The Tale of the First City

In the beginning there was only Caine

Caine who [sacrificed] his brother out of [love].47

Caine who was cast out.

Caine who was cursed forever with immortality.

Caine who was cursed with the lust for blood,

It is Caine from whom we all come,

Our Sire's Sire.

For the passing of an age he lived in [the land of Nod].

In loneliness and suffering

For an eon he remained alone

But the passing of memory drowned his sorrow.

And so he returned to the world of mortals,

To the world his brother [Seth, third-born of Eve,]

and [Seth's children] had created.

He returned and was made welcome.

[For none would turn against him,

due to the Mark that was laid upon him]

The people saw his power and worshipped him,

[He grew powerful, and his power was strong,

his ways of awe and command were great]

[And the Children of Seth made] him King

of their great City, The First City.

But Caine grew lonely in his Power.

Deep within him, the seed of loneliness

blossomed, and grew a dark flower

He saw within his blood the potence of fertility

By calling up demons and listening to whispered wisdom

He learned the way to make a child for his own.

He came to know its power, and, doing so,

decided to Embrace one of those near him.

And, lo, Uriel, Dread Uriel, revealed

himself to Caine that very night

and said to him,

"Caine, though powerful you are, and

marked of God,

know you this: that any Childe you make will

bear your curse, that any of your Progeny

will forever walk in the Land of Nod, and

fear flame and sun, drinking blood only

and eating ashes only.

And since they will carry their

father's jealous seed,

they will forever plot and fight

amongst themselves.

Doom not those of Adam's

grandchildren who seek to walk

in righteousness. Caine!

Stay your dread Embrace!"

Still, Caine knew what he must do, and a young man

named Enoch, who was the most beloved of Seth's kin,

begged to be made Son to the dark Father.

And Caine, mindful though he was of Uriel's words,

seized Enosh, and wrapped him in the dark Embrace.

And so, it came to pass that Caine beget

Enoch and, so doing, named the First City Enoch.

And so doing, did Enoch beg for a brother,

a sister, and Caine, indulgent Father,

gave these to him, and their names were

Zillah, whose blood was most-favored of Caine,

and Irad, whose strength served Caine's arm.

And these Kindred of Caine learned the ways

of making Progeny of their own, and

they Embraced more of Seth's kin, unthinking.

And then wise Caine said. "An end to this crime.

There shall be no more."

And as Caine's word was the law, his Brood obeyed him.

The city stood for many ages,

And became the center of a mighty Empire.

Caine grew close to those not like him.

The [children of Seth] knew him

And he, to turn, knew them

But the world grew dark with sin.

Caine's children wandered here and there,

indulging their dark ways

Caine felt anger when his children fought

He discovered deceit when he saw them

make word-war

He knew sadness when he saw them abuse

[the children of Seth]

Caine read the signs

in the darkening sky,

but said nothing.

Then came the great Deluge, a

 great flood that washed over the world.

The City was destroyed,

the children of Seth with it.

Again, Caine fell into great sorrow and went into solitude.

And he left us, his Progeny, to our own ends.

We found him, after much searching,

deep in the earth,

and he bade us go, saying

that the Flood was a punishment,

for his having returned to the world of life

And subverting the true law.

He asked us to go, so that he might sleep.

So we returned alone to find the

children of Noah,

And announced that we were the new rulers.

Each created a Brood

In order to claim the glory of Caine,

Yet we did not have his wisdom or restraint.

A great war was waged, the Elders against

their Children, just as Uriel had said,

And the Children slew their parents.

They rose up

Used fire and wood

Swords and claws

To destroy those who had created them

The rebels then built a new city.

Out of the fallen Empire,

they collected the Thirteen clans

that had been scattered by the Great War,

and brought them all together,

They brought in the Kingship Clan [Ventrue],

the Clan of the Beast [Gangrel],

the Moon Clan [Malkavian],

the Clan of the Hidden [Nosferatu],

the Wanderer Clan [Ravnos],

the Clan of the Rose [Toreador],

the Night Clan [Lasombra],

the Clan of Shapers [Tzmisces],

the Snake Clan [Setites],

the Clan of Death [Giovanni],

the Healer's Clan [Saulot],

the Clan of the Hunt [Assamites],

and the Learned Clan [Brujah].

They made a beautiful city,

and the people  worshipped them as gods.

They created new Progeny of their own,

the Fourth Generation of Cainites.

But they feared the Jyhad,

the Prophecy of Uriel,

And it was forbidden for those Children

To create others of their kind.

This power their Elders kept for themselves.

When a Childe was created, it was

hunted down and killed, and its Sire with it.

Although Caine was away from us,

we did feel his careful eye watching us,

and we knew that he marked our movements and our ways.

He cursed [Malkav], when that one defamed his image

and doomed him to insanity, forever.

When [Nosferatu] was found indulging his tastes

in foul ways with his own Children,

Caine laid his hand on [Nosferatu],

and told him that he would forever

wear his evil and twisted his visage.

He cursed us all, for killing the first part

of his Children, the Second Generation,

As we had hunted them down one by one,

Zillah the Beautiful, Irad the Strong, and

Enoch First-Ruler.

And we mourned them all, as we were all of a kind,

and all of the families of Caine's childer.

Though this city was as great as Caine's,

eventually It grew old.

As do all living things, it slowly began to die.

The gods at first did not see the truth,

And when they at last looked about

them it was too late.

For, as Uriel had said,

the seed of Evil planted

blossomed as a blood-red rose

and [Troile], the Child of

his Child's Child

rose up, and slew his

Father, Brujah.

And ate of his flesh.

Then war wracked the city

And nothing could ever be

as it was.

The Thirteen saw their city

destroyed and their power extinguished,

and they were forced to

flee, their Progeny along with them.

But many were killed in

the flight, for they had grown weak.

With their authority gone,

all were free create their own Broods,

And soon there were many new Kindred,

Who ruled across the face of the Earth.

But this could not last.

Over time, there came to be too many of  the Kindred

And then there was war once again,

The Elders were already deep in hiding,

For they had learned caution,

But their Children had founded their

own cities and Broods,

And it is they who were killed in the

great wave of war.

There was war so total, that there are

none of that Generation

To speak of themselves any longer.

Waves of mortal flesh were sent across continents

In order to crush and burn the cities of the Kindred.

Mortals thought they were fighting their own wars.

But it is for us that they spilt their blood.

Once this war was over,

All of the Kindred hid from one another

And from the humans that surrounded them.

In hiding we remain today,

For the Jyhad continues still.

And none will say when Caine will arise again,

from his sleep in the earth,

and call for the city Gehenna,

the Last City, the City of Judgment.

The Jyhad continues still.