Followers of Set

Introduction

Followers of Set are heavily tied into the Egyptian culture, driven by the gods that are not only the truth of the Follower’s existence, but the symbols by which they define the world around them. The story of Set is one of familial betrayal and revenge, embracing the darkness of the afterlife to save the world from itself. The story of his Followers is one of devotion to a dark corruption, justified by the Egyptian history towards which the clan is focused.

The Mythology of Set

Followers of Set are driven by a common story, the story of their founder and father-god, Set. This story is the same as we hear of Egyptian mythology, but it is from a perspective that one would normally give to the ‘villain’ of the story, Set. (Note: This story is *completely* different then was written in the modern V:TM Revised “Clanbook: Followers of Set”. Below is a synopsis of the Dark Ages version, from the Followers of Set section of “Libellus Sanguinis 3: Wolves at the Door”)

Vocabulary

Set, also called Sutekh: Our patron and the first of our kind. The Du’at: The after-life mirror world of the living world. Ka: A person’s life essence. Ahk: A person’s spiritual essence. Ba: A person’s personality.

All three essences separate upon death, and with the proper rites, they travel across the dark river into the Du’at. This worked well while the balance of the world, the Maat, was kept. People lived free of restrictions, because the world was in balance.

The Clan Origin Story

Ra, a great chieftain, and his grandson Osiris were greedy and wanted to steal the riches of the du’at for themselves, so they made a plan to change the balance. They knew that the power of the du’at was in the rituals and remembrance of the living, so they worked to weaken the living world into a pattern that would also weaken the du’at.

Ra and Osiris forced the Deceit of Civilization (the twin lies of culture and law) upon the people, turning the Maat upside down, elevating the weak ways of slavery over the strength of individuals, and the poor over the rich. They make the people feel shame for their successes and pride in failure. By this, the people lost their connection to the wilds and the land, and became weak. They also lost their connection to the du’at, which became vulnerable.

Set was Osiris’s brother and was out in the wilds as these laws were put into place. He saw that the deceit of civilization would unbalance the Maat, yet also knew that by acting against his brother, it would also unbalance the Maat. So, Set asked his grandfather Ra for his own dominion, leaving the civilization to Osiris, and asking for the desert wastelands for his own people to continue the Maat as it should be.

Ra not only refused, but banished Set to exile in the deepest deserts to die. Not only that, but took away Set’s sister-wife Nepthys for his own, producing a son, named Anubis. Hence, Set’s lineage was destroyed, leaving him bereft both in life, and the afterlife (du’at).

Hence, Ra waged war on the afterlife, placing Anubis in judgment over the newly dead, and making the du’at people into eternal slaves.

Set languished and got close to death, but as he was dying, found a piece of the dark river in the sand. As he drank, he died. Yet, his will to live was so strong, only his ahk escaped to the du’at to see what Ra had done to the afterlife, his ba and ka remaining in his body by force of will.

Set returned to Egypt to free his people from the tyranny of Osiris, and though he was able to trap his brother in a sarcophagus and throw him in the Nile, the damage to the people had been done and they had been turned aginst Set and the ways of the Maat. He wanted to save the people and not destroy them, so he gathered his greatest followers and gifted them with his own essence and that of the dark river.

In the meantime, Osiris’ own son, Horus continued in his father’s name, gathering the jackal headed minions of Anubis, cat headed women of Bast, and even immortal mummies to fight against Set and the balanced wild ways he protects. You are one of Set’s greatest followers, and your duty is to save the world from the rules that are smothering it. The Deceit of Civilization has forced humans to diminish, placing rules and restrictions on what should be a balanced freedom. Religion, government, and all the rules simply serve to weaken and diminish humanity.

History of the Clan – Lessons Learned

We are not Cainites

First things first. Followers of Set are not Cainites. They are not vampires, they are not equals to these simple servant decendants of evil spirits that escaped when the world broke. Cainties are a symptom to the ills of the world.

Followers of Set follow certain rules, like blood feeding and avoiding the sun, due to having a split essence, their ahk in the afterlife and the rest still in their bodies. While these ‘Cainites’ might also have the same requirements that follow having a split essence, that is as close as the relationship goes.

While they were cursed with the consequences of a broken world, you were chosen by Set himself as a servant and protector of what the world should be. These are totally different things, and they will never be more then examples of how the world is broken through limitations and rules.

They treat us as a low clan due to our foreign ways, but truthfully we would never want to help them create more society, and find greater use in raising up the downtrodden of their world to break their power, and also act as their final option to turn to, for problems they need solved.

Stealth, patience, and cunning over brute force

Patience and stealth will undo the fiercest of warriors. Set is cunning, patient, and able to act slowly to break those that would bring rule onto the world. Even the great armies that have invaded Egypt have fallen in time.

Our history is rife with examples of how stealth and cunning works. Alexander’s army was a time of great progress as we learned this lesson, and we thrived in the wake of their leader. We mourned at his sudden death, doubtlessly caused by the minions of Ra, who feared that he would topple their civilization and might be as we suspected, a true son of Sutekh.

The Greeks were turned to our ways of thinking, as we shaped them from within. The one time we forgot our ways and got too bold, we faced the Romans head-on, and we were defeated.

So, we went back to our patient ways, and we corrupted Rome from within, until the Ventrue’s toy was bloated and festered, ripe to fall and carry our new messages of the wild to all corners of the world.…

Set disappears, but leaves prophecies in his wake

…but as our victory over Rome was nigh, disaster struck. Our clan was shaken by endless prophecies from Set himself, sleeping in his own sarcophagus. Prophecies of the end of days and all events that will lead to the restoration of the Maat. These prophecies were so strong in those closer to Set, that it drvoe our elders to run into the desert, many never to be seen again - or as yet still asleep in their own sarcophagi. The echoes of these words still resonate today, a millennium later. Once the words were spoken, Set’s sleeping place was broken, our God missing and it is unknown as yet when he will return.

As we reeled from these words, the lupines, Ventrue, and other minions of Osiris struck, dealing us incredible losses and our great city of Tanis fell, drowned by our enemies. The mortals rebuilt a new city nearby, Tinnis. It has since then become a great city again, but is a city of commerce that we share with other clans who share similar thoughts, not the stronghold we once had in Tanis.

Geography

Followers of Set are based heavily in Egypt, as that is the cornerstone of their mythos and origins. Unfortunately, they have found the Muslim influence to be as repressive to their “true” religion as the Romans and Christians. At least the Greeks tried to understand and integrate their faith. As the new faiths have come into Egypt, the Followers of Set are powerful, but as a whole outnumbered by the other entering Cainites. It does act as an attraction to Cainites looking to escape the European culture, and hence, opportunities for the Setites. We serve to help these Cainites find the secrets and new world they desire… and draw them slowly and steadily into our own goals and their undoing.

In the end, the world is too small for Egypt to be in our control until we destroy the civilization of the Europeans and their Cainites. With that knowledge, we must travel far from home.

The Followers of Set have since spread to other places around the world, emulating their missing god and trying to find allies and pawns against the massed forces in Egypt. They tend to be wanderers and opportunists, collecting lore and information they can use to control, and break, civilizations and rules.

In fact, Followers of Set are one of the most well traveled of the medieval world’s vampires, who tend to stay in their safe cities and very much hate the dangers of travel. Followers are incredibly good at planning merchant caravans they can travel within, and can even use this knowledge to protect other traveling Cainites, in return for favors and valuable contacts. Europe tends to attract the youngest Setites, spreading the word and actions of their god to these bastions of Christian Church and Cainite strength. We tend to recruit the newest Followers from those mortals who fell to our machinations, who know the power of the dark ways, and have matured in life to be both patient and understand enough to ask for the dark gift. We never bring others into the fold unwillingly.

We look for those who use knowledge to corrupt others and themselves, the Followers have no need for zealots and warriors, but more for those who can act slowly and with knowledge. The European Cainite system is imbalanced and teetering on the edge of chaos. All we need to do is very, very carefully push.

Important Figures of the Clan

Most of the important figures are aspects of the mythology that drives the clan.

Typical Roads for Members of the Clan

Followers of Set have been known to follow the original Road of the Serpent, or the Road of Typhon, as influenced by the Greeks in Egypt. The Serpent’s Road prizes misery and excess.

Road of the Serpent

10. Failing to indulge in the most trivial of physical urges 9 Failing to immediately sate one’s carnal desires 8 Refusing an opportunity to corrupt a mortal 7 Refusing an opportunity to corrupt a vampire 6 Refusing an opportunity to corrupt a holy figure 5 Failing to undermine the prevailing moral environment 4 Failing to undermine the current social order 3 Protecting an individual’s virtue 2 Punishing an individual for indecent behavior 1 Actively enforcing the rule of law

Road of Typhon

10 Not attempting to awaken Set at the earliest opportunity 9 Refusing to corrupt a vampire for the Setites 8 Allowing one’s feelings for a mortal to override the need to corrupt said mortal 7 Failing to exploit another’s weaknesses 6 Failing to replace faith with cynicism and despair 5 Failing to undermine the current social order in favour of the Setites 4 Destroying a foe expediently and mercifully rather than “poetically” 3 Failing to destroy a vampire in Golconda 2 Refusing to succumb to one’s own weaknesses 1 Attempting to maintain any sense of self-control, purity or worth

Priorities of the Clan

1. Do not just destroy an enemy, but erase his name from existence. Once someone is no longer remembered, only then are they truly destroyed.

2. Patience and stealth will undo the fiercest of warriors.

3. Your first priority is to collect resources, for only then can you use them to do Set’s will. One needs resources to tempt and corrupt, and also to bring into the afterlife, to continue Set’s will in the du’at.

4. You must have servants who are trained to do the correct rituals should you die, so you travel correctly into the afterlife. Using rituals from the book “The Book of Going Forth by Night”

5. Do not taint the Blood of the God by soiling it within Cainites or mortals, so do not give of the Blood Oath, as they are unworthy of the essence of the god. The burden of ghouls is one of the master, not the servant, who is given the essence only after they have proven their worth.

6. We historically only embrace from only those of pure Egyptian blood, though in recent times that rule has been broken by to fit Set’s purposes, as in the Greeks who came to follow our ways. There has been dissonance within our own kind for these new changes.

7. We do not corrupt any Cainite. We simply encourage that part of their own base nature. This places us very differently then the Baali, who force actions outside of the Cainites will. We seek to preserve the Maat, and that involves teaching the people to act outside of civilization, not to force another will to replace that which they currently serve.

Opinions

Humans: We will save them from the trappings of civilization and their self-imposed slavery by corrupting them to the ways of the wild, to restore the Maat.

Ghouls: As discussed in the priorities of the clans, Setites don’t make a mortal into a ghoul until they have proven they are worthy about the blessings of the god, through his essence.

Assamites: They have a fanatical devotion their founder, which we can understand, but our clan relationship has been rocky, with conflict when they supported the Muslims in Egypt, but current desires to defeat Christians in Palestine. In the end, we can influence them, but thwey have proven difficult to corrupt.

Brujah: Choice targets for corruption, but beware the placement of their anger.

Cappadocians: They revel in practices of necromancy and relics of the underworld, which we can very much understand. Often kindred spirits. We also see why they are interested with the prospect of the dead, as they can see the echoes of the broken Maat.

Gangrel: Openly admired for their carnal natures and wild ways. Use caution, but easily swayed to our way of thinking and worthy of respect.

Lasombra: Schemers and tacticians with only one peer, ourselves. Be careful, but corrupting one of these Cainites is truly a great conquest.

Malkavians: A puzzle to us, as we have never managed to corrupt a Malkavian for any lasting long term. So, if one gets in your way, simply kill them, easier in the long run.

Nosferatu: Their knowledge is useful, but is a dangerous two way street, as they learn about us at the same time. If they prove too much trouble, your instinct to eliminate them is a good one.

Ravnos: The Ravnos spoil every long term plan by their trickery and chaotic seduction. While they should be very carefully eliminated, never, ever let them know how the clan feels.

Toreador: Their self-indulgence makes them pliable to our manipulation. Our primary target in a new place, and good start for new Setite.

Tremere: We at first thought that they would be good allies, but this has proven to be a falsehood, as they worship none but their false god and revel in laws and rules.

Tzimesce: As yet a mystery to the Setittes, as they are hard to decipher between their iron control of their ladns, but their debased practices in person.

Baali: We make no secret of our hatred of the infernalists, who trunk with demons. We stand against them at every turn. Salubri: These frighten us, as they defie the death of the soul as an inner peace. We do not mourn their clan’s destruction.

Minions of Anubis: We hate and fear any of those who acted as the weapons that destroyed Tanis and they continue to hunt us at all turns, especially when we travel.

Sourcebooks to read:

Libellus Sanguinis 3 – Wolves at the Door (Dark Ages Clanbooks) Players Guide to the Low Clans (“Clanbook – Followers of Set”: Modern Day- Revised)