Saber de lineas de sangre 344257123-V20-Lore-of-the-Bloodlines-11056187-pdf | Page 89

bus. Criminal activity and Kindred intrigues often go hand
in hand. There may be Clans that pull the strings of larger,
organized outfits, but the small crews those outfits use to keep
their hands clean usually need someone willing and able to do
what we do. There are few other occupations where wearing
a mask is a part of the job, and not many of them offer as
much fun and financial freedom as being a getaway driver or
a second story guy.
Often times, this means being able to move illegally obtained
goods from one place to the other. We know a few things
about smuggling thanks to our condition. We might not have
pull with Teamsters, but there are plenty of small operations
that use our people to make sure something gets to where it
needs to be without having all the proper paperwork. My sire
claims that the first of our kind to work as a smuggler and a
pirate had his name struck from the history books because he
was so successful raiding European interests with a ship full
of freed slaves. I don’t know if it was Samedi himself, but he
does love his rum, does he not?
For those who prefer to work alone, there are plenty of people
who need killing to be done and quite a few aren’t interested
in getting wrapped up with Assamites in order to get a throat
cut. We can look like anyone and can take a hit if things go
wrong. That doesn’t even count the peculiar abilities of our
signature Discipline. We can get inside secure locations as a
strange white powder (well, maybe not so much anymore),
and we can poison humans with just a touch. While the
authorities are figuring out that the target just didn’t get sick
on their own, we’re putting money in an off-shore account
and already considering the next contract.
Our relationship with death sometimes becomes a
professional one. Because we spent so much of our time
in graveyards on the island, when death rites became more
formalized, we were in a prime position to move into control.
While larger Clans have taken over the large commercial firms
that make money handling burials, we still lay claim to funeral
homes and coroner’s offices across the world. Our services
become vital because upholding the Masquerade often means
either altering a body to look like it died from natural causes
or making sure it never ends up under the harsh lights of a
medical examiner’s table. Few Kindred think of these areas
when drawing up their complex webs of power and intrigue,
but everyone needs them in the end.
The Giovanni Connection
Our relationship with the Giovanni is complex. Regardless
of whether the tales about a deal between the Baron and
Augustus are true, any sort of full disclosure is very unlikely.
In the absence of evidence, many colorful explanations have
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sprung up to explain why the Baron doesn’t get along with
Augustus. Or, more specifically, why neither the Samedi
nor the Giovanni seem happy with the bargain that they
supposedly struck.
This is the version of the story I’ve heard: Augustus met
with the Baron under somewhat pleasant terms. There was
a minor disagreement about just what the Giovanni could
do with their abilities. All loa are ghosts, but not all ghosts
are loa. Augustus sought out the Baron for guidance on this
subject, yet did not heed his advice. The Giovanni suffered
because of it and threatened to go to war with us. Cooler heads
prevailed, but since then the Samedi and the Giovanni don’t
see eye to eye on much of anything. They don’t understand
why we don’t try to command the loa like they command the
dead. We don’t understand why we would even bother trying.
Anyone trying to show power over the loa fool themselves at
best and set themselves up for a great fall at worst.
Many of us have an interest in their powers of necromancy,
for obvious reasons. Thanatosis gives us control over the body
in death, while necromancy gives us control of the spirits of
the dead. We make a good team with the Giovanni... when
we get along. Because we run in many of the same circles,
individual members of their family enter into relationships
of convenience with our Kindred. This can lead to making
necromancy easier to learn from specific teachers, should
those teachers survive long enough. Our blood sometimes
takes to necromancy like few other Disciplines, thanks to the
blessing of the loa.
While those of our blood sometimes have a knack for
necromancy, sometimes we don’t. One take on the bad deal
the Baron made was a curse upon his line making using
necromancy more difficult. We all owe him our unlives,
but those who take advantage of his image do so with his
permission. The price paid for walking in the Baron’s shoes
is not being able to develop necromancy as well as those of us
who prefer our own ugly mugs. In this version of the story,
Augustus met with a few false Barons that extracted some
goodies out of him. By the time he got to the real one, he
was sick of being fooled.
There is one other option for learning necromancy, but it’s
not one most people like to take. The Harbingers of Skulls
apparently stole the Discipline away from the Giovanni. A few
have offered to teach us how to use necromancy as a way to get
back at the Giovanni, but these lessons are hardly free. They
usually mean getting mixed up in someone else’s intrigues, not
to mention pushing on the bruised relationship we have with
the Giovanni. Being able to speak to the loa directly sounds
lovely, but navigating the strings attached by the Harbingers
might make the power not worth the cost.
SAMEDI