By Myranda Kalis (nagaina@yahoo.com)
Refer to the Old Clan Tzimisce: The Oradea League.
Ulric von Ravensburg, despite his advanced age, remained extremely active well into the Dark Ages, politically as well as socially. Unlike most Tzimisces, the Ravensburgs even then were deeply involved in the politics of both the Kindred and the Kine, crafting machinations that would make even the most elaborate Lasombra plotspinner's head ache. Their returns more than made up for the effort involved. This alone might have been what saved them from absolute destruction at the hands of the Anarchs and the Inquisition -- they stood with their ears to the wind, listening and watching, perceiving much and surmising even more. Unfortunately, it also brought on internal difficulties that might otherwise have been avoided. Ulric's brood was more or less headed by his formidable Kindred spouse, Mathilde, Countess of Heidelberg, a woman of stunning beauty and intelligence and powerful political convictions -- most of which were at odds with her husband's, born of the fact that they followed two very different Roads. Ulric himself was aging; in 1100 he was nearly three thousand years old. Feeling his grip on both The Beast and his world slip ever so slightly, in his insecurity, he had taken to surrounding himself with a seraglio of beautiful young female vampires, most of whom he eventually devoured, but for a time made him feel more alive. His wife found not only this infidelity in the face of their Bond but also his increasingly ineffectual leadership in what promised to be a dangerous time utterly unsupportable and began plotting his destruction.
All the pieces of her plot came together in the year 1199 during a period of protracted negotiations with House Tzildaris on the issue of founding a university in Heidelberg with that scholarly House's aid. The complete details of what transpired have never been fully known outside of those two Houses, but when all was said and done, Ulric von Ravensburg had met his Final Death and Mathilde's childe, Konrad von Ravensburg, had assumed leadership of the House. Konrad established himself as a distinctly different sort of operator than his grandsire from the start, a distinction that led to the House throwing its lot in completely with the Ventrue, and, eventually, the Camarilla; an act which has allowed them to completely obfuscate their true alliegance (to the Black Hand) and their true political inclinations.
The Ravensburgs are powerfully devoted to the ideals and goals of the Black Hand, and are strongly vampire-supremacist in most of their political leanings, despite their membership in the Camarilla. A great deal of their internal philosophy can be traced back to traditional Tzimisce culture. They believe that all vampires have a sacred duty to seek transcendence of their current state in a self-induced trial by fire, weeding out all inferior members so the strongest may prove themselves worthy of their Antediluvian sires and the weakest may be devoured with no regrets. What comes afterward will be a literal paradise on earth, with all beings knowing their place in the order of the universe and finding pleasure in that place. To this end they support the war with the Sabbat (whom they believe to be inherently inferior in their refusal to submit to a higher authority, their own Clanmates notwithstanding), a refusal to openly deal with the Anarchs (the experience of continual oppression will either temper or destroy them), and the absolute destruction of the Caitiff (whom they consider misbegotten abominations better put from their misery -- including the few Caitiff elders). House Ravensburg is also one of the strongest proponents of the Shadow Crusade, and many of their ancillae can be found prowling the world in search of Souleating abominations to destroy in the name of their Antediluvian sire, whom they believe tacitly approves of their activities.
Brujah: The young ones are little more than anarchic rabble, the descendants of a cowardly murderess, and it shows in all their actions. Their elders, the true childer of Brujah, have potential -- if only they would do more than whine.
Giovanni: Of no consequence. Their time will come.
Followers Of Set: If you can milk them for their poison, do so. If not, remember which part of the snake you should crush first.
Gangrel: These Kindred are less than the beasts that they emulate, for they have willingly surrendered their souls and their reason. As with a rabid dog, euthanasia is usually the kindest answer.
Lasombra: Those who refused to take part in the cowardly murder of their Clan sire are largely worthy of unlife and should be spared. The others would be laughable if they were not so pathetic.
Malkavians: Again, as with our Gangrel "cousins." Put them from their misery and silence their ravings once and for all.
Nosferatu: The Nictuku are the harbingers of Gehenna, the Night of Reckoning, and so their appearance should exalt all Kindred of pure heart and soul. One must wonder why our Nosferatu cousins twitch so violently at that thought.
Ravnos: Their hands, properly preserved, make interesting conversation pieces.
Toreador: Their stewardship of humanity is to be commended but they must not be allowed to forget that they are vampires.
Tremere: Rapists and petty creatures who have no idea what they shall face on the Night of Reckoning -- though I shall certainly relish their screams as our Sire wrings the unlife from them.
Tzimisce: We are the Clan Tzimisce. All others are mere pretenders.
Ventrue: Worthy Kindred, though perhaps not as worthy as they could be. A few real trials will temper them -- or break them -- and we shall see what they might become.
House Vardalek: Nonentities.
House Von Klatka: Were it not for their dalliance with debased arts, they would be among the most worthy of our Clan. As things stand, they must either forswear their reliance on dark powers or be...chastised most severely.
House Elenades: True, they have turned the power of the Souleaters to good use. True, they have not succumed to its dark temptations. True, that their blood is tainted with it, and for that, they have earned destruction.
House Ruthven: Pathetic. Were it not for the taint in their blood, we would have supped on their vitae and sent them to the destruction that they so clearly desire long ago.
House Smatzkhe: The pitiful relics that comprise this House will shortly meet their Final Deaths beneath the fangs of the Baba Yaga, which will at least save us the trouble of completing the job we started with them.
House Bathory-Nadasdy: Those claim the name Tzimisce? That is nearly amusing -- laugh while you end their unlives.
House Djilas: Destroying themselves. How considerate.
House Frasheri: Our sisters are noble, powerful, and unswayed by false mercy. That is why we make such perfect partners.
House Venizelos: Useful.
House Tzildaris: What do they know? More importantly, what are they keeping from us?
The sixth-generation Voivode of House Ravensburg, Konrad von Ravensburg is noted for making up what he might lack in generation with personal drive and ambition, not only for his House and Clan, but for the Kindred as a whole. Widely believed to be a follower of the Path of Power and the Inner Voice, he is a subversive voice within the Camarilla, advocating a milennarian philosophy that is part vampire-supremacist and part Gehenna cult. As one of the Seraphim of the Camarilla, he wields enormous influence within the Black Hand. Noted for his personal penchant for elegantly planned and executed acts of inhuman cruelty, he is regarded as coldblooded even by other Tzimisces, most of whom, if they do not fear him, at least watch him warily.
The childe of the fifth-generation sorceress, Mathilde of Heidelberg, Konrad was raised within the intrique-ridden confines of his mother's court in that city, where she reigned as the principal consort of the then-Voivode, Ulric von Ravensburg. Mathilde, however, was not content merely to lend her noble family's support to her Kindred spouse, particularly once the power of her position began to erode in the face of Ulric's numerous infidelities with progressively younger and more attractive female vampires as his own age began slowly to wear on him. Rearing Ulric as her hand-picked successor for her rapidly declining spouse, Mathilde incalculated in him the tenents of the Path of Power and the Inner Voice, schooling him in everything from the arts of intrique to the arts of the kill -- nothing if not a Tzimisce traditionalist, Mathilde was an icy woman capable of enormous cruelty in the pursuit of her goals, a trait she was careful to instill in her son. She was also subtle, particularly in covering her own tracks, another trait that Konrad easily picked up -- though he is guilty of horrendous crimes against both Kindred and Kine, there exists no evidence to implicate him in any of them, and, therefore, no reason to serve the rest of the Old Clan his head on a platter, though they have frequently been the targets of both his philosophy and his malice.
Once Mathilde's plot to dispose of Ulric came to fruition, she placed her son on the throne of House Ravensburg and stepped into the shadows, preferring the position of advisor to outright ruler -- Konrad has benefited from a powerful coalition with his sire ever since, and has ruled House Ravensburg virtually unopposed for nearly seven hundred years. He established himself in the calm before the storms of the Inquisition and the Anarch Revolt, assuring that there would be no challengers of consequence to his rule by coldly destroying all who displayed even minor reservations at his accession, including his own sixth-generation broodmates and no few of his grandsire's fifth-generation progeny. Possibly the only dissident who escaped his method of assuring House solidarity was Miriam Zantosa, the childe of his grandsire and, by this time, the wife of the Voivode of House Tzildaris, Morgan Demetrius i'Tzimisce -- both of whom had played a rather significant role in the final death of Konrad's predecessor and were waiting for the new Voivode to place a wrong foot. Konrad let the idea of disposing of them both go and turned his attentions elsewhere. Shortly thereafter, the entire Clan Tzimisce was engulfed in the Anarch Revolt and the Inquisition, and all had more than enough to handle for quite some time without worrying what the westernmost of the Houses was up to. Following the Convention of Thorns, House Ravensburg also joined the Oradea League, primarily to keep up with what the rest of the Old Clan was doing rather than any desire for mutual defense, as their alliances with Clan Ventrue and Clan Toreador afforded them more than enough in the way of protection and gave Konrad von Ravensburg political options that the other Houses lacked.
Those options were to manifest detrimentally to the rest of the Old Clan as the centuries progressed -- by the end of the nineteenth century, House Ravensburg, and its Voivode, were the single most powerful and influential House of the Old Clan. Solidly entrenched as an ally of the Ventrue in Germany, Konrad von Ravensburg used the influence he had gained over centuries to strike back at his enemies in the Old Clan -- particularly those in House Smtzkhe and House Tzildaris, whom he held most directly responsible for the humiliation he and his House had suffered at the Convention of Thorns. World War I afforded him a golden opportunity to strike at the Smtzkhe heartland and the people who dwelled there: the Anatolian highlands of eastern Turkey and southern Lesser Armenia were the ancestral homeland of House Smtzkhe and in that region the Turkish government instituted a pogrom against Armenian nationals, most of whom were kin lines to the Smtzkhe Tzimisces, as well as the Smtzkhe themselves when they came to the aid of their embattled human relatives. Called today the Armenian Holocaust, this bloody pogrom resulted in the mass murders of more than two million Armenian nationals -- most of whom had nothing to with and no knowledge of the Smtzkhe connection to their homeland and nearly all of whom were civilians -- and the virtual annihilation of both House Smtzkhe and the last pureblood line of the Tzimisce Antediluvian's mortal descendants. Even worse, the Ravensburgs had so thoroughly obfuscated their cupability in the crime that the Oradea League could not even name one actionable breach of Kindred law that they had committed. Their only satisfaction in the entire debacle was that House Ravensburg suffered a severe blow to their power and prestige in the west with the collapse of Germany at the end of the war, though more than one eastern Voivode noted that the so-called Treaty of Versailles was an invitation to go to war again at a later date. Few were surprised by the second World War or House Ravensburg's theoretical involvement in it -- as before, if the Ravensburgs had anything to do with Hitler, a possibility they rather vehemently deny, no one in the Oradea League could prove it. Their powerbase destabilized by both the last few decades, the stunning changes that have swept Europe in the last ten years, and the growing interclan schism over the exact aims and goals of the Shadow Crusade, House Ravensburg remains the most powerful House of the Old Clan, primarily due to the strength of their Voivode.
Konrad von Ravensburg is a tall, powerfully built man who nearly radiates superiority and intimidation. He prefers suits that accentuate rather than conceal the power of his body, usually in dark charcoal gray with dark red and gold accents. His hair is dark bown speckled with silver, having been embraced in his middle thirties, and his eyes are an icy, arctic blue that can blaze both with fury and enthusiasm, though are normally cold enough to cause frostburn at twenty paces. He is handsome, in a craggy, chiselled sort of way, but his physical appeal is rarely enough to overcome the sense that you personally are little more than an obsticle to destroy or a potential thrall to his will.