophian has a look about her that most people instinctively associate with a doctor who does lots of unnecessary surgery. It’s a look that combines certain aspects of inbreeding and dead fish — bulging eyes, sallow skin and long, thin fingers that twitch and fidget. Thinning hair, balding pates and over-pronounced, bobbing Adam’s apples are also common.
Monks tend to dress according to their assumed roles, donning costumes that suit their surroundings. An Abbot in a mental hospital, for example, may dress like a nurse or staff member, in a rumpled suit and a (stolen) clip-on nametag. It’s uncommon for a Morotrophian to attempt to appear to be upper management or part of an institution elite. They attempt to blend into the undifferentiated middle ranks, posing as midlevel staff, interns or guards. Some find practicality better than pride and dress the part of the lowest level of employee — janitor, orderly or something similarly faceless that allows them to be anywhere they need to be. Very few Monks assume the roles of inmates; doing so would make them victims, not predators. Those who pose as prey are viewed with a mixture of contempt and horror by their brethren.
[edit] Haven
Morotrophians tend to make havens in the bowels of their pet institutions, or in nearby, accessible areas. The most common locations are mental institutions, old folks’ homes, cult houses, monasteries and occasionally prisons or prison-supply houses.
Elder Morotrophians often have secret chambers, hidden in the maze of halls and access corridors of a large institution, constructed during the building or renovation of the place. Some of these hidey-holes are hundreds of years old and are taken for granted as part of a building. No one has any idea that they’re there, they overlook them in plain sight, or they don’t consider what such places are for.
Young Abbots and those who have to infiltrate a foundation do not usually have this luxury, so have to work to maintain their security. They typically chose places deep in the heart of a compound, in cellars and access corridors, where there’s no chance of accidental exposure to sunlight. These areas are then guarded and warded through a mixture of ghoul servants, influence over mortal inmates, and judicious use of the Institutionalize, Nightmare and Obfuscate Disciplines. Given enough time, even a young Morotrophian can make a small area in a secluded corner into a place where no one goes and no one discusses. (This last represented by a Haven with considerable dots in location and Security, but typically few in Size.)
Most Monks are obsessively attached to their havens. The sites are difficult to set up (finding a secure resting place in the midst of a human institution is no small task) and take time to secure and control. There are tales of Morotrophians whose monasteries were closed a hundred years past, yet they still haunt the ruins, slowly starving and giving in to the Beast. Woe betide the Kindred who attempts to unseat a Morotrophian from his home.
[edit] Background
Elder line members were often religious heretics, monks or nuns in their mortal days. These Abbots are the source of the line’s old nickname. Many still have a medieval bias to their worldview, and they influence whatever institution they haunt to be run like a monastery, with strict observance and routine that turns obsession into dogma. It’s not unknown for such elders to regulate how many times a day those under their power may blink, going to extremes such as taping eyes open to control the “willfully disobedient.”
Young Morotrophians tend to be chosen from among psychiatrists, psychologists, health-care workers, prison guards and orderlies. Humans who have a personal understanding of institutionalization and the closet society of compounds tend to do best as Monks, and already have access to the resources they will need as members of the line. Combined with the obsessive and controlling nature of lineage elders, these backgrounds lead to young Monks being just as fanatical as their progenitors, simply with a different focus. Where elders may concentrate on isolation and flagellation, young line members use drugs and psychological torture. The results are generally the same, but neonates and ancillae have an easier time passing unnoticed in modern, secular nights.
New inheritors of the line’s blood are also important to elders. The more Morotrophians who are spread through institutions, the greater their collective ability to influence the mortal organizations that control such institutions. Where a single Morotrophian working alone has trouble swaying the kine in charge of an institution, especially if the outside world interferes, a group of line members can collectively blackmail, coerce and intimidate on a wider level. For example, many of the standards and praxis for mental institutions are decided by panels that dictate terms to all locations. A single Morotrophian might be able to coerce only a few mortals on such a panel, but a brood spread through several dozen major foundations may be able to intimidate and Institutionalize a majority of the board. Mortals who already have such influence over councils and administrations thus make ideal candidates for the Embrace.
[edit] Character Creation
Morotrophians who lurk within mental institutions and old folks’ homes are an intelligent lot, used to getting their way by force of mind. Their focus on psychiatry and psychology (or at least on passable sounding quackeries of such) leads to a focus on Mental Attributes and Skills, with Academics, Medicine and Politics being common. Those who still infiltrate cults and cloistered religious communities tend to rely on Social Attributes and Skills, despite the fact that they do not come naturally. Empathy, Intimidation and Subterfuge are likely. Such Monks focus on understanding and exploiting the social weakness of others. Line members’ own weaknesses are obvious enough, so they spend a great deal of energy making sure everyone else’s are as well.
Almost all Monks have some level of Contacts and/or Status to represent their ability to infiltrate and manipulate private, enclosed institutions. Herd represents their victims in those places. Abbots who live on facility grounds need sufficient Haven to cover their security, and many have dots of Retainer to represent a ghoul guard or assistant.
Finally, any character who starts play as an Abbot needs a second dot of Blood Potency to be able to join the bloodline. Without it, a character is not given aid in finding her own institution. Nor is she allowed to shelter with her sire. The Morotrophians take care of their own, despising wayward children who don’t shore up the foundations of the system.
[edit] Bloodline Disciplines
Institutionalize, Nightmare, Obfuscate, Vigor
[edit] Weakness
As with their parent clan, the Morotrophians are disturbing and difficult to be around. Very few Monks are outright monstrous. For most members of the line, the curse manifests as an aura or look that most would define as somewhere between “inbred” and “fishlike.” There is simply something about their bugging, leering eyes and twitchy, secretive manner that causes others to react unfavorably. The 10 Again rule does not apply to rolls involving Presence or Manipulation in social situations. Additionally, any 1’s that come up on such a roll are subtracted from successes. (This latter part of this weakness does not affect dramatic- failure rules.) This vulnerability does not apply to dice pools involving the Intimidation Skill, or to the Composure Attribute.
In addition, Morotrophians have a weakness inherited from their founder, the very deficiency that drove him to feed on the dangerous grounds of monasteries, and the greatest secret shame of the bloodline. Morotrophians are as institutionalized as those on whom they prey. They need confining walls and rules to make them comfortable. Whenever a Morotrophian is in a situation where there are no strong social or physical boundaries that are recognizable as an institution, dice pools for all actions suffer a –2 penalty due to stress and fear (the dice pools of most reflexive actions aren’t affected). For guidelines on what counts as an institution, see the Institutionalize Discipline, below.
[edit] Organization
Morotrophians are insular and don’t deal with each other on a nightly basis. Occasionally two Monks share domain over an institution of considerable size, such as a state mental institution that deals with 20,000 cases a year, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Most Morotrophians are obsessed with being lord of the manor and have no desire to allow anyone to compete for their power (much less someone with the same powers and capabilities). When a Monk decides to create progeny, he typically does so by creating a ghoul and seeing how well his servant takes to the ways of the line. The ghoul is taught the ways of Monks, and her ability to survive and thrive under the difficult conditions of an institution are tested. Needless to say, if this indoctrination was discovered by other Kindred it could lead to a blood hunt as a Masquerade breach, but Morotrophians are quiet and careful. If a ghoul ever slips up, she’s destroyed. If she proves her worth, she’s Embraced and sent off to find her own institution. Most sires do a thorough job of setting up a childe, with even the stingiest calling in of favors and using Disciplines to start a neonate off right. Once the setup is complete, however, the childe must stand on her own. The exception is if the childe does not join the bloodline, in which case she is disinherited and never receives any help from the lineage unless she repents and returns to the fold.
Beyond the sire-childe bond, Monks who infiltrate similar institutions maintain a network of correspondence and alliance that they use to manipulate the systems that organize and control their realms. Members who lurk in mental institutions, for example, conspire to intimidate and corrupt groups such as the National Medical Accreditation Committee and State Departments of Mental Health. This cooperation is largely ad-hoc and a matter of common sense. If mortals allegedly in control of such institutions actually bothered to work at controlling them, the Monks would be in very grave danger in very short order.
Favors done outside the shared system (say, a Monk who resides at a prison arranging to have a patient transferred to another Monk’s asylum) are recorded meticulously, and debts owed are one of the few really binding forms of social interaction that occurs between Morotrophians. Every Monk in an area of control knows who owes what level of favor to every other member in and out of that field (old folks’ homes, for example). Anyone who bilks on a debt finds himself out in the cold. Repeat offenders may even be chastised by suffering a government-agency or news-crew investigation of their fief, possibly resulting in the Abbot having to flee his haven for a period.
[edit] Concept
Cruel psychologist, doctor who performs unnecessary surgery, abusive orderly, prison guard, power behind a charismatic cult leader, lurker in the basement, orphanage director, trauma counselor, the thing that watches without being seen, death-row haunt
[edit] Devotions
[edit] History
In early 16th century Northern Italy, a young German monk named Ludoldus Bischoffshausen, who was helping to run the pazzarella in Rome, was Embraced by a Nosferatu. Who this mysterious sire was has never been determined, even though many Abbots have spent years researching the subject. What is known is that his childe soon discovered that he had a crippling weakness. He was unable to leave the walls of the pazzarella or his monastery without suffering crippling bouts of nausea and panic. After a breach of the Masquerade that nearly sent Ludoldus to the flames, he fled to France, where he coerced and bound an old friend into giving him refuge.
Ludoldus found that the youths of his new abbey, young and cut off from the world, made a perfect source of sustenance. Shame, fear, force and isolation silenced them about his nocturnal visits. Within a year, Ludoldus had turned his old friend into a personal ghoul, and ruled the roost from behind one abbot or prioress after another.
Eventually Ludoldus created childer, an act born of loneliness and despair. It quickly became obvious, however, that he could not live under the same roof with his progeny. While the feeding of one vampire could be hidden behind closed doors, the feeding of more could not. So he used the influence he had gained to allow his childer to infiltrate abbeys and monasteries of their own. Over the course of a century, perhaps a half-dozen sacred houses were so corrupted, with greater and lesser degrees of success and control. Ludoldus’ brood seemed to established a solid power base.
Members of the line have different explanations for what happened next. Elders say that events were a punishment meted out by God. While Ludoldus always fed in the walls of sacred houses, he took sustenance only from those who sinned. He would watch from the shadows and come forth to punish those who partook of lust, gluttony or pride. (It was believed that for this scourging, God allowed the vampire a place in His home.) Ludoldus’ childer were not so pious, however, and took without caring about acts committed, turn ing innocents and sinners alike into vessels. In His anger, it is said that God swept His Inquisitorial hand to smite them and teach the brood humility.
Young, secular members of the lineage say the purge was a simple matter of too many institutions with too little influence over space and occupants. It was inevitable that the unscientific methods of control used would fail, especially in an atmosphere of paranoia and hatred.
Whichever interpretation of events is correct, the Inquisition recognized that something was foul in the abbeys of Aix-en-Provence and Bamberg. In the midst of witch and heretic trials, signs of “Devil’s marks” left by the Monks’ feeding blazed a trail that could not be escaped. Half the bloodline was wiped out in a decade, some surviving only by forcing ghouls and patsies to confess for them. (Some Abbots’ control of Institutionalization had grown to a point that dupes feared removal from their own prisons more so than death.)
The Inquisition may have been the end of the bloodline if not for the actions of Ignace Loix, one of Ludoldus’ youngest childer. Following a witch trial in which a doctor convinced the court that the accused was innocent, that it was insanity and not possession that led to the accusations made, Loix attached himself to the doctor and followed him to the growing mental asylums of France’s Great Confinement. There, the vampire recognized thousands of vessels, often chained to beds and unable to move, all of whom were known to be mad and who thus had no voice. It was, in short, a perfect feeding ground for the bloodline, where the terrified tales of madmen would bring only silencing beatings rather than Inquisitorial torches.
Over the next hundred years, the lineage spread throughout mental asylums, finding shelter and protection as confinement and punishment of the mad gained momentum. Though the Great Confinement ended, the asylum as an institution prevailed, and the insane remained victims. It was during this period that the Discipline of Institutionalization saw full flourish. Under its auspice, members of the lineage spread to other foundations: prisons, “homes” for embarrassing members of upper-class families, and the charismatic cults that grew up around the Great Awakening.
By the 18th century, the Morotrophians had spread throughout Europe and achieved a strong hold in America. It was in the New World that the next evolution came, as mental institutions were increasingly used to house the elderly who could no longer take care of themselves. Monks found that the aged made nearly as ideal victims as madmen. For almost two centuries, the Morotrophians were unchallenged and comfortable, lurking in the dark places of vast asylums.
The greatest blow since the Inquisition was dealt to them as late as the 1960s, when a new movement for de-institutionalization of mental patients swept the United States and parts of Europe. Vast state hospitals were closed down or nearly emptied. The number of patients under state care dropped from 500,000 to 100,000 in less than a decade. Many Morotrophians elders were unable to adjust to the decline and were forced into torpor as their Vitae supplies were reduced to a trickle.
Young members of the bloodline adapted quite handily, though, assuming positions that elders’ failure had opened. Morotrophians simply moved from state-controlled hospitals to privately run and funded shelters, taking their place in the cottage industry of care that arose. Many even found the new arrangement to be superior to the old. Though their havens held fewer victims, there was less governmental control and regulation at work, giving the predators greater freedom and power than ever before.
The latest trend — eagerly adopted by the youngest members of the line and feared by the eldest — is Monk influence of deprogramming and rehabilitation clinics. Lax laws in many jurisdictions allow the manipulators to virtually kidnap victims off the streets and hold them long enough to feed at will. With sway over psychiatrists and lawyers, it’s fairly easy for a modern line member to arrange forced hospitalization of victims for reasons of “danger to self or society.” Some Monks have even made a nocturnal business of it, offering specific victims or types of victims to other vampires with special feeding requirements or jaded pallets. Line elders fear such open manipulation. Rising court cases and public attention reminds them of the scrutiny that preceded the Inquisition.
[edit] Society and Culture
After Ludoldus went into torpor in the late 1970s, there has been no current leader of the Monks. Ignace Loix is the most influential member still active, but his power is limited to line members who work with mental hospitals, and mostly only in America and France. While that covers a large portion of the lineage, members outside that group are vocal and independent. Indeed, even Abbots under Loix’s patronage consider him more a figure to be respected in a distant way than a power player to be obeyed. Tom West, the infamous Prince of Bedlam, is the most important British Abbot and is only slightly under Loix in stature thanks to the massive number of favors his “generosity” has accrued over the past five decades.
In general, Monks are not overly concerned with patronage within the bloodline. (Favors owed is their greatest commodity.) Each member is a solitary power, lurking in a cage. Except when dealing with mortal oversight groups, a Monk has little reason or interest in working with others. Members do worry about their status with the Nosferatu overall, as their cousins can often get favors or information not available behind sheltering walls. For that reason, it is not uncommon for a Monk to have a closer (or bitter) relationship with local Nosferatu than with his own bloodline. Abbots often trade other members of the clan shelter, access to Vitae, and a place where Haunts need not feel like freaks or outcasts in exchange for information or services outside a compound. This exchange is often rewarding for both sides. Abbots can be other Nosferatu’s only source of strength and civilization, while Haunts are Abbots’ main line to the outside world.
A Monk seldom steps out of her shelter to play a part in city or covenant politics. If it happens, it’s a result of another vampire intruding on the Monk’s territory, a threat that makes any Morotrophian take extreme measures. He uses all his power and connections with the Nosferatu to force the intruder to back down. The normally retiring Monks can even be driven to physical violence and murder by such invasions, so few Kindred are willing to cross them that way. A few Monks have also found that the undead society of many cities, especially Invictus cities, are incestuous and cliquish enough for the Institutionalize Discipline to function on local Kindred. In such cities, an Abbot may become a political player, parlaying reliable access to blood and the ability to make problems vanish by having mortals committed or imprisoned.
[edit] Known Members
- Joshua Krieg Marquis of Western Kentucky, Childe of Tom West. *Deceased*
- Dr Victor Waldman Deceased
- Clarence Valentine Living in Tampa FL, Childe of Joshua Krieg
- Malcom DuRhone Living in Portland OR, Childe of Joshua Krieg
- Spencer Adlebourne Living in Sarasota, FL. Childe of Clarence Valentine
