By Myranda Kalis (nagaina@yahoo.com) (31 May 1996)
Refer to the Old Clan Tzimisce: The Oradea League.
"We are all slaves to our histories. If there is to be a bright future, we must learn to break those chains."
Second eldest of the Houses of the Old Clan, House Tzildaris is an enigma even to the Clanmates who look to them for stability and justice in an increasingly chaotic world. Long considered the quintessential scholars of the Old Clan, this House occupies the position of lawgiver and loremaster, diplomat and teacher; as the architects of the Oradea League, they are frequently the agent through which immortal justice is served in the East.
The historians of House Tzildaris trace their origins to the Second City, where, they say, the Tzimisce Antediluvian embraced the childe who, along with two of his fourth generation broodmates, was to become the founder of their House. An early Mage of a proto-Euthanatos oriented philosophy, Tzildaris was embraced in an effort to shock him out of a violent state of Quiet that was warping reality for miles about him in concentric waves, striking randomly and leaving devastation in their wake. The embrace succeeded admirably in its intended effect, wrenching the young Magus out of Quiet -- unfortunately, by the expedient of terminally disrupting his Avatar, an act which, while saving his sanity and most of the lives around him, injured him in a fundamental way from which he would never recover. Stunned by the sudden loss of the existence that he had always known and thrust into the midst of Kindred society almost wholly unprepared, he was taken under the wing of a pair of Tzimisce sorcerers, Varian i'Tzimisce and Maura i'Tzimisce, commonly believed among the Houses of the Old Clan to have been the Tzimisce Antediluvian's mortal children, whom he later embraced. The three were inseparable in all things for millenia, until the fall of the Second City and the subsequent collapse of Kindred civilization as it was known at the time. Varian, the eldest of the three, was believed to have met his Final Death in the bloodwars that eventually destroyed the city (millenia would pass before he finally returned to his Clan, greatly changed and strangely empowered), and it was all his younger siblings could do to survive the conflagration sweeping their world away. Tzildaris and Maura eventually escaped on their own, leaving the shattered ruin of the Second City for the mist-shrouded mountains of the north where it was said their sire had gone to renew himself more than once.
They eventually settled in the mountains through which the river Danube coursed on its way to the Black Sea, the transdanubian highlands of what would one day be called the province of Dobrudja in southern Romania. Weary in body and spirit, grieving for their lost brother, and disgusted in general with the Kindred, they stayed there in relative peace for centuries, walking among the native peoples of the region and attempting to teach and befriend them, if only to make their own unlives easier. Centuries slipped by as they remained hidden in the mountain fastness, time easing the pain of their losses, at least for Maura, who, after nearly four hundred years, began to grow restless and wished to see the world again, how it had changed, what had become of their people. The answer to that question came late one highsummer night when she, while travelling along the outlying border of what they claimed as their Domain, encountered a warband of the young House Ruthven prowling the region for new lands to conquer. Initially overjoyed to see her for reasons that had everything to do with the fact that she appeared to be a young and comely woman alone in the wilderness, the warband, comprised almost entirely of Ancillae childer of Ruthven himself, were considerably less than overjoyed when Maura taught them why it was unwise to presume that a woman travelling thusly was easy prey. On the way back to speak with their sire, Maura managed to wring quite a bit about the changing face of the Kindred from them and, once she had delivered them in humiliating Thaumaturgic bondage, learned even more from Ruthven. Intriqued and enervated once again, Maura returned home to the haven she shared with her brother, informed him of her intention to go among their people again, and promptly left to wander the world.
Tzildaris, forced by circumstance back into interaction with his fellow Kindred, meanwhile was having a rough go of it. Introspective, withdrawn, and sometimes nearly self-destructive, Tzildaris, unlike Maura, had the tendency to nurse his inner wounds with the single-minded intensity that only a Tzimisce could manage, even while he aided others in overcoming their own. His ability to make peace without causing himself or others to lose face made him an invaluable asset in the East, where the Tzimisce were building the center of their power and culture, and the territorial nature of the Clan was leading to frayed tempers, bruised egos, and general friction -- his talents as a mediator were called upon frequently, and many early accords among the Houses of the Clan were negotiated by him and his progeny. It was during this time that Tzildaris met his young broodmate Istvan, a Tzimisce scholar and sorcerer from the northern lands of what would one day be Hungary. Impressed by Istvan's brilliant mind and scholarly talents, Tzildaris invited him to visit at his haven -- and Istvan ended up staying, much to the surprise of Tzildaris' Ruthven and Djilas neighbors, who had begun to presume that the enigmatic lawgiver and peacemaker would remain eternally alone in his enormous mountaintop eyrie.
The centuries rolled on, the civilizations of the Kindred and Kine growing up side by side and, in the east, overlapping deeply as the Tzimisce ruled the night and the tribesmen of the Slavs, Magyars, Phyriges, Illyrians, Thracians, Avars, and Wends ruled the day. It was too good to last and it did not -- invasions from the west, spearheaded by the Ventrue, Lasombra, and Malkavians and their mortal pawns, rocked the east, and despite many attempts to end the conflict short of all-out war, the arrogance of the invaders finally drove the Tzimisce beyond the breaking point. House Tzildaris declared its neutrality at the beginning of the long-running series of bloodwars, its members acting frequently as diplomatic counsel to the combatants and, occasionally, as ambassadors-at-large to the various other Clans. Their reputation for uncorruptable integrity won them a grudging respect and their intricate, in-depth knowledge of the lore of their own people and other supernatural cultures allowed them to maneuver politically with the best of them -- especially once Maura returned from her wanderings, bringing with her a Malkavian husband, Shedheur, a small brood of mixed-blood childer, and a wealth of new experiences to add to House Tzildaris' radically expanding store of knowledge. Maura's razor-sharp mind (nearly prescient in matters of politics), combined with Tzildaris' frighteningly accurate knowledge of the Kindred mind and soul, and Istvan's skill as a historian, loremaster, and scholar placed House Tzildaris in good stead for centuries, despite the carnage mounting around them.
Eventually, however, the situation began growing too precarious for them to maintain a purely passive, noninterventionist posture. Even once the Roman Empire had collapsed beneath the weight of its own corruption and the Tzimisce-backed westward expansion of certain Kine tribes, the far-sighted members of House Tzildaris were watching the stormclouds forming on the horizon, and began to quietly and subtly go about the business of making themselves ready to endure it. Despite their deeply held belief that all creatures had a destiny of their own to fulfill without the manipulation and hindrance of others, the delicate and light hand of House Tzildaris reached out and began shifting pieces on the chessboard, particularly as more alarming trends became noticeable among their own clansmen. House Ruthven, having reached the apex of its power during the long and terrible bloodwars against the western Kindred backing the Romans in their conquests, had settled into a position of nearly kinglike rulership over the other Houses of the Old Clan and was showing early signs of degeneracy and decadence; the Tzildaris spent their efforts attempting to contain what they saw as the primary threat to the stability of the Clan, the frustrated youngsters of Ruthven nobles who were procreating recklessly and in incredible numbers out of sheer boredom and passing on a dangerous legacy to their childer. They did not succeed in this as quite as thoroughly as they would have liked (the Ruthven were scheming, powerhungry, and eternally paranoid and tended to distrust even their own shadows, and so were less easy to manipulate), though it is entirely possible that their efforts saved Clan Tzimisce from complete disintegration during the Anarch Revolt. House Djilas, eternally and endemically wracked by internal strife, was next on their list, and their efforts there were more open, attempting to locate and install a leader that all the House's various factions could agree to follow, a task far more easily described than accomplished. In the north, they had little concern, for House Brankovan-Waivadi ruled there and did so well, the Polish House being as powerful and solid as the love their Voivodes bore for each other, a rock to which many other Houses clung in times of difficulty, despite their flirtations with the mortal Church and the Cainite heretics that could be found there and a long-running war primarily of words with the Clan Ventrue. House Ravensburg in the west was nearly an unknown, a wild card in the politics of the east, and a factor beyond their ability to predict or control.
In the south, however, a fairly large problem was brewing in the form of House Smatzkhe. Known for their rabid hatred of Clan Ventrue, a rather pointed belief that all Tzimisces had a duty to defend their people and homelands by force of arms if need be, and an imperialistically expansionist ideal of what actually constituted their homeland/protectorate, House Smatzkhe had sunk its claws into the gradually expanding Byzantine Empire via their Anatolian demesne and were casting covetous glances across the whole of Asia Minor and the East. When several polite-edging-toward-irritated messages were sent to Taymurhaz, the Voivode of House Smatzkhe, demanding to know what he was about and what the truth of the rumors that he was planning to invade his own Clan's territories was, his reply was a decidedly cool explanation that, if they were true to their Clan sire's commandments, they had nothing to worry about -- and if they were too weak to defend what they held, perhaps they should yield their place to one who could. Exacerbating matters in the west was Taymurhaz' brother and lieutenant, a fourth generation vampire as well as then-domesticus of the East and Byzantine general John II Tzimisce, a brilliantly charismatic man of astonishing military genius and incredible influence in the Byzantine court, where he was both the absolute military ruler of the Eastern sector of the Byzantine Empire and the lover of the Empress Theophano. Married to a porphyrogenita of the Imperial House of Comnenus, his legitimate children where princes born to the purple and therefore in line to inherit the Byzantine throne by birthright. Strategically well-connected politically, he was the right hand of the Emperor, and made much of his pious devotion to the the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which he made land grants from his vast personal holdings and contributed much in the way of wealth and temporal influence, earning the favor of the Metropolitan of Constantinople. Tactically well-connected militarily, he commanded not only the devotion and loyalty of his troops, but nearly their worship as well, seeming undefeatable on the battlefield -- to the annoyance of much of Clan Tzimisce, every speck of dirt between the Mediterranean and the Caucasus seemed to be his homeland, and he took full and complete advantage of the legendary Tzimisce ability to set themselves in their place and not be moved by any force known to Kindred or Kine. Among the Kindred, he was the Tzimisce of Tzimisces in the Byzantine Empire, one of the few to ever wear his identity as one of the Pure Clan descendants of the Tzimisce Antediluvian openly, contending politically with the Ventrue, Lasombra, Toreador, and Assamites on a nightly basis, wringing everything he could from the alliances he made, and more than once accused of trafficking with the Ba'ali to achieve some of his abilities. The tongues that spoke those particular words were most frequently silenced by the shadowy assassin who was his left hand, whispered among the Houses of the Clan to be his dhampir son by his unnamed Armenian mistress -- whispers that were spoken very low, indeed.
John Tzimisce made his move in late in the year 967, staging a coup in which his forces seized control of Constantinople while, with the aid of the Empress Theophano, his dhampir son assassinated not only the Emperor but also the leader of the Ventrue in Byzantium and most of his potential heirs until they reached a Ventrue willing to deal with the new Emperor -- John Tzimisce. Exiling his partner-in-crime, Theophano, making an enormous bribe of half his personal lands and wealth to placate the Church, taking the sons of the late Emperor as his wards to stopthrust any Ventrue thoughts of using them against him, Tzimisce solidified his control of the Byzantine state nearly overnight, to the dismay of House Tzildaris, who had previously been moving to undercut his power as much as they could and now were forced to grind their fangs and watch helplessly as all their efforts came to nothing. Almost immediately, Tzimisce sent his well-oiled military machine into action against not only the Assamites to the south but against the Brujah of Greece and his own Clanmates in the East as he went about with his stated intention of ringing the Black Sea in Byzantine fortresses -- and Smatzkhe possessions. The howl of outrage from Clan Tzimisce was universal, the more warlike of the Houses advocating crushing the arrogant Smatzkhe Emperor immediately for even daring to set foot in Europe, which turned out to be more easily said than done as he ran up against his first target -- House Ruthven -- and coldly ran them down. House Ruthven's weakness and corruption were exposed for the entire Kindred world to see and only the quick and frantic work of Houses Tzildaris and Djilas kept the Byzantine forces of House Smatzkhe from completely overruning the East, stopping them short of their goal on the border with Bulgaria, the intensive diplomatic efforts of House Tzildaris temporarily defusing the situation enough to keep it from exploding into an open Tzimisce civil war -- at least for the time being. It was during this time, while negotiating with John Tzimisce and deciding that, irregardless of whatever else they did in the future, he would have to die for the good of all Kindred, that Maura first met Morgan Demetrius i'Tzimisce, the Emperor's dhampir assassin and son. Ghouled and blood bound to his Kindred father from birth, named for a pagan deity of inescapable death and destruction by his Gangrel teacher/tormentor, his mind and soul warped in ways that few Tzimisces could even imagine, the Emperor's son was an icily emotionless, conscienceless killing machine completely devoid of both passion and any sense of the value of his own and others' existences -- the only entity in his life with any worth at all was his father and his own sense of being was so pared down to its barest essentials that even his aura barely existed. What he lacked, however, he more than made up for in an intelligence that was a match and more for his father's own, as he was both a brilliant military thinker and possessed an abnormally well-developed talent for understanding the thoughts and motivations of others, despite his almost total lack of anything that even vaguely resembled positive human contact during most of his life -- it was simply a gift that he had always possessed and used to its best effect. Maura, staring into cold, expressionless eyes the color of late autumn sunlight, pitied him first, feared him second, and swore that she would find some way to dispose of his father and set him free third. That decided, she returned to her brothers at their main enclave in Dobrudja and informed them that she had convinced John Tzimisce to back down for the time being -- and that she had found the warrior Voivode they had been searching for.
House Smatzkhe's expansion momentarily checked, House Tzildaris began searching for a long-term method of neutralizing the threat they posed to the stability of the Clan. Quiet negotiations with Clan Assamite and Clan Ventrue yielded a willingness on the part of both Clans to temporarily lay aside the traditional enmities -- diplomacy being the better part of valor when faced with a conquest-minded Tzimisce Emperor. The coalition made its move in 976 with a Ventrue-backed political coup in Constantinople while the Emperor himself was in the field with his armies. By the time he managed to return to the city itself, the Assamites were in position and ready to strike; the Emperor, despite the best efforts of his son and the Imperial guard, met his Final Death at their hands, ending, at the same stroke, Smatzkhe political dominance in Byzantium. Morgan Demetrius i'Tzimisce was mortally wounded in his efforts to save his father's unlife and was embraced on the spot by Istvan Laczyescu, being taken to Romania by his "uncle" Varian while his sire dealt with the situation in Constantinople.
Once again, House Tzildaris stepped back from open activity, withdrawing into a quiet period of watching and waiting. They maintained their neutrality throughout the long and terrible conflict with the Tremere, acting as an intermediary between the Tremere and those Tzimisces who had no interest in entering the war, a decision which frustrated the efforts of House Valerian (later von Klatka) to crush the upstart wizards. In the west, the mechanations of Mathilde von Ravensburg drew them into a web of deceit and treachery that came to a tragic ending with the Final Death of Ulric von Ravensburg and the ascension of his grandchilde, Konrad; the incident drove the first of a series of wedges between the Ravensburgs and the Tzildaris. Their refusal to engage in the usual petty conflicts was what saved House Tzildaris when the internal revolt they had long watched and prepared for struck -- they were, for the most part, the most internally cohesive of all the Houses, and during those long and terrible nights they spent the majority of their efforts shoring up what they could of their Clan, so that all would not be destroyed. It was during this time, barely three hundred years after his embrace, that Morgan Demetrius i'Tzimisce found himself thrust rather unwillingly into the position of Voivode.
Tzildaris, feeling his age as he had never felt it before and recognizing the need for a change in the House's leadership, had originally selected Morgan on the basis of Maura's intuition and, later, due to the qualities three hundred years of intensive efforts to undo the damage done to him while he was still alive had brought out in him. Morgan himself had not even had an inkling that Tzildaris considered him the heir apparent. As Maura had foreseen, the time for an actual warrior prince for House Tzildaris had come, and, while circumstances did not allow for an easy or painless transition of power, they did manage to prove that Morgan was his father's son -- at least as far as his ability to lead and command loyalty went. In the aftermath of the Anarch Revolt, during the formation of the Camarilla, the Sabbat, and the Oradea League, House Tzildaris maintained its traditional position as a pillar of strength and stability in the East, propping up the horrendously injured Houses of Brankovan-Waivadi and Ruthven, as well as providing counsel and guidance in the formation of the League itself, basing many of its underlying tenents in Kindred law as well as the traditional Tzildaris ideal of strength in unity. They even managed to talk the infernally proud and stiff-necked House Smatzkhe into accepting the agreement. To this night, they maintain the theoretical unity of the Old Clan in the belief that the future should not be built on a cracked foundation.
Brujah: Try actually talking to one sometime -- they do frequently make sense even if expression is not their most developed talent.
Giovanni: I do not even want to know what they are doing.
Followers Of Set: I will give them this -- they are persistent.
Gangrel: If you can ever talk one into inviting you to a gather, the scars and the hangover will definitely be worth the effort. Lasombra: Overbearing, are they not?
Malkavians: They do know. Watch them carefully and learn from them -- their perception is beyond even ours.
Nosferatu: One of our most gifted research partners, the things they know would curl the hair on a Setite and make a Ba'ali run screaming. I like them.
Ravnos: Again, an invitation to one of their parties is worth the illusory third eye.
Toreador: There is merit in the preservation of art and culture -- though a bit more in the way of preservation of vampiric culture could be in order.
Tremere: Our brothers, whether or not any of the others wish to admit it -- beneath the skin, we are all the same.
Tzimisce: We are all of one blood, irregardless of politics.
Ventrue: Noble. Honorable. Have they earned their name? We shall see.
Blood Brothers: Is it entirely too late for me to change my mind about that all one blood assertion?
Daughters Of Cacophony: The main reason I always carry a pair of earplugs with me.
Nagaraja: They now more of the Shadowlands than we could ever hope to, and their knowledge enriches us all.
Salubri: Preserve them now, as we failed to preserve them during those long, black nights five hundred years ago. We owe Saulot that much, and a promise made...
Samedi: A Cappadocian by any other name is still...strange.
True Brujah: Repeat after me -- therapy is my friend...
House Von Klatka: I fear for the eventual fate of this House -- their stubborn refusal to see what is before them leads them ever closer to tragedy and there has been nothing we could do to stop it.
House Vardalek: Their depth of understanding and enlightenment is impressive, and their dedication to their ideals uplifting.
House Elenades: Our friends and allies -- and the best example of why the Shadow Crusade is a mockery of our people.
House Frasheri: If you really must kill someone, call the Frasheri. More reliable than the Assamites and they keep trying until they get it right.
House Brankovan-Waivadi: Their strength returns to them nightly and I see a time ahead where the north remembers what it is like to be ruled by a truly great woman.
House Ruthven: Presently, rather useless. But if they succeed in recovering from their losses, the result may be impressive indeed.
House Smatzkhe: Pray that they are as good as they claim to be -- otherwise, we may all be entertaining the Hag before too much longer.
House Venizelos: Do not let the pathetic, materialistic face they show the others fool you for an instant -- these cousins of ours are wise in ways that most Tzimisces would not suspect.