A glint of red eyes in the darkness, the scent of a predator’s musk, a flash of fangs, the sound of flesh tearing: these mark the presence of the Gangrel. More than any other clan, the Gangrel resemble the beasts associated with the legends of vampires: bats, wolves, and other creatures of darkness. Indeed, the Outlanders may develop the ability to transform themselves into these and other, more primal forms.

The Gangrel have other characteristics in common with animals as well. Many shun the elaborate social constructs of both Kindred and kine. A number of them prefer to move alone or as a member of small packs or coteries. Most are tough and, when pressed, ferocious. And when Gangrel succumb to the depredations of the Beast, they are left with some feature redolent of the animal kingdom.

As a clan, the Gangrel are wary and aloof. Most would prefer to spend their nights stalking prey or wilding on the rooftops than minding Princely edicts or lobbying for recognition of domain. Theirs is a tense relationship with vampire society, and Outlanders are among the most frequent to turn Anarch or Autarkis. In some localities, the Gangrel have collectively abandoned membership in any sect — insofar as the Gangrel truly ever do anything collectively.

The Jyhad seems less pronounced among the Gangrel than it is among other clans, and the Outlanders have little regard for the eternal conflict. Differences between Gangrel more often fall along the lines of domain and feeding rights than they do on Generational mistrust, and the things that concern young Outlanders are matters that concern Gangrel ancillae and even elders. Still, one would be hard-pressed to consider the relationship among Gangrel of different Generations amicable, except in isolated sire-childe situations. The Beast is ever suspicious of those who would take sustenance from it.

Oral History

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything down. Traveling a lot can do that to you. A person can lose track of the date, the time, even where they are in the world, and grow inured to a constant flow of stimuli. New places, new people, new adventures. You’d have to move slower. Take a moment to stop and write in a journal, and while you were doing that, you could miss something. Maybe that’s why my Clan’s history is mostly oral, even though half of us carry cell phones and use computers.

A lot of our history is common knowledge. Clan Gangrel. Proud, wild masters of the steppes and Nordic lands. The other vampire Clans look at us and think we sit around reciting eddas or emulating Native American shamans. Yeah, sure, the stereotype is occasionally true. Still, like any wild animal, if you judge us by our fur and feathers, you’ll end up disemboweled by the claws underneath.

What You Think You Know

Everybody’s heard the legend of Caine and Abel. You know, the first vampire, cursed by a divine force because he killed his brother over sacrificing some fruit. That’s the tale most of us are told, especially in the western world where Christianization is common. It’s a myth, yes, but it’s not the only one. Most of the oldest Gangrel tell different stories, tales as separate as their histories. Legends of Lamashtu, the daughter of the sky god Anu, who stole children to raise as her own and Embraced them into immortality upon their twentieth year. Tales of Lilith, the first-created woman, who defied Yahweh and refused to be subservient. Cast out of the garden long before Eve bore Adam sons. Rome had the striges; Greek myth goes out the window with Hecate and the Empusa. The list goes on and on.

For the most part, the oldest Gangrel willing to speak to me about the origins of our Clan referred to our Eldest, our Antediluvian, as female. Since their heyday, “modern” societal conventions like Catholicism and the rise of the Camarilla convinced many Gangrel to adopt the belief that Caine created the vampire race, and Ennoia was one of his grandchilder, an Antediluvian, meaning “before the flood.” Maybe that’s true, or maybe that’s a bunch of patriarchal bullshit. Even as the old ones nod and mouth platitudes about Caine when they are talking to the Camarilla, when they’re speaking to the Clan the ancient ones praise Ennoia as though she were an independent creatrix.

Ennoia. That’s the name they use. That’s the one we’re taught. In Gnostic mythology, the name represents the female half of God. Some of the older non-Christian vampires argue that it’s a feminization of “Enoch,” the ancient city of vampires named in the Book of Nod. There are so many myths and legends surrounding our progenitor that it’s shocking we have any sense of continuity as a Clan.

Seriously, there’s no way to tell where the whole thing started. Well, there’s one way, I suppose. Follow the trail of blood to the oldest vampire you can find — the legendary Antediluvians, maybe — and ask.

Good luck with that.

Really Old Tales

Enoch, Mesopotamia, the first emergence of “civilized” human society. We were there, of course. The Gangrel go everywhere. You’d be hard-pressed to find a country, or even a continent, where the Gangrel haven’t wandered. The three most important places? I’d have to say that’s Alexandria, the Steppes of Central Asia, and Scandinavia.

Alexandria

The Gangrel were more involved in the golden days of ancient cultures than you might expect, given our bestial reputation. We were there to witness the rise of Greek society. We were part of Alexandria, the Berber kingdom of Almoravid, and a lot of the viciousness on the Barbary Coast.

Plenty of people will tell you about the education and culture of the ancient days of Greece. If you look closely, you can see they had a special relationship with the wilderness, too. Hunters, farmers, vines, and seasons were integral to Greek culture, too. Some of that was our influence. The Byzantine era of Greece was one of the few times that my Clan actually tried to cut its teeth on “civilization.” Of course, after the Ottoman conquest that all fell apart, and we scattered again.

With the decline of the Berber dynasties in the fifteenth century C.E. came the fall of more than a few civilized territories. Gangrel flocked to Morocco and North Africa. We fought in the conflicts between the Spanish Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire, and when that ended, we fled to the sea. I’ll admit, I’m told that piracy was a popular occupation for our Clan. There’s one legend about this hoary old Portuguese elder named Benigno. His ship, the Gallantry, sunk somewhere between Lisbon and Tunisia with a belly-full of artifacts. The legend’s grown so many times over the centuries that the last time I heard it, the gold was said to have been salvaged from Enoch itself.

Another thing, the vampires of Africa — including our so-called brethren, the mysterious Akunanse — aren’t like us. The stories aren’t even entirely sure we share a common ancestor, much less that they descend from our line. Because it’s so dangerous, the Gangrel consider travelling to the depths of Africa a badge of honor. Even though we are keepers of the land, the spirit of that beautiful continent is a powerful, wild, and fierce thing. I’m even told that Clans thought to be dead are hiding there, thriving.

Once you get through the gatekeepers in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, you’ll find the vampires of Africa live in a chaotic mishmash of independent domains. Some of them are intelligent, educated, and well read, while others are little more than militant warlords. I guess that’s what you get anywhere in the world. It’s not about the primitivism of some cultures resident in Africa. Gangrel certainly have no room to talk about the primitivist lifestyle, and we know well that “uneducated” definitely doesn’t mean “lesser.” It’s the rules. In Africa, they have a political system much like the Camarilla and its Traditions, but with very different rules and expectations. I’m warning you; don’t go there unless you’ve taken the time to study their Tenets. The Laibon expect you to live — or die — by those rules, no matter where you originate.

One of the most influential Gangrel, and one of the oldest among us, is a woman who calls herself Hypatia. I’m not sure if she actually was the librarian at the school in Alexandria, or if she just took the name of that famous martyr because it meant something to her. I can tell you that the Hypatia I met has marks across her honey-colored skin, with slashes and scars on every inch of her flesh. Maybe that Christian mob really did flay her with oyster shells. Who knows? In any case, Hypatia’s the link between the modern world and the wilderness of sub-Saharan Africa. If you’re a Gangrel and you plan to do anything in the area, you’d best talk to her.

They say that Hypatia is a leader in a Gangrel Sect known as the Disciples of Anubis. They trace their origins back to a really old vampire named Anpu, cast out of Egypt by the priests of Isis for some ancient sin. Since then, I guess they’ve been trying to go back. At least, they’ve done a lot of fighting to keep vampires out of Egypt, utilizing some ritual they called the Rite of the Sun-King. I’m not trying to be deliberately vague. It was hard enough to figure out that this group existed; I couldn’t get much more on their history or purposes. It’s not something I recommend you talk to Hypatia about. Not if you want to keep talking.

Hypatia and her brood form a vital link that keeps the continent open so Gangrel can wander. There’s a price for passage, though, and it’s usually paid in ashes. Hypatia’s particularly fond of people who murder the Followers of Set. There’s been a feud on between the Greek Gangrel and the mistress of Mombasa’s illegal underworld, a Setite named Zhenga. There’s a lot of bad blood between the two, and Gangrel that want to wander across Africa’s wide plains had best be ready to avoid landmines — both political and literal.

Arnulf and the Gargoyles

There were Gangrel among the Golden Horde of the Khans, destroying the civilizations of Asia and Russia. Dobrul the Brave — founder of the Anda, a bloodline of Gangrel that swore never to settle in on place for a very long time — led many of them. The Mongols were heaven and home to the Anda. Some of us rode with them for the thrill of battle. Others were invested in destroying Ventrue and Tremere enclaves throughout Europe. We rode with the Cimmerians and the Scythians around the time the “new Clan” of Tremere were capturing our young childer, twisting them in dark rituals and using them as Gargoyle slaves. I’d better explain that before we go on to the real story.

The Nosferatu first told us what was happening. Gangrel Embrace hardy childer, and to prove their worth, the new Embraces are left alone for months — even years — forced to prove that they can survive. The Sire might check in from time to time, but if the childe vanishes, it’s typical just to assume hunters, or its own stupidity, brought about its own destruction. Nosferatu take better care of their neonates than we do. They notice when a few here and there go missing, and they investigate where we would just shrug. In time, one of their elders (a sodden-looking thing named Marienna) asked Dobrul to go with the Nos to find one of their lost childer. She had to use a boon to do it, but he went.

A few months later, Dobrul showed up at one of the Gangrel gatherings, and his anger could have scorched the plains. They’d discovered what the Tremere were doing, not just to young Nosferatu, but to captured Gangrel and Tzimisce as well. The experiments. The monstrosities. When he was finished talking, the Gangrel Clan went to war.

The elders of other Clans didn’t listen when we brought these violations forward. Some ignored us, wanting to avoid war with the powerful magicians. Others, I’m told, were deliberately assisting the Tremere in their pogrom against the Salubri, hewing those vampires to meat and not caring who got fed. Hell, it even took the Tzimisce a while to come around. Then again, they’re a hard, cruel bunch. I’m surprised they cared about their children being tortured, except that the Tremere were guilty of taking away their toys.

Dobrul wasn’t the only leader in our revenge against the new Clan. Another was a powerful Gangrel warrior named Arnulf. Arnulf rode with the Mongols when they destroyed Hungary and Poland, and he devastated every enclave of Tremere he found, even after the Mongol raiders disbanded. For centuries, he and his lineage hunted the Tremere. His name was a curse to those bastard mages, and more than one Gangrel — and Nosferatu — owe him their unlives. A lot of Gargoyles, too. Even in modern days, descending from Arnulf’s lineage is considered both a curse and a blessing. It comes with allies and enemies, and it comes with expectations. Sure, Arnulf went crazy at the end, throwing his immortality away when he fought Vlad Tepes years later. Arnulf was never the same after his last assault on Vienna.

Even after the Camarilla “forgave them,” Arnulf never stopped hating the Tremere.

Scandinavia

Most people associate the Gangrel with Vikings, barbarian raids, Valkyries, the futhark, Radbod’s rejection of Christianity and the building of the Danevirke. Those stereotypes aren’t wrong. We call our gathers “Althings” and standing in the Clan rises and falls by the stories you tell by the fire, just like in ye olden Norseman days, or so I’m told. Gangrel who harm other members of the Clan outside of fair combat or the hunt, or who show cowardice, are outcast according to ancient traditions of the Danelaw.

The first legends of our Clan center on the snowy climes of the Nordic lands. Even though we travel around the world, many Gangrel think of those lands as home. These hardy people made up the bulk of our Embraces, and even now, a majority of our Clan’s elders have names like Asbjörn, Volker, and Signy. The Ventrue make claims on the Holy German Empire, but the people — the land, and those who work it — have always been ours.

From early history, the All-High, the Jarl of the North, has been the nominal leader of these lands. His vargr roam the icy halls across Europe, insisting that they are still at the height of their power. The upheavals of two world wars and the rise of technology have not changed the vargr’s claim on the majority of the northern lands. “Modernism” aside, they have no intention of releasing control.

Sometimes, modern Gangrel can join this ancient group, if they earn the vargr’s respect. When someone has reached this pinnacle, the vargr invite him or her into the order (it is exceptionally bad form for a non-initiate to ask to join). The vargr prize valor, individual acts of heroism and courage, and personal strength or cunning in a warrior far more than they do “handicaps” such as weapons, technology, or group tactics.

The vargr are single-minded, and mostly fanatic. Even the younger Gangrel in this faction tend to be hardcore; they have been taught that the world is not a gentle place, and they believe that the Gangrel Clan must be strong in order to survive and prosper. Even young members of the vargr disdain modern weaponry in favor of claws and cunning. This is not because they do not see the worth in such technology. It is because they feel they are above it, and that such items as GPS, rifles, explosives, or other aids make a hunter weak and soft.

Convention of Thorns

Most vampires know something about the famous Convention of Thorns and the creation of the Camarilla in the fifteenth century C.E. You’ve heard the tales about how a bunch of Ventrue, Tremere, and Toreador elders dragged everybody together and convinced them that it was better to work together than let the Inquisition tear them apart. Well, convinced everyone except the proto-Sabbat, who followed some woman out the door screaming for blood and ravaged the town of Silchester in the bloodiest massacre before Nanking.

What were the Gangrel doing there? Good question. We’re an independent Clan, unwilling to trust others or join the crowd. Half of our Clanmates spend their unlives tearing down civilization, so why would the Gangrel be part of the founding of vampire society? Of all the Clans, we have the best ability to avoid hunters. We sleep beneath the earth, or anywhere we choose. We turn into animals, we fly, and we can become untouchable pockets of mist. Yes, the Beast marks our faces and our bodies with fur, scales, fangs, claws, and other curses, but we’re still the most likely to survive any kind of hunter attack. Tying ourselves down to the other Clans and promising to be part of some unified effort just hurts us. In the eyes of some of our elders, it allows the weak — the other Clans — to survive. The elders say that’s against the laws of nature. But we did it anyway.

They say that we’re a cold, hard lot. We abandon our childer and let them live or die on their own. It’s true, to a point. There’s also no mother like a Gangrel, and once the child has successfully survived the fall from the nest, a Gangrel sire can be like a lioness. The Tremere had been kidnapping our childer, twisting them into abominations. We were promised this was a way to stop that from happening — a way to force the Tremere to give it up and seek peace. The elders of the Camarilla created the Montmartre Pact, and our Clan was convinced to sign on, but only just. The Camarilla insisted we give up our Paths of Enlightenment and return to Humanitas. That caused even more problems. However, there were some in the Clan who agreed. The philosophical movement of ethical humanity was picked up by our ancillae, and pushed forward until it became a major proponent of the Clan in the modern age.

Still, Gangrel are pragmatists and survivors. Our elders knew that the Clan would be stronger if they allied with others. The Nosferatu and the Brujah had already shown us the virtues of alliance; the fall of the Salubri was a constant reminder of what happens when a Clan stands entirely alone. The Camarilla provides soldiers to fight against larger threats, and plenty of non-Gangrel vampires to sacrifice if we needed to save our own hides. Like I said, pragmatists. What, did you think everyone joined the Camarilla to play at being friends?

The Althing that year was a bloody one, with plenty of scraps and arguments. Three elders died resisting the idea. More left, choosing to remain independent rather than make peace with the Tremere. Nevertheless, in the end, we accepted a place in the Camarilla. It was a narrow thing, and even generations later, still argued at Althings the way your grandparents argue about where they went on their first date.

Gargoyles

Gargoyles. That’s a hard one. Twisted little Frankenstein creations that the Tremere made out of baby Gangrel, Nosferatu, and Tzimisce. They kept crafting them — right up until 1489, when the Montmartre Pact forbade them from continuing. After that, the Camarilla went and released all they could find. A lot of Gargoyles spent years making sure their brethren were free. They knew where the Tremere hid the birthing laboratories, knew which Tremere had mastered the spells of patchwork creation. Even with all that information, everyone knew that a few had escaped. Three, in particular — massive, legendary creatures: Chaundice, Saxim, and Ublo-Satha. All three are blood-bound to Tremere elders of the highest rank and order. One, Chaundice, vanished long before the revolution, and is rumored to be serving as guard and protector over the torpored form of Tremere himself. One of the other two, Saxim, served Etrius. The third, Ublo-Satha, was seen in Chicago, defending the chantry during the last major Sabbat attack. If we’d been able to prove that rumor, we might have been able to finally throw those dirty wizards out of the club.

The fire of our hatred toward the Tremere never died. Gangrel teach their neonates about the Gargoyles from the moment they’re taken in, after they survive the Embrace and prove themselves worthy of survival. Tremere are a sort of natural enemy; not a predator, like a wolf or a shark, but an opportunist, like a spider or an earwig. Give them an inch of trust, and they’ll chop you apart. It’s to our benefit to make sure none forget the stories about Gargoyles. We keep an eye on them, and ensure that they can’t keep that kind of activity hidden. One mistake, just one mistake. One Gargoyle still enslaved, one asshole that starts bioengineering neonates into stony, brainless cannon fodder, and we have what we need to force the Inner Circle to throw them out.

We wouldn’t be alone, either. The Nosferatu are right beside us. It’s one of those things our Clans completely agree on. Once the Tremere no longer enjoy the Camarilla’s protection, they have plenty of enemies who will gladly put a fang to their throat. Hell, half the Clans of the Sabbat are only there because it gives them a chance to kill Tremere.

One error. One provable mistake. That’s all we need to destroy them.

Modern Myths

The world is updating faster than the rapid breath of fleeing prey, faster than the moon chasing the sun. Wild places are fewer, and cell phones reach everywhere but the deepest parts of the jungle or the most desolate ice plains of the Antarctic. There are very few frontiers left. Still, like most animals, we Gangrel are adaptable. It’s part of being able to survive. If you can’t change with the seasons, you’ll die when winter comes.

As the world’s become more technological, our childer have brought new knowledge and an understanding of urban survival into the Clan. It’s hard for us to adapt, but not hard to see the need. Gangs on the street have become our new “packs.” Some measure territory in city blocks and their borders by paved roads instead of rivers and forests. The modern world changed us, true, but it’s also made us stronger.

Computer messages are swift, but hacking and online crime makes them unstable and untrustworthy. We serve as messengers, flying on our own wings and finding it easy to slip aboard airplanes and other transportation as clouds of mist. We move silently, and we can’t be traced or hacked. Primitivism is experiencing a resurgence, from tribal tattoos to hitchhiking college students wandering through Europe. Greenpeace makes war on whaleboats. Environmentalism is a big deal, and urban decay is giving us back areas of wildness in the heart of once-major cities. Hippies aren’t dead; they’ve just gone viral. There are still plenty of opportunities for “traditional” Gangrel to be useful.

More than that, our adaptable blood has proven itself again within the modern milieu. The Lycaon, also known as the Greek Gangrel, were once a group of philosophers of our Clan. They studied the changeability of the blood, and they kept the lore of all the bloodlines that had spawned from our seed. Since the Industrial Revolution, the Lycaon struggled to keep up with the political changes and technological advancements sweeping that area of the world. It was from their evolving blood that the first City Gangrel or Coyotes sprang. I’m not sure how the Lycaon did it, but in doing so, they destroyed their own lineage. No more Lycaon have been Embraced; all of their childer, and their childer’s childer, have turned out to be Coyotes. The Lycaon line is dying. The Coyotes are the new blood, and while they used to be primarily members of the Sabbat, the proliferation of the bloodline has increased. They’ve become more common in the last decades. A few have even tried to join the Camarilla.

It’s happened before. Shifters by nature, the Gangrel have a proclivity for changing their form on a constant basis, turning from human to wolf, to bat, to any of a number of other animals. They turn to mist, or sink into the earth to sleep days and even years. With such constant physical alteration, and the Clan’s proclivity for survival encouraging a Darwinian evolution, it’s no wonder the Clan’s blood continues to alter itself on an intrinsic level. The known bloodlines of the Gangrel include: Mariners, Noiad, Anda, Coyotes (City Gangrel), Lycaon (Greek Gangrel), Lhiannan, Ahrimanes, and Akunanse. I know there were more, but they’ve died out as the world advanced over the centuries. Those mutations that cannot prove themselves quickly die off. Those who evolve traits that help them survive will endure.

That’s not the only part of the modern world that affects the Gangrel. Our predatory instincts translate to a lot more than bows, arrows, and tracking buffalo. As the modern world becomes more cutthroat, we grow more comfortable in the boardrooms and business offices. The Coyotes are right; there’s a lot of bloodletting going on, and the unflinching predatory instinct to tear out a throat helps us fit in on Wall Street. We’re not as out of place among the 1% as you might think.

Animalistic and Bestial

Being a Gangrel isn’t like being a member of any other Clan. We’re not Clan-first, like the Brujah or the Nosferatu. We’re not trying to leave a lingering impression on the world, like the Toreador. We don’t seize power like the Lasombra or the Ventrue. For the most part, being a Gangrel means not giving a fuck about the other Clans or their machinations. It means concentrating on your own personal power, your individuality, and your capacity to survive anything the world throws at you. We’re animalistic and feral, we’re cold-blooded killers of every stripe, and we don’t care about honor or duty — we care about survival. Survival over the corpses of allies if necessary, and certainly when it means crushing the ashes of your enemies beneath your boots.

I know you’re thinking about your friend, the noble and kind Gangrel. That guy in the Camarilla court who’s always talking about his time in the military and the ideals of honor and duty he learned as a mortal. Sure, I bet he’s a great guy. I’ll bet he’s young, too, and hates the feeling of his Beast moving hungrily inside his spirit. The image of the “Tarzan” Gangrel — the “noble savage” of Edwardian dime novels — has a few adherents. But the more we indulge the ravaging anger of our Beast, the flow of blood between our teeth or the feel of flesh tearing beneath our claws, the less you’re likely to ever find that “noble” again.

Believe me when I tell you that everything for our Clan comes down to survival. Everything. I can’t stress it enough. Anything else we do, from politics to humanity, is just passing time. You know those zombie movies that are so popular right now? The ones where two men who have been friends since childhood betray one another out of desperation to get away from the undead horde and leave the other man to be eaten? “I don’t have to run faster than the zombies, I just have to run faster than you.”

That’s Clan Gangrel. Every member, every drop of our blood has that absolute calling. We cover it, fight it, deny it, but when it comes down to the wire, our most primitive instinct is to survive, and you’d sure as hell better not get in the way.

Survival is the reason we Embrace and abandon. It’s a dichotomy; a Sire has an instinct to protect her childe, but no Gangrel wants a weak brat clinging to her for all eternity. Weakness is the one thing our Beasts can’t abide. So we Embrace those who seem the strongest, the toughest, and the apex predator of their pyramid. Then we leave them to see if they’ll survive on their own. Some Sires stay nearby and watch; others leave entirely, allowing their childer to risk the Masquerade, be destroyed by hunters, or any other fate. When we do return and find a childe has survived, there are few Sires as proud and committed as a Gangrel. We’re just not willing to become attached if the fledgling is defective, weak, or stupid. Better we let you die than bring you into the brood and weaken us all when the survival of the group is at stake.

Mark of the Beast

Other Clans have easy-to-ignore flaws. Sure, the Ventrue are picky eaters, and the Toreador have attention-span issues in museums. But do you think that counts for anything to the guy whose face just morphed into spider eyes, or the girl with breasts like a wolf’s eight teats? Give me a break. Every time a Gangrel’s Beast gets away from her, whenever she enters a frenzy, the Beast leaves a mark on her flesh. Most of the time they’re temporary — the fleeting cost of becoming closer to one’s inner demons. You sleep it off or wait a few days, and usually the visible appearance of humanity returns. But not always.

A lot of our elders, the really old ones, barely look human anymore. Sometimes they can go into torpor for a few hundred years, and the animal parts slowly revert — for the most part — but it’s unusual to meet one that’s not carrying more than a few marks. It’s why a lot of our elders left their Humanity behind in the first place. Frenzies are our bane. Frenzies literally tear up our bodies, rip into our spirits, and make us less human, every time. Permanent or not, when you undergo that kind of change, you can’t avoid the fact that you’re living with a demon inside you just itching to get out. You’re an animal, whether you like it or not.

There used to be a group of Gangrel called the Knights of Avalon, who saw the animal markings as a sign of shame. Back in the Dark Ages, the stigma of god-cursed was even stronger than it is today, and these vampires took the religious implications of “turning into a beast” to heart. They tried seriously hard never to frenzy, never to gain animal features, or at least to hide them when they did. The philosophy has had something of a resurgence in the last century. Since the advent of photography, as well as analog and digital recordings, bestial features have become even more of a danger. The new Knights of Avalon not only specialize in keeping themselves from gaining such features, they also teach the rest of us techniques to help hide ours.

Anarch, Autark, and Independent

I’ve mentioned how difficult it was to get the Gangrel Clan to join the Camarilla. We got a lot of promises that they’d keep the Tremere in line. The other Clans called in a lot of boons over our elders and their broods, too, and those were important. Survival was another reason, but that didn’t convince everyone. Plenty of Gangrel refused the Camarilla’s call because they knew we didn’t need the Camarilla to survive, and they saw no reason to weaken the Gangrel Clan by tying our broods to the defense of mewling Toreador or pretentious Ventrue.

A lot of young Gangrel see the Anarch Movement as a “halfway house.” It’s social enough that they’re involved in things, but it doesn’t have the fundamentalism or strict rules that you find in the Sabbat and the Camarilla. They stay in the Movement for a while, then eventually “grow up” and pick a place either in one of the Sects or as a legitimate independent. To me, that seems like just more vampire bullshit. Dedicate yourself to something, and stop mewling about “freedom.” Nobody’s really free. You were never really “free” as a mortal, and you sure as hell will never be “free” as a vampire. You do the best you can to stay independent, and that’s the best you’re going to get.

Unlike the other pillars of the Camarilla, a large portion of our Clan remained Independent. Hell, the word “Autark” is a German word, first used by our Clan. It means “self-sufficient,” or “self-governed” in some translations. Using it was sort of a sneaky method for our elders to answer a question in a half-ass way. Are you Camarilla or Sabbat? Autark. Most Gangrel are Sect-agnostic, and that’s the way they like it.

See what I mean about survival? Our elders didn’t want to piss anyone off or become a target of either Sect. They wanted to remain free, but also ensure they still had the opportunity to join a Sect later, if they wanted to do so. “Autark” initially meant “I’m still considering whether I want to join a Sect, but for now, I’m getting along just fine on my own, thanks.”

It wasn’t intended to last forever. It was only an answer to put off questions until we could see that the Camarilla was more than a flash in the pan. Like Embracing a childe, and waiting to see if it would survive on its own, the Gangrel Clan needed to know that the Camarilla wasn’t going to be a burden on the Clan. When it proved stable, more of our elders joined, and our ranks swelled. Hey, a wolf will eat from a bowl when the meat’s fresh and the gate’s still open, right?

Even now, there are a lot more Gangrel independents and Autarks than any other “Camarilla pillar Clan.” The Camarilla puts up with it, because they know our broods are strong and our youth aren’t idiots. We don’t break the Masquerade, we don’t risk our unlives for stupid reasons. Survival runs strong in our veins. You can always count on that.

Althings

For a Clan of individualist loners, we sure love to talk. Stories, eddas, epic poems, and all manner of chatter. We have an oral history, for the sake of Fenris, and once you get us started, you can’t shut us up.

The Gangrel once considered themselves lore masters. Not the book-reading, scientific, hoary old leather-faced scholar type, but the masters of living history. The taletellers, who kept the past alive. Of course, that was before the Camarilla banned a lot of information about vampiric history. They got really fussy about a text called the Book of Nod, along with the research a Gangrel named Beckett put into translating and compiling it. I read a little of the Book of Nod, and it was interesting in the same way reading any religious text can be interesting. It’s full of tales of a vampiric city called Enoch and legends about various Antediluvians, a lot of parables, some snippets of random poetry, and a bunch of obscure warnings about the End of Times.

However, the Camarilla doesn’t like young Kindred learning that kind of mythical history. Some of the elders think it foments occult conspiracies, or encourages neonates to over-romanticize the vampiric state. Persecution of the Gangrel followed, though quietly, through politics and subterfuge. A lot of our skalds and memory-keepers died. Sometimes the death was blamed on an accident, or on the Sabbat. We knew the real reason, though. It was just another political twist of the Jyhad.

Losing our Clan’s greatest treasures, our oral historians, changed the Gangrel dynamic. Instead of teaching one another about history and tradition, those who know our secrets don’t talk about them. Our scholars protect themselves and the lore they know by keeping it quiet — except at our Clan gatherings. Gangrel share with Gangrel, and we don’t trust anyone else. That’s why we don’t allow non-Gangrel to come to these Althings. It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of survival. Maybe that’s a mistake, but it’s hard to give up tradition.

Althings are the main social structure of the Clan. It’s where we meet, socialize, and discuss the Clan’s past, present, and future. We don’t gather to organize or to act like a unified group. We gather to share information for information, a survivalist’s tradeoff. Want to learn about the place where you’re headed next? Better talk to someone who’s been there. Want to know what big threats are looming around the corner, and whether to hide, fight, or flee? That’s the kind of talk we have at the Althings. That’s what our Clan’s oral history is, too, when it comes right down to it. A list of the things we’ve had to survive, how we did it, and the lessons we learned that might help us survive the next awful thing on the horizon.

Althings are relatively simple; word spreads that on a certain full moon, the Clan will gather in one of a few well-known sites, meaning locations we’ve used for hundreds of years. The rules at an Althing are easy: The strong get to speak, and the weak listen. If you don’t know which one you are, then you’re weak. There, we tell tales, proclaim an individual’s most recent victories or deeds, and remind ourselves of the past. We learn lessons. We pass things on, and then we leave. If you learned well, then you’ll be around to show up at the next Althing and share a few lessons of your own.

Camarilla Gangrel will come together on the full moon before most significant Sect gatherings (conclaves and the like), in order to share stories and earn one another’s respect. The Gangrel who has performed the most courageous deeds, accomplished significant tasks, or who has done well in informal combats or trials held at the Althing is often chosen to be the Clan’s Warden: a speaker and point-of-contact between the Gangrel and the Sect leaders. After the conclave is over, the individual’s “rank” fades away, until the next Althing determines a new speaker for the assembled Clan. Like I said, we aren’t big on unity.

Not all of our Althings are friendly. Sometimes the Gather is an excuse to draw in a Gangrel that has become prey. If they are strong enough to attend, say their piece, and survive, then the Clan will overlook any sin. If they are not, then... problem solved.

The Ravnos and the Rroma

You could say there’s a lot of history between the Gangrel and the Ravnos. Bad history, bad blood. We don’t need “gods” to justify the feud between our Clans, and we don’t need the Camarilla to back us up when we fight our enemies. From the oldest legends that depict our Antediluvians as rivals, fighting out of rejected love or a territorial instinct, our two Clans have hated one another for a very long time. There are plenty of murders in that history. I don’t think I know a Gangrel who hasn’t heard the old stories about Ravnos killing Gangrel.

The earliest fights between the two Clans (at least, the earliest that I can confirm) happened over territory. They started around the time that the Ravnos claimed India and parts of the Middle East. I’m embarrassed to say that despite old tales painting us as heroes, it’s most likely that the Gangrel were raiders: vicious, cruel, and seriously thugging the Ravnos lands. Driven out of the Middle East, we headed north toward Germany and Scandinavia to find lands of our own. We were better off there, anyway.

The rivalry didn’t stop when we left, though. Spats between the Ravnos and the Gangrel continue everywhere we find each other. There’s a deep philosophical difference, for one. Frenzies turn us into animals, so many of us are humanist, trying to avoid the scourge of our vampiric condition. The Ravnos, on the other hand, embrace the fact that they’re undead. They feel that being a vampire is part of their karma or dharma or something. It’s fate. It was meant to be, and they don’t fight against it or try to find a way to evade their vampiric state. Even our elders, the ones on Paths of Enlightenment, can’t stand the way the Ravnos parade around prattling about the “karmic cycle,” acting proud of the fact that they’re dead men walking. Hell, they sound like the Sabbat. Ravnos don’t fit into the natural world, and we don’t fit into their crazy reverence about being a monstrosity. Those philosophies are just never going to mix.

Beyond that, they’re tricksters, constantly getting into trouble, making everyone look at them. They’re showmen. They like the attention. We’re survivalists, and we don’t want people to see what we’re doing or remember us too well. They’re liars, while we know truth is necessary to stay alive. Anyone who looks at the Gangrel and the Ravnos and says we should be buddy-buddy just because both Clans wander the wilderness probably can’t tell a Toreador from a Ventrue either.

Since the days of ancient history, our Clans have been bitter enemies. We fight over the animals we control, we fight over land, and we even fight over people. Ghouls, yes, but larger groups than that: the travelers, loners, and wanderers. Including, but not limited to, the Rroma. History certainly gives us plenty of reason to have grudges against individual Ravnos, but that’s just an allegory to cover a darker tale. One that has little to do with vampire rivalries, and a lot to do with vampire fear. Stark, cold, ravening fear, the kind that turns to lead in your belly.

There’s a medieval legend about the “fourth nail.” Tales say that when Jesus was to be nailed to the cross, Roman soldiers commissioned four nails to hang the Savior: one for each of his hands and feet. According to the Manoush people of Alsace, one of their ancestors would gladly have saved Jesus from death. When he failed to rescue Jesus, he did the best he could to stop the crucifixion by stealing the nails. Even there, he didn’t manage to stop Christ’s death entirely, making off with only one of the four nails. God, it’s said, smiled on those who tried to keep his son from pain and anguish, and placed a blessing upon them.

Whether the details are true or not, a Lithuanian Gangrel elder named Intam believed the story enough to spend most of his unlife searching through the Rroma tribes, looking for some sign of God’s grace. When he found it in one kumpaniya — or at least, claimed he’d found it — he claimed that tribe as his own and took them under his proverbial wing. Beckett told me that Intam thought he could parlay the tribe’s connection with God into a way out from under the vampiric curse.

If there’s one thing you should know about the Ravnos Clan’s system of enlightenment, it’s that they hate anyone who tries to skip out of the system. When some of their most rabid spiritualists found out what Intam was doing and what he was protecting, they came like smoke and storm. Our elder’s ashes were found among the bodies of the mortals he’d sought to protect. The Ravnos claimed credit for the slaughter, actually taking pride in what they’d done. Instead of telling the real reason for it though, they spun stories based on the legends of the Antediluvians, blaming the fight on ancient grudges and feuding mythical figures. They didn’t want anyone to follow up on Intam’s research, or look to see any member of that particular kumpaniya was still alive.

Anyway, Intam’s death really set off the hatred between the two Clans. Things exploded quickly, stories spread, and just as quickly got stamped out as revenge followed revenge. The reason was fear. Fear, whether Intam was right or wrong. Intam was looking for hope. That kind of story could spread, and make a lot of idiot vampires interested. Some of them want to destroy any Rroma that might be part of the legend, and others are trying to enslave or use those poor people. All of them acting out of some kind of belief, some kind of hope — hope that there might be a God, after all — and He might be paying attention.

Trust me on this. Hope can be an amazing source of fear.

Lupines

By now, you’ve probably heard all sorts of stories about how we Gangrel are related to Lupines, or how we’re half werewolf, or werewolves are half-vampire. All Gangrel are some kind of crazy half-unicorn fae mage bullshit, right?

Let me tell you this straight up: It’s not true.

Werewolves are dangerous. They’re not our friends, they’re not our brothers, and we don’t go to their birthday parties or hang out at their coffeehouses. They’ll kill a Gangrel just as quickly as they’ll kill any other vampire, and they’ll grin the whole time they’re doing it. We’re probably the ones they want to kill most, in fact. We wander “their” woodlands, and we bump into them the most. They don’t come into the cities, so they don’t have a lot of chances to slaughter the other vampire Clans. No, it’s Gangrel they find, and it’s Gangrel they kill. Just like that.

Yeah, the Gangrel know a lot about the werewolves, because we’re the ones that keep bumping into them, out in the wilderness. Werewolves have some crazy belief that the whole world is alive, like a great cosmic spirit, and vampires are a plague. Our very existence is a blight on the earth, and it’s their entire goal and purpose to wipe us out. There’s no arguing or compromising. You might as well debate your purpose in life with a wood-chipper. Now, I’ve heard tales that a few Gangrel managed to figure out a way to trick the werewolves for a night or two; cover their scent, hide themselves like animals in the forest, and spy on those big furry killing machines. Terrible idea, really, but neonates can be stupid. They came back telling stories about shifter politics that sounded just as convoluted as the Jyhad and twice as hopeless.

Werewolves make terrible servants; neither blood nor mental domination controls them for long. They’re far too dangerous and unpredictable to be allies; they’ll kill any vampire the first chance they get. They frenzy more than we do, so neither blackmail nor hostages can ensure their loyalty even for a short time. Seriously, there’s nothing to gain by dealing with the moon-beasts. Just point them at someone else, and stay the holy fuck out of their way.

Animal Forms

When a player makes a Gangrel character and purchases the Protean power Shape of the Beast, they should choose their animal forms. One of those forms should be that of a large predator (such as a wolf), and the other should be that of a smaller, flying or swimming predator (such as a bat or a fish). Once those forms have been chosen, they are set for the character’s existence. They will always change into that specific wolf, and that specific bat, with individual markings and appearance. Note that non-Gangrel characters always turn into a wolf and bat, unless they select the Totemic Change Merit.

Furthermore, assuming an animal’s form gives the character certain abilities based on that creature. In wolf form, the vampire’s teeth and claws inflict Strength +1 Aggravated damage, ze can run at double speed, and the Difficulties of all Perception rolls are reduced by 2. In bat form, the vampire’s Strength is reduced to 1, but ze can fly at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour/30 kph, Difficulties for all hearing-based Perception rolls are reduced by 3, and attacks made against zir are at +2 Difficulty due to zir small size.

The Storyteller may allow Gangrel to choose a different animal shape when they purchase this dot of Protean. If the player does so, then the player and Storyteller should establish what natural abilities that form grants the character, based on the mechanics of the standard wolf and bat forms. Remember that animals which are too “humanesque” (such as monkeys) and animals that are not predators or scavengers (such as horses or other herbivores) are not appropriate for Protean forms. Here are a few examples of alternate Protean forms that a player may choose:

Fight Forms

• Bear: In bear form, the vampire’s teeth and claws inflict Strength +2 Aggravated damage, ze can run at double speed, and the Difficulties of all Perception rolls are reduced by 1.
• Hyena: In hyena form, the vampire’s teeth and claws inflict Strength +1 Aggravated damage, ze can leap twice as high as a normal human, and the Difficulties of all Perception rolls are reduced by 2.
• Lynx: In lynx form, the vampire’s teeth and claws inflict Strength +1 Aggravated damage, ze can run at double speed and halves all damage from falling, and the Difficulties of all Perception rolls are reduced by 1.

Flight Forms

• Barracuda: In barracuda form, the vampire’s Strength is reduced to 1, but ze can swim speeds of up to 20 miles per hour/30 kph. Difficulties for all sight-based Perception rolls are reduced by 3, and attacks made against zir are at +3 Difficulty due to zir small size and agility.
• Hawk: In hawk form, the vampire’s Strength is reduced to 1, but ze can fly at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour/40 kph. Difficulties for all hearing-based Perception rolls are reduced by 2, and attacks made against zir are at +1 Difficulty due to zir small size.
• Vulture: In vulture form, the vampire’s Strength is reduced to 2, but ze can fly at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour/30 kph. Difficulties for all hearing-based Perception rolls are reduced by 3, and attacks made against zir are at +1 Difficulty due to zir smaller size.