Paths & Virtues

• Lilith was the first Awakened witch, but was never merely mortal.

• She Ascended to the ranks of the Pure Ones and returned to teach the Art to the living and dead.

• The Self is a garden, with seasons of growth and withering.

• Do not ignore or squander the power of life.

Developed by the Drakaina, this Path of Necromancy studies natural cycles, including the savage interplay of life and death. All life is a manifestation of entropy, a chaotic miracle punctuating Creation’s flow toward destruction. When rot claims a body, it impregnates the flesh with insects and lush plants, and its stench calls scavengers who sustain themselves with death’s bounty. Vampires demonstrate how this process can be arrested and manipulated, for Kindred stand suspended at the moment of death, before nature blesses them with the power to decompose and feed living things. The black seed lies dormant within them, but they can encourage its growth in others, manipulating rot and staining life with the ghostly essence.

Although the Drakaina developed the Path, they don’t hoard it — it’s the Dark Mother’s gift, to share with all who worship her. Any Bahari necromancer may learn it from a Drakaina teacher. Lilin Nagaraja practice this Path in increasing numbers because it unifies the life and death principles in ways anticipated (but never realized) by their Idran forebears.