The First People
Namtaru, Spreader of Plagues
“ Shut up!” the man screamed, already losing his grip on self-control.“ How do you even know any of that?”
“ Because I am you. I am a reflection of everything you wanted to be before your family held you back from your dreams. Now you are alone, traipsing through the desert, following random strangers to get your kicks when you’ d rather be home in April’ s arms.”
“ I never said my wife’ s name,” the man said with a shaking voice.
Rodrigo turned around, baring his fangs with a sly smile.“ You didn’ t have to. Like I said, I am you.”
The man dropped his gun and tried to escape, but Rodrigo was much faster. He knocked the man out with a rock to the back of his head. The goblet still needed to be filled with blood, after all.
A Truth You Can Trust
Everything you’ re about to hear is the truth, unless it’ s a lie. Only I know which is which, unless I was also lied to. Then we’ re both up a creek. You’ d better stop struggling and listen up, or I’ ll tighten your bindings even more.
You’ ve heard of the Baali, the demons and devils of the Kindred world, the antichrist split up into a million pieces. But you only think you know what we’ re all about. I’ m going to tell you how it really went down, and then you tell me whether you think the world is truly as you see it. If you interrupt me, you won’ t like the outcome.
The First People
God is perfect, right? The man in the sky made the world in six days, then had to take a long nap. But that’ s just the story. Have you ever thought about the things that came before humans? The Baali call them the First People. It took six days to perfect the specimen you see before you, but there were many botched creations prior to humanity. Their remains became part of the Earth, buried deep within the ground to hide God’ s mistakes from the masses who worshipped him.
The story of the Baali begins with a pair of brothers. Caine and Abel? Ha! That story’ s been told ad nauseum. It should be abandoned for how boring it is. No, we go back to the brothers Nergal and Moloch. Caine and Abel had already happened and Caine’ s curse had taken thousands into the Embrace before these brothers were even born. Still, their choices would go on to found the Baali, and set in motion wars and other atrocities.
Nergal and Moloch were Embraced in their early adulthood and traveled the night in search of lost relics. They had an undying love of mysticism and the occult, leading them to excavate tombs and unearth the resting places of long-forgotten entities … the kinds of entities the world was better off never experiencing. They discovered the burial grounds of the First People, but more surprising was they weren’ t dead. God had buried them alive, but had never given them the ability to die— a gift so many people today misunderstand.
While the brothers were greeted with only pleasant smiles and arms extended in brotherhood, Nergal was a power-hungry Cainite. He went about devouring the blood of the First People, one by one. Moloch had no choice but to join in or be pulled apart by the ones Nergal ignored during his feast. What was created that day were a pair of brothers who were now the two most powerful vampires the world had ever seen. You see, drinking the blood of these prototypes gave Nergal and Moloch a command over the True Names of other creatures in God’ s creation, specifically some long-lost demons that slept just beyond the veil that separates our world from a thousand others.
Namtaru, Spreader of Plagues
Don’ t die on me yet. That’ s not the end of the story, and you’ ll like this part. So, Nergal was an egotistical man with dreams of ruling the world. His body, and his brother’ s, had been altered on a spiritual level by the blood of the First People, which attracted disease and vermin to them. The overriding theory among the Baali I’ ve debated this with is that since the First People were God’ s literal refuse, they
10 BAALI