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Those who watch us
The Inconnu
Ask a hundred Kindred what the Inconnu truly wants and you will hear two hundred different answers.
The Inconnu is less a sect than a loose gathering of Cainites who share a certain cast of mind. So far as anyone knows, it has no Inner Circle, no Regent, and no dreadful assembly of elders openly steering its fate. Instead, the Inconnu appears to be a scattered association of vampires who refuse to remain puppets in older monsters' hands. Weary of the endless schemes of younger Kindred, they seem to have stepped away from the Jyhad altogether. That is what sets an Inconnu apart from members of other sects: they withdraw from Kindred society and its petty intrigues.
Rumor has it, and few have survived to verify it, that the Inconnu's members are immensely old and frighteningly powerful. Many are said to spend long ages in torpor, which is perhaps the surest way to escape the Jyhad. Some Kindred connect them to the Antediluvians, claiming they have cut themselves off from the world and adopted an inhuman, timeless perspective. Others insist that every member of the Inconnu either seeks or has attained Golconda, that mythical state of vampiric transcendence. Golconda may matter to many of them, but vague appearances are not enough to guarantee mutual trust when two unimaginably potent Kindred draw too near one another.
Those who deal with the Inconnu usually come away enthralled and unsettled in equal measure. The sect seems barely organized, yet its members communicate with remarkable precision. They know when to avoid other vampires, when to disappear, and when to unleash their terrible strength. If they follow any shared agenda, it remains hidden.
More often than not, the Inconnu is sensed rather than seen: an impression of ineffable power lingering just behind the world whenever some overcurious intruder nears a vampire's haven. Even mortal passersby sometimes feel the edge of that presence, which explains at least a few of the world's supposedly haunted or cursed places. Many members of the sect have buried themselves somewhere and remained there for centuries, though only a handful choose cities as their home. Most prefer isolated rural communities, far from the reach of other supernatural creatures. The Inconnu withdraw from society in order to be truly alone, and they take that goal with deadly seriousness.
In the end, the Inconnu remains the Kindred's favorite homegrown mystery: always present in rumor, never obliging anyone by disproving the theories spun around it.
They are the "evil you know" only in the loosest possible sense, and even that knowledge is vanishingly small. Still, among the Damned, the known horror is often preferable to the unknown one.
Europe is a natural refuge for these august vampires. Many seek solitude in the isolated valleys of the Carpathians and the Alps, or on small islands in the Mediterranean and Baltic seas.
A few remain in great cities, remembering glorious classical nights when places like Paris were little more than villages. The European Inconnu count among the oldest Kindred in the world, and they guard their privacy with fanatical care. Their two chief aims have not changed in centuries: to ensure that humanity is treated decently and to stay out of the Jyhad. To that end, they have placed trusted ghouls and childer across Europe to track conflicts among elders, ancillae, and Anarchs. They also keep a very close eye on the gathering Sabbat storm over Eastern Europe.
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Everyone Knows
Very few Kindred, perhaps a dozen at most, know what the Monitors really are. A few more know they exist, but all of them, unsurprisingly, keep their mouths shut. It is not that the Monitors go door to door warning other vampires not to speak of them; rather, Kindred who prattle on about mysterious Inconnu watching over entire cities tend to be ignored, mocked, or quietly silenced. Those "in the know" debate in whispers whether the Inconnu themselves are behind that uniformly hostile reaction, but no one is eager to risk an immortal neck to test the theory.
Younger Kindred, especially those gifted with Auspex, often speak of uncanny sensations of being watched in cities where a Monitor is present. Nightmares and restless sleep are common among them, perhaps because their fragile minds brush against the Monitor's wandering will. The memories and impressions that accidentally settle in a neonate's mind that way can grant startling insight... or mark that vampire as a dangerous witness who knows too much.
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The Proud
Blood Lines
What becomes of those individuals caught between every faction, vampires whose loyalties seem forever split because, for one reason or another, they have gathered beneath the banner of either the Camarilla or the Sabbat?
From the haughty Lasombra antitribu to the morbidly fascinating Samedi, these schismatics and defectors occupy an inherently ambiguous place within the rival sects of Kindred society.
Every faction claims, in one way or another, that these vampires deserve the same treatment as any other Kindred. In practice, however, their origins inevitably breed suspicion, often justified, and invite mistreatment. As a result, defectors fleeing to the Camarilla are not always welcomed with open arms, which makes it far harder to persuade their former allies to cross the line as well.
Needless to say, the same situation looks even harsher from the Sabbat's volatile perspective. The Sword of Caine tends to greet such late-night oddities with bared fangs.
That does not mean every outsider is doomed to contempt. Many vampires whose blood does not belong to a sect's founding clans have risen to great power and prestige, until they were feared and respected by the very institutions that once distrusted them.
The Rebels
The Anarchs
Although several Anarch bands still haunt the Old World, most of their leading figures emigrated to the Americas, where the chances of carving out a domain of their own are far better. The Camarilla rules its European kingdoms with such an iron hand that the Anarchs who remain here tend to be especially violent; they see no other path to power.
The Spanish Civil War birthed many Anarchs, some of them hiding behind the names and causes of their mortal counterparts as they fought Franco and those who pulled his strings. Since their defeat, the Anarchs of the Spanish Revolution have scattered across the world. Those who remain in Europe still wait for the right moment, the right place, to begin again and establish a base from which their message can spread.
Now, with Prague in its current condition, they believe they have been handed the chance to build an Anarch Mecca in Europe, and they have no intention of wasting that golden opportunity.
The Renegades
The Autarkis
The renegades, the outcasts among outcasts, the ones disowned by all of Kindred society: the Autarkis...
These vampires have turned their backs on Cainite society, refusing not only to live by its rules but openly calling for insubordination in the name of their own. They reject ancient customs, including the august Traditions, and above all insist on staying out of the sect war and the Jyhad itself. They want only to be masters of their own fate.
For those reasons, and because their independence is seen as outright rebellion, European elders regard them as a threat that must be purged quickly from their domains. Once a Cainite is branded Autarkis, that vampire faces the nights as a hunted renegade, pursued alike by Princes and Sabbat packs and, in most cases, doomed to Final Death if captured.
The Autarkis, however, believe that danger is simply the price of genuine freedom.
Other Beings
Werewolves
Members of these tribes still live in villages alongside their Kinfolk, bound together as extended families. Although Gangrel sometimes manage peaceful contact with these proud creatures, the Garou of Europe still carry a fierce hatred for the Kindred, especially after centuries of conflict with Tzimisce voivodates and Ventrue fiefdoms.
An encounter between vampire and werewolf is very likely to end in bloodshed.
Mages
As a center of learning older than most nations, Europe shelters countless mages from both the Traditions and the Technocracy. Infernal cults still linger in forgotten caverns, and more than one sorcerer has gone mad on this ancient soil.
Portals to ancient Chantries lie hidden in many mystical sites. For all the precautions Kindred may take, any childe traveling through Europe may find itself facing True Magick. European vampires can boast of age and lineage, but the continent's mages can make the same claim. Every Kindred should deal with such sorcerers very carefully.
Faeries
Europe remains a center of fine art and craftsmanship, and many faeries have found the continent rich in dreamers and Glamour. That abundance is balanced against overcrowded cities, violence in the Balkan states, and the steady disappearance of the wild places they cherish. European Kithain cling fiercely to their precious wells of Glamour and avoid the Kindred whenever possible, finding their cold ambitions and worldly habits unbearably banal.
The Mortals
The Society of Leopold
European Kindred have every reason to fear the Inquisition.
Centuries ago, inquisitors lit the first pyres to destroy heretics and witches. Times have changed, but the methods of the Society of Leopold remain, unfortunately, medieval.
The Society's knowledge of the Kindred, and of how to destroy them, is growing. Troubling reports of Kindred disappearances circulate among Europe's Princes, and although the Anarchs and especially the Sabbat scoff at the idea that a band of mortal fanatics could be responsible, the elders and even the ancillae take the threat very seriously. They have taken it even more seriously since word spread of the new Provincial overseeing the Society in Eastern Europe: Ingrid Bauer.
Among both the Kindred and the Society of Leopold she is known as The Iron Maiden. Austria's new Provincial is a grim, humorless woman and one of the most feared figures in the Society. It is whispered, though never within her hearing, that her inquisitors fear her more than all the infernal hosts combined. She is cold, ruthless, and deeply unpleasant. Other Provincials complain that she is stubborn and refuses to entertain any opinion that conflicts with her own. She trusts no one and, frankly, does not care whether she is liked.
Bauer is, however, an exceptionally effective Inquisitor. Over the course of her career she has put fifteen subjects to the stake, fourteen of them confirmed vampires. Her current priority is the disappearance of Austria's previous Provincial. She has already asked San Michele to send a Censor to investigate the surviving members of the Vienna Cenaculum.
The Kindred do not underestimate this Inquisitor. In twenty years of service she has inflicted irreparable damage on both Camarilla and Sabbat territories, and some Archons have even whispered that she nearly earned a place on the dread Red List, which would have made her the first mortal Anathema in history.
Worst of all, her posting to Austria alarms the Kindred enormously, who fear the years ahead will be soaked in blood. Others believe they can already see the clearest target on Bauer's path: Prague. The Camarilla knows that during the Nights of White Ash it played with fire by using the Society of Leopold as pawns in its private war against the Sabbat, and it fears, not without reason, that Bauer knows what happened and now intends to settle accounts with every Cainite in Prague.
The Arcanum
The Arcanum maintains chapter houses in every major city. Many of its members dream of assignment to Europe, where the resources available to scholars of the occult are nearly limitless. A few members of those European chapters would dearly love to interview a vampire and add firsthand knowledge of the undead to their archives. If that has already happened, no Kindred has admitted it.
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