The Tzimisce have long been among the most knowledgeable and erudite Cainites. For millenia other vampires have made the perilous trek to the Carpathians in search of Tzimisce wisdom (the fact that many such vampires do not return deters them little). Until the Tremere's rise, the Tzimisce were the master sorcerers among vampires, practicing a bizarre amalgam of alchemical rituals, Slavic charms and demonology. Indeed, erudition and sorcerous skills rank second only to land held when determining a given Fiend's status.

Tzimisce lore rarely juxtaposes with human concerns, and only intermittently with vampiric ones. The clan has its own agenda, one little concerned with the petty doings of others. Whereas other vampires see themselves as damned, the Tzimisce believe themselves masters of their destiny, subservient to neither God nor Devil. Of all the clans, the Tzimisce takes an approach most similar to what will one day be called humanistic thought.

Not that the clan is by any means humanistic, humanitarian or even human. Tzimisce, indeed, affect a cold contempt for the lesser creatures who provide them with food and fodder, and even other vampires are at best second-rate beings. Tzimisce believe that with sufficient mastery of their Vicissitude Discipline, they can literally sculpt themselves into the image of God - or into an even superior form.

This continuous refinement of Vicissitude has reaped many practical rewards. No clan is so skilled in the use and creation of ghouls. Tzimisce, though free use of their flesh-shaping bent, are fiendishly skilled at warcraft. Though other vampires may be more personally formidable in combat, none are so terrifying. A Tzimisce assault typically takes the form of a nightmarish swarm of twisted monster-ghouls. Such onslaughts are even more frightening when led by the Tzimisce themselves, often in the gigantic, nearly invulnerable Zulo Form. Moreover, stories of what the Tzimisce do to their foes often lead enemies to flee rather than risk capture. There are reasons why the Balkans have spawned so many tales of terror.

The Tzimisce have used their powers to sculpt ghoul servitors to their specifications, creating legions of terrifying minions. Monstrous, shark-mawed Tzimisce hellhounds, some nearly as large as ponies, prowl the clan's demesnes. Squadrons of formerly human ghouls, their very bones and tissues warped into weapons of war, descend on the villages by night to collect Tzimisce tribute. The worst are the vozhd, or war ghouls: elephantine horrors created by the fusion of a dozen or more ghouls (human or animal) into a multilimbed composite monster.

STRENGTH AND INFLUENCE

Clan Tzimisce, despite its current woes, clings tenaciously to the Eastern European homeland it has hauntes since its earliest nights. Tzimisce maintain strongholds and control puppets in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Bavaria, Austria, Serbia and Kievan Russia. The Tzimisce is particularly strong in pagan Lithuania, where certain powerful elders still maintain the worship of the ancient Slavic gods. Here the clan struggles against the Teutonic Knights, who have begun to unearth evidence of the clan's (and its servitors') practices.

Tzimisce maintain their temporal power through their "revenants": ghouls with hereditary supernatural powers. Through marriage, intimidation and outright violence, revenant lines have riddled most noble Eastern European (and many Byzantine) families. The clan has also infiltrated the Eastern Orthodox church, although not nearly to the extent that their Lasombra brethren have riddled the Roman Catholic church.

ORGANIZATION

Voivodes rule "families" of childer; these childer are required to submit to a Blood Oath binding them to their sire. Alas, the childer are rarely bound to each other; centuries of brutal jockeying for the voivode's favor, in a grotesque parody of familial interaction, remain the norm among Tzimisce broods. Occasionally a voivode will impart a favored childe some measure of responsibility - overseeing the ghouls, interacting with the serfs, maintaining the ancestral castle - but this is uncommon.

The clan was much more unified in the elder nights, but complacence and decadence have set in. The fragmented political landscape of the Balkans bears mute testimony to the disharmony rending the clan. Each voivode advances her own goals with little concern for the well-being of the clan as a whole. While such self-centeredness is ubiquitous to the Cainite race, Tzimisce arrogance and territoriality ensure that two feuding voivodes are less likely to compromise (or be forced to compromise) than, say, two Ventrue elders.

As more and more voivodes fall to pyre, stake or spell, increasing numbers of dispossessed childer roam the world. These childer set squatter demesnes as best they can or simply wander into the unknown realms beyond the Danube. A few such childer, taking possession of their sire's artifacts and Tremere spoils, have done rather well for themselves in the West.

PRESENT CONCERNS

Obviously, the war with the Tremere eclipses current Tzimisce thought. From their aeries the Fiends rage against the Tremere sorcerers and hurl legions of childer and ghouls at their chantries. Unfortunately, with the rise of the Tremere's own servitor creatures, such tactics prove increasingly ineffective. The clan's internal strife only compunds the problem.

As if this weren't enough, many Tzimisce holdings are crumbling from within. The Fiend's human subjects, weary after centuries of abuse, welcome invaders and the like; even the Germans, they figure, must make better masters than the rapacious voivode on the mountain above the village. This attitude shocks the Tzimisce, who often view their subjects as unthinking extensions of the ancestral land. Many younger Tzimisce, angered by their subjects' "betrayal", have begun to adopt an actively hostile stance toward humanity.

CURRENT PRACTICES

The war with the Tremere has not only disrupted the Tzimisce unlifestyle, but has made it plain that the Tzimisce elders are quite out of touch with the needs of their progeny. In an effort to maintain their identity and purpose, many younger Tzimisce congregate among themselves. These Tzimisce celebrate the ancient rites of their land (Kupala's Night, the equinoxes, etc.) with grand communal festivities (an outside observer might call them massacres). At these fetes, Tzimisce reaffirm their loyalty to each other in the face of adversity by actually drinking each other's blood. Some Tzimisce whisper that those who have participated in these blood-drinking festivals for years or decades actually become less submissive to the will of their voivodes. 

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