The Chronicle of Secrets

Notes on the "Chronicle of Secrets"

1. This prophecy was supposedly written down, word for word, by the scribe of the court of Enoch. It is a prophecy that was spoken aloud by Saulot, after a period of fasting and cleansing. It is said that Saulot vanished soon after pronounc ing this vision, and this is probably the reason why the original clan of Saulot was not as prevalent. I was able to come by this through the intervention of a Salubri who showed me to a secret grave beneath the Westminster Abbey. Inside, written in Sumerian. like many of the Antediluvian writings, was the prophecy, scribed on papyrus that was almost magically preserved. While translating this piece. I frequently had dreams of Gehenna, and I am glad to be rid of this writing.

2. It is well known that Lasombra wishes the death of the Sun. the blackening of the day-time sky.

3. I left it translated as Dark Mother, but there can be only one name for the Dark Queen of the Dead - Lilith.

4. This seems a blasphemous patchwork transliteration of many important Biblical verses. but this is how the passage translates, and I let it stand.

5. Who is this mortal woman? No one can tell. Many Tremere. it is said. search the world for mortal women with crescent moon birthmarks.

6. A Caitiff prince - who would think of it? Yet this is one of the signs of Gehenna.

7. This is a common theme about the time of Gehenna. The Lupines stay in their countryside. but I have seen a few here and there living in the darkest parts of the city. Do we dare share a city with the Changing Breed, who fight us at every turn?

8. Could this be the Crone from the Chronicle of Caine? Perhaps she did not die in the sun as Caine thought. Or perhaps this bespeaks another Crone: there are certainly many Methuselah vampiresses who fit the description.

9. Several Toreador I have shown this manuscript to complain that this is a direct allusion to the Sabbat, the Black Hand, and that surely Gehenna is upon us.

10. Certainly this is already happening!

11. Count Vlad Tepes, Dracula, has been called ”the Dragon” before. Could this bespeak him?

12. The strangeness of the Caitiff continues to disturb me. Where they come from, none know, although I have traced a few of them back to Malkavian and Brujah sires who have simply abandoned them. Still, some seem to be made by shadowy figures who may or may not be of a clan themselves. These verses explain the Antediuvian’s obvious prejudice against the clanless, and this prejudice has been carried down through the ages to the Kindred as a whole.

13. I place this here because it is pure speculation and is attributed to Caine’s prophetic powers. Certainly Love is a powerful force, one that I am not familiar with, but I have heard tales of the newly Embraced being rescued by those they loved, and subsequently Rebithed into mortal form.

14. This, in my opinion, is the Antediluvian foundation of Kindred thought regarding Lupines .It is a reason why ail Kindred array themselves against the Lupines. and why the Gangrel are given leave to have truck with them. Remember that the thoughts of the Antediluvians become the customs of the Methuselahs, which become the laws of the elders.

15. This was written on a stone cross in Norway. in old Norse runes, and was barely translatable when I saw it decades ago. I include it for completeness: I'm not sure whether it was intended as part of the Book of Nod or if it was a separate creation. It seems quite old.

16. I have placed these prophecies together in a grouping I call "The Awakening of the Dark Father." This is because I discovered them all in a sealed crypt inside the Smithsonian Institution s Art History wing. I don't believe that the curators would have been pleased to learn that a Ventrue friend of mine had Dominated their well-paid guards into allowing me to explore down there. The translation of the tablets I found there took seven nights, and I believe them to be the most cryptic and most prophetic of all the collection of Secrets that I have. I have no way of knowing whether or not these prophecies are connected. My childe. Beckett, believes that it is perhaps a collection of different visions linked together with a loose literary bridging. I can see where many of these visions may be the root of several Antediluvian plots (certainly the Dark Father must be some Antediluvian that Caine isn't particularly pleased with - perhaps even Brujah's founder.)

THE CHRONICLE OF SECRETS	The Book of Nod
The Signs of Gehenna¹ Quiet! Hear the raven’s cry! The stillness of the wind rising hot on the street the towers hide the darkness of the day When Lasombra’s dreams-come true on the day when the moon runs as blood² and the sun rises black in the sky, that is the day of the Damned, when Caine’s children will rise again. And the world will turn cold and unclean things will boil up from the ground and great storms will roll, lighting will light fires, animals will fester and their bodies, twisted, will fall. So, too, our Grandsires will rise from the ground They will break their fast on the first part of us They will consume us whole On the second day, Caine will return And call his Children to the meeting place on the site of the First City he will beckon them, sitting on his basalt throne. And Caine will call aloud the names of those to be destroyed. for their crimes are too great and all those who have consumed the heart's blood of their sire will be brought before the Black Throne and made to drink of Caine's blood And Caine's blood will eat their blood And the Dark Mother³ herself will be brought forth and there, in the valley of Enoch, will there be a battle a duel of Dark Father and Dark Mother The Demon Queen will bite deep The Damned King will bite deeper We will not know the thing which will happen, but the sky will tear apart, and the earth below And the forces of Hell will pour up out of the ground On the Third Day, there will be silence the crows will feed on the carrion plague will dance amongst the ruins the last of the Wild Ones will leave this place the last of the Moon-Beasts will fight and fall And the Antediluvians will make for themselves an Empire of Blood They will rule with iron talons They will wrench the hearts of all still alive And the full sum of the earth's living will come and live in the Last City, called Gehenna. And there will be a reign of one thousand years, and there will be no love, or life, or pity, the mighty will be as slaves the virtuous will be made foul every good gift, and every perfect gift will be tainted by the Father of Darkness, whose power will come from the nether realms.⁴ When the snows consume the earth and the sun gutters like a candle in the wind then, and only then will thefe be born a woman, the last Daughter of Eve, and in her there will be decided the fate of all. And you will not know this woman, except by the mark of the Moon on her, and she will face treachery, hatred, and pain but in her is the last hope.⁵ And you will know these last times by the Time of Thin Blood, which will mark vampires that cannot Beget, you will know them by the Clanless, who will come to rule⁶ you will know them by the Wild Ones, who will hunt us even in the strongest city⁷ you will know them by the awakening of some of the eldest, the Crone will awaken and consume all⁸ you will know these times, for a black hand will rise up and choke all those who oppose it⁹ and those who eat heart’s blood will flourish and the Kindred will crowd each to his own, and vitae will be as rare as diamonds¹⁰ Mark these signs, they are coming! Gehenna will be on earth. Mark the shadow which flies mark the dragon which rises¹¹ mark the darkness which moves mark the shadow of the moon mark the angel that dies mark the maiden who weeps mark the children Embraced mark the Clanless who run. And there will be a time when Sire will drive out Childer when Sire will abandon Childer to the sun’s mercy and there will be no mercy for the Clanless there will be no mercy for the Clanless, mongrel though they be upon their forgotten Sires shall be the curse of Auriel upon their hateful Sires shall be the curse that comes of crossing Caine upon their lazy Sires shall be the curse of the hunters hunted Those among the Clanless will have no path to follow no family to name no generation to hold no traditions to keep no customs to give no hospitality to give Why do you make these orphans? Why do you leave them in the street? They are the dark seed of our undoing they will band together with those who hate us they will follow Brujahs Childer they will make the blood run red they are going to kill the dead they are going to cat our kin they will scream and bash our doors they will cry aloud for justice Clanless, all, they will wash over our walls Clanless, all, they will know secret ways Clanless, all, they are Lilith's foul get Clanless, all, they are newly Awake Clanless, all! No family, no sign, no loyalty, no elder.¹² Beware those who walk without a clan, for they will be our undoing. Pity them! Adopt the orphans where you can. But watch them. In them is the bad seed of their Sire. Of Love¹³ And they asked Caine the old Father, "Why do you command us to not Embrace those we love?” And Caine said to them, "Love is the sweet rain which falls down from the One Above. Love is the gift of life. Remember ye not Auriel's Curse? That we are to eat only ashes, drink only blood? Blood is not sweet rain. Our drink takes Life." And then Caine's eyes got the look of Visions, and he quieted, then he spoke: "But if ever one of us is gifted with the love of a mortal without Command or Awe, without compulsion a Love given freely, then that Love will be as the gentle rain to even the lowliest of us. And though we shall not Embrace it, it will feed us as if we supped at our Father`s table it will satisfy our deepest thirst. But barken ye, my children! The Children of Seth will always hate us again and again, for we are their predators we are their Masters and they know this. deep in their soul. Look not for Love among them! They will not give it. Be not a fool." Of the Moon-Beasts "What of the Moon-Beasts who hunt us, Father? " "There will come a time, in the last days, when the Moon-Beasts will grow uneasy and they will be dying out like a sick wolf who must leave the pack they will fight rather than die sick and so they will find us and they will kill us. Mark ye well, the Clan of the Beast! For they will hold the key they will make the way of protection they will make the way of trickery they will make the way of peace”¹⁴ The Time of Thin Blood There will come a time, when the Curse of the One Above will not be tolerated further when the Lineage of Caine will end When the Blood of Caine will be weak and there will be no Embracing for these Childer for their blood will run like water, and the Potence in it will wither Then, you know in this time that Gehenna will soon be upon you.¹⁵ The Awakening of the Dark Father There will come a time, when the heads of three Princes will watch the burning of the dawn on a pillar of white.¹⁶ There will come a time when an ancient hunger will awaken deep in the northern woods and consume all her childer There will come a time when an Elder Darkness will stir deep below a city which has forgotten and will surprise the Elder, its children. Of these signs, you will know, the Dark Father, bastard of Caine, will awaken, and drink deep of blood sacrificed to it Of these signs, you will know that the time has come to lay claim to your Clan`s safety, to fight the Dark Father. On these signs, you must know, that Gehenna waits, even at the door, as an actor waits in the wings It is coming! It is near! Shine black the sun! Shine blood the moon! Gehenna is coming soon	Notes on the "Chronicle of Secrets" 1. This prophecy was supposedly written down, word for word, by the scribe of the court of Enoch. It is a prophecy that was spoken aloud by Saulot, after a period of fasting and cleansing. It is said that Saulot vanished soon after pronounc ing this vision, and this is probably the reason why the original clan of Saulot was not as prevalent. I was able to come by this through the intervention of a Salubri who showed me to a secret grave beneath the Westminster Abbey. Inside, written in Sumerian. like many of the Antediluvian writings, was the prophecy, scribed on papyrus that was almost magically preserved. While translating this piece. I frequently had dreams of Gehenna, and I am glad to be rid of this writing. 2. It is well known that Lasombra wishes the death of the Sun. the blackening of the day-time sky. 3. I left it translated as Dark Mother, but there can be only one name for the Dark Queen of the Dead - Lilith. 4. This seems a blasphemous patchwork transliteration of many important Biblical verses. but this is how the passage translates, and I let it stand. 5. Who is this mortal woman? No one can tell. Many Tremere. it is said. search the world for mortal women with crescent moon birthmarks. 6. A Caitiff prince - who would think of it? Yet this is one of the signs of Gehenna. 7. This is a common theme about the time of Gehenna. The Lupines stay in their countryside. but I have seen a few here and there living in the darkest parts of the city. Do we dare share a city with the Changing Breed, who fight us at every turn? 8. Could this be the Crone from the Chronicle of Caine? Perhaps she did not die in the sun as Caine thought. Or perhaps this bespeaks another Crone: there are certainly many Methuselah vampiresses who fit the description. 9. Several Toreador I have shown this manuscript to complain that this is a direct allusion to the Sabbat, the Black Hand, and that surely Gehenna is upon us. 10. Certainly this is already happening! 11. Count Vlad Tepes, Dracula, has been called ”the Dragon” before. Could this bespeak him? 12. The strangeness of the Caitiff continues to disturb me. Where they come from, none know, although I have traced a few of them back to Malkavian and Brujah sires who have simply abandoned them. Still, some seem to be made by shadowy figures who may or may not be of a clan themselves. These verses explain the Antediuvian’s obvious prejudice against the clanless, and this prejudice has been carried down through the ages to the Kindred as a whole. 13. I place this here because it is pure speculation and is attributed to Caine’s prophetic powers. Certainly Love is a powerful force, one that I am not familiar with, but I have heard tales of the newly Embraced being rescued by those they loved, and subsequently Rebithed into mortal form. 14. This, in my opinion, is the Antediluvian foundation of Kindred thought regarding Lupines .It is a reason why ail Kindred array themselves against the Lupines. and why the Gangrel are given leave to have truck with them. Remember that the thoughts of the Antediluvians become the customs of the Methuselahs, which become the laws of the elders. 15. This was written on a stone cross in Norway. in old Norse runes, and was barely translatable when I saw it decades ago. I include it for completeness: I'm not sure whether it was intended as part of the Book of Nod or if it was a separate creation. It seems quite old. 16. I have placed these prophecies together in a grouping I call "The Awakening of the Dark Father." This is because I discovered them all in a sealed crypt inside the Smithsonian Institution s Art History wing. I don't believe that the curators would have been pleased to learn that a Ventrue friend of mine had Dominated their well-paid guards into allowing me to explore down there. The translation of the tablets I found there took seven nights, and I believe them to be the most cryptic and most prophetic of all the collection of Secrets that I have. I have no way of knowing whether or not these prophecies are connected. My childe. Beckett, believes that it is perhaps a collection of different visions linked together with a loose literary bridging. I can see where many of these visions may be the root of several Antediluvian plots (certainly the Dark Father must be some Antediluvian that Caine isn't particularly pleased with - perhaps even Brujah's founder.)
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THE CHRONICLE OF SECRETS