Vlad Tepes

Velya the Vivisectionist

Righteous Endeavor

Corine Marcon

Doktor Totentanz

Kartarirya

The most famous member not only of his clan but also of his species, Dracula is regarded by both Kindred and kine as the embodiment of evil. In life he was a tyrannical warlord; in death he has risen in power and notoriety to surpass vampires 10 times his age.

The Tzimisce have mixed feelings about Dracula. Some whisper that perhaps Dracula's vast power represents the culmination of Tzimisce strivings and the solution to vampiric stagnation; others feel that he is an aberration and should be destroyed as expediently as possible.

Tzimisce speak with reverential dread of Velya, dubbed the Vivisectionist for his numerous contributions to Tzimisce science. Velya was one of the founders of the Sabbat and now serves as a Cardinal in that sect. He has never accepted the title of Voivode, though all Voivodes give his opinion a great deal of consideration. Rumor has it that Velya is an actual childe of the Tzimisce Antediluvian, though on this matter Velya remains silent.

Velya, despite his great age, is a newlywed of sorts. During the 19th century, on a sojourn through New England, the vampire lord met little Elaine Cassidy, 10-year-old scion of a moneyed Boston family. Enamored by Elaine's exquisite beauty and even more exquisite evil, Velya Embraced her and united with her in a mutual Blood Bond. To ensure that she would never leave his side, Velya amputated Elaine's legs and grafted the tiny childe to his back, where she sprouts to this night (though she may briefly separate by exercising Vicissitude to detach herself and form a snail-like appendage from the stumps of her thighs.) Even other Sabbat are unnerved to hear the lilting child-voice breathlessly detailing the next torture Elaine wishes to see her "husband" perform.

Righteous Endeavor Clay was one of the most strident voices of the New England witch hysteria. From his Congregationalist pulpit Clay directed the ire of New England's elect, personally rooting out the limbs of Satan in the Colonies' midst. Denunciations from among the condemned alleging Clay's personal participation in the vilest of the Black Mass orgies were dismissed as lies engendered by Beelzebub Himself. Merciful Righteous, undismayed by such blasphemy, spent long hours with the witches in their dungeons, exhorting the nubile young sinners' redemption through means both oratorical and physical.

Perhaps it was the dying hex of his victims; perhaps it was an act of God. In any event, shortly after the last witch was cast under unhallowed ground, Righteous fell ill with a strange wasting malady and passed into the grace of his Maker. Soon thereafter, the first Sabbat landed in New England. Their actions were dismissed as Indian raids by New England's otherwise vigilant witch-hunters, who spared neither Camarilla nor Lupine.

Righteous Endeavor (he has dropped his last name along with his humanity) is now a priscus in the Sabbat and personally oversees many of the North American branch's Ritae. His gaunt figure, still dressed in the somber Puritan garb of his youth, is often seen at major Sabbat festivals. He hates the Nosferatu Prudence Stone with a passion; she is one of the few to have escaped his scourge.

Though there are more powerful vampires in the Black Hand, few are so feared as the German Dominion who calls herself Doktor Totentanz. Infamous even among the Hand for the brutality, magnitude and sheer audacity of her slayings. Totentanz often spearheads European Sabbat War Parties into heavily fortified Camarilla fiefdoms. She is rumored to lament the fact that Pol Pot still exceeds her record for sheer number of people murdered.

In life, Totentanz is believed to have been Dr. Heinrich Lundt, an SS race biologist whose enthusiasm for his work attracted the attention of a Tzimisce. Changing both name and gender to suit her proclivities, Totentanz has since served the Sabbat as fanatically as she once served the Third Reich. Still, old loyalties die hard; her personal pack, the Sonderkommando ("squadron of the living dead"), utilizes much Nazi paraphernalia in its Ignoblis Ritae. She has even founded an offshoot of the Path of Caine; the tenets of this often self-contradicting path state, among other things, that Caine was the First Aryan, but that his blood was stolen by the treacherous Antediluvians of Mesopotamia, the ancestors of the Jews.

Doktor Totentanz is certainly an up-and-coming Sabbat vampire (though more than one archbishop has expressed concern that her personal crusades could supersede her loyalty to the sect if allowed to go unchecked.) She has personally slain two Italian princes, and their potent vitae has endowed her with a level of power far vaster than her years of unlife would indicate. She makes no secret of her lust for a seat on the Seraphim and has attracted a large following among the lower ranks of the Black hand, who strive to emulate her zeal and ferocity.

One of the most powerful and enigmatic Tzimisce is the mysterious Indian Methuselah name Kartarirya. Also called the Many-Armed because of its peculiar extrapolation of the Vicissitude Discipline, Kartarirya reputedly emigrated to the Indian subcontinent millennia ago in search of solitude, worship, and easy prey. Its centuries-long feud with a Nosferatu Methuselah who sought the same things inspired entire cycles of myth among the region's indigenous people.

Kartarirya, the victor of that war, now dwells in its ancient foe's sanctum on the isle of Sri Lanka. Kartarirya fanatically defends its privacy and considers all of India its personal hunting ground. No vampires save those of its line, or those who submit to a Blood Bond, are welcome in India. Trespassers are often attacked by formidably powerful ghouls that have been fleshcrafted to resemble enormous apes or monkeys.