Know Your Kindred – Badr

Name: Badr, Sultan of Granada
Clan: Lasombra
Generation: 8th
Embraced: 809 AD

Badr is the Sultan of Granada, a city nestled between two rivers, the Genil and the Darro, in Al-Andalus, the medieval Muslim domain that, at its peak, occupied most of what is today Spain and Portugal.

Badr commanded the defenses of Al-Andalus from the northern, Christian invaders during the Crusades. Badr’s zeal and fanaticism prevented Christians, Jews and other indifferent humans from settling in Granada, and antagonized rival Muslim factions in the area, leading to skirmishes and infighting that some believe may make it easier for the Christians to reconquer Al-Andalus.

Badr is a female masquerading as a male leader. She knows that if her true gender were to be discovered, half her fighters would abandon her in an instant. She is committed to her Muslim faith, but knows too that women in her society do not always share equal respect as men.

To maintain her ruse, Badr wears voluminous dark cloaks and is never seen without a cloak of shadow, hiding her face and giving her slight figure added weight and size.

– Veil of Night, Pg 56-59, 99

Know Your Kindred – Black Wallace

Name:  Black Wallace
Clan:  Lasombra
Generation:  8th
Embraced:  1659

Wallace was the spoiled son of a wealthy British noble.   He gained a seat in the House of Lords and got involved in Oliver Cromwell’s crusade against the Anglican Church, where he showed off his savage and sadistic side, leading terror mobs in acts of violence.

It was while Wallace was living in Spain after the Thirty Years War that he was taken by a Lasombra and Embraced.   Wallace relished the power his vampiric form gave him and opportunities the Sabbat presented to him.

At first his low standing in the clan was a big concern for Wallace, but he soon learned that he could gain power quickly by revealing trechery within the sect rather than by fighting the Camarilla.

After successfully getting a Gangrel antitribu to confess to treason, Wallace’s status rose and in 1780 he became a Sabbat Inquisitor, where he is known for being the most impassioned and feared of his kind.  Even his fellow Inquisitors hesitate to challenge his authority.

Wallace has brown eyes and jet black hair.  He instructs his ghouls to trim his beard and mustache to match his favorite portrait.  His teeth are quite bad by 20th-century standards, so when he extends his fangs they come out a bit askew

– Source:  Children of the Night, pg 18-19.

Know Your Kindred – Ambrosio Luis Moncada

Name:  Ambrosio Luis Moncada
Clan:  Lasombra
Generation:  6th
Embraced:  1153

For centuries Cardinal Ambrosio Luis Moncada led the Lasombra clan.  His chambers beneath Madrid were the epicenter of Lasombra culture.  He commanded fear that few others in the Sabbat could match.   He was very nearly beyond the reach of the regent and the Black Hand.

Not much is known about Moncada’s early life, except that he was a talented Catholic priest with big ambitions and an unshakable religious faith.    However, the politics of the church kept him an outsider.  But Moncada’s honesty in a time when corrupt clergy were commonplace caught the eye of a certain Lasombra.

Moncada was not changed much by the Embrace.  Within weeks many vampires became regular visitors to his confessional and Moncada quickly obtained a position of supremacy among the Lasombra.   But he saw this quest for power as a quest for God, not himself.  And now that he was immortal he had all eternity to do the Lord’s work.  Moncada’s influence rapidly grew in mortal and immortal society.  The network created around him gave Moncada a power few Cainites could match.

In 1190, Moncada embraced a young noblewoman named Lucita.  He was enthralled by her beauty and free will – so much so that it grew into an unholy lust for her.  He embraced her and hoped to make her his forever, but her rebellious spirit spurned him and the Sabbat.

As the centuries passed, Moncada’s faith never wavered, but evolved into something dark and terrible.  From Moncada’s perspective, only God can grant salvation, and since there is no salvation available to vampires, they are all damned in God’s eyes.  Moncada felt it was his duty to do his best to earn that damnation, because it was God’s mission for him.  Many scholars believe the Path of Night was created by Moncada’s dark faith.

As time went by, Moncada’s influence consolidated.  He was still a spiritual anchor for Lasombra who remained Catholic, but his influence with younger Sabbat waned.  Moncada stayed confined in his haven, protected by a maze of corridors around his inner chambers.  Moncada was immensely fat, almost repulsively so.  However he moved with a grace and silence remarkable for a man his size.  Intruders in his maze never heard his approach.

In the end, Moncada’s haven and awesome power could not protect him.  He met an agonizing Final Death from the Assamite Fatima.   The female assassin was put on a contract to kill the cardinal.  After the two fought in his inner chamber, Moncada lost his left arm and shoulder, but was able to summon the shadows around him, grappling Fatima in a crushing grip.  But Fatima called upon the blood inside her and it welled up her throat, spewing out her mouth and into Moncada’s face.  His skin peeled off, his eyes shriveled, and his whole head burned away, leaving behind a smoldering heap on the floor.

Since his death, Moncada’s haven became a pilgrimage destination for devout Lasombra (and some Cainites of other clans too), who come to see where one of the greatest Cainites once roamed and to ponder their own uncertain futures.

– Sources:  Transylvania Chronicles I, pg 80. Children of the Night, pg 27-28.  Clan Novel Saga: End Games Vol 4, pg.103-105.  Clanbook: Lasombra (Revised), pg 96-97.

Know Your Kindred – Conrad Adoula

Name:  Demra Makemba Adoula, “Conrad”
Clan: Lasombra
Generation: 10th
Embrace:  19th Century

Demra lived along the banks of the Congo during the Belgian occupation of the 19th century.  She grew up around European technology and culture.  Her intelligence and leadership potential caught the eye of a 200 year old Lasombra named Elias Bruylant.

When Demra’s brooding European lover died suddenly, she fell into a blind panic.  Elias then brought her to his haven in the Congo River.  There he explained very politely what he as going to do to her, then he forcibly Embraced her.

Demra adapted quickly to being a vampire, since she already despaired of life.  Elias took Demra to his homeland in Europe and Demra was dazzled.  She’s never returned to the Congo since.   While in Europe Demra joined the ranks of the Sabbat.  In the 1920s, she began calling herself “Conrad” in honor of a Polish-English writer whose poetry inspired her to reshape the world.

During the Great Depression she came to the New World, where her natural flair for rhetoric gave her many opportunities in black communities in North and South America.  She dreams of one day organizing a Sabbat effort to provoke white governments to see if more people like herself would emerge.

Conrad has a deep hatred for mortal society – for the conquerors who destroyed her hopes and for the people who won’t rise up and fight back.  She considers Gehenna ludicrous to believe in.  It seems like somebody’s world is always ending.

Conrad is a tall slim woman with extremely dark skin.  Her face is scared with ritual marks overlaid with western symbols.  When dealing with mortals, she uses Obfuscate to slightly alter her features just enough to allow her to belong in whatever community she’s manipulating.

– Source:  Clanbook:  Lasombra (Revised), pg 98-99