Rites & Rituals

Members of the Status Quo do not appreciate change, and work to keep the Sect in a state of abiding stasis. They do this by creating consensus, and encouraging others to compromise rather than seek progress in any specific direction.

System

During this ritus, members of the Status Quo enchant sprigs of laurel, which they must keep on their person for the remainder of the night. If an individual loses this material token, the ritual’s effects end for that vampire. This ritual may additionally be cast on mortals who have a blood tie to the Status Quo vampire (ghouls or Revenants).

For the rest of the night, all those involved in this ritual gain +2 to any pool for the purposes of mediation, achieving compromise, trying to calm someone out of frenzy, or quieting a state of aggression. This bonus does not apply to pools used with supernatural disciplines.

Unlike the rigid Tremere or the variable but still autocratic ritualists of the Sabbat, the Anarch Movement would seem to be too chaotic an environment for the seeds of blood magic to take root. But magic adapts and evolves and, in the end, finds a way to thrive. For Anarch thaumaturges, the way lies neither in conformity nor passionate obsession. Instead, it comes from eclecticism — from the innate Anarch willingness to try anything so long as there’s a chance it will work.

There is no organized body of Anarch occult knowledge. There are no academies or chantries. There is no central repository of knowledge. Like many systems of esoteric thought, Anarch blood magic involves searching out reclusive tutors who are often not eager to share what they know, or finding obscure tomes that are as likely to cause damnation as to bring about enlightenment. Accordingly, there is very little in the way of a coherent philosophy that underpins the practice of blood magic among the Anarchs. That said, an informal parlance has evolved that allows Anarch occultists to at least understand each other, if only to make it easier for arguments to break out. Anarch sorcerers and thaumaturges generally group themselves into one of four

somewhat irreverently named schools of occult thought: “Old Skool,” “New Age,” “Punk,” and “Hacktivist.”

Blood magic of any sort has been incredibly rare among the Anarchs for most of the Movement’s existence. In the early nights of the Revolt, a scant few Tzimisce and Assamite Anarchs taught some elements of their hereditary arts to fellow revolutionaries. Both Koldunic Sorcery and Assamite Sorcery had religious components that made their practitioners reluctant to share their lore with non-believers (and made pre-Enlightenment Christian vampires reluctant to study them in the first place). A few very rare Anarchs from other Clans had learned some blood magic from their own sires, hoary elder occultists who studied those arts before the birth of Clan Tremere, who then unwisely passed their lore on to rebellious childer who then used it against them.

After Thorns, the surviving Kolduns took their knowledge to the Sabbat (if they didn’t flee from Kindred society entirely), many Assamite sorcerers returned to their own independent Clan, and Clan Tremere initiated a quiet pogrom of every Anarch who displayed knowledge of anything even resembling Thaumaturgy. Despite all that, a handful of occult scholars among the Anarchs avoided destruction, hiding from the Tremere and concealing their

Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks.

Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you alive.