The Truth
"One murder makes a villain, millions a
hero. Is it just me or is there something incredibly wrong with
that?"
Truth is, delightfully enough, a subjective
concept. We can never share an objective truth -- and to be objective, it
must be shared -- and thus there is no proof that any such thing even
exists. We believe the sky is blue. Our eyes see things our minds
classify as "blue" because we've all agreed the sky is blue, and the
things look vaguely like the sky. Yet, some people believe blue and
purple really go well together in an outfit; clearly they do not see the
same actual color.
So it is with the truth of Red Moon Rising 1/2.
Many different people would see many different truths. Here is the one
probably felt by the PC's. We will never, truly, know. In a vague
order of start (from my perspective, writing storyline) to finish, here
are some parts of a perspective which may or may not be truth:
- June Hanesway, a Toreador who was rumored to be vaguely dissatisfied
with the Camarilla and had come west at the turn of the century to help
establish a Camarilla foothold in Los Angeles, was in fact
completely dissatisfied with the Camarilla, and had abandoned it
for any and all purposes, save that of corrupting as many within it as she
could.
- Joel (last name unknown -- it's a safe bet that he predates modern
naming schemes, and uses 'Joel' as a pseudonym), Toreador primogen of New
York, was June Hanesway's Sire and a long-time combatant of Infernalists.
Most particularly, that bloodline known as the Baali.
- June Hanesway, in her desparation to escape the ways and obsessions of
her Sire, had rebelled and, yes, voluntarily undergone the Baali
re-Embrace.
- June Hanesway was, in fact, a very good actress. She convinced the
elders of San Fransisco that her invitation to them at the time of the
earthquake of 1906, and her devotion to their success thereafter despite
their status as an Anarch city, was purely from the kindness of her heart.
Was it possible that she would be willing to join them in the building of
their Empire? Perhaps. Time would tell.
- June Hanesway manipulated the elders of San Francisco into "rescuing"
her from dangerous situations (largely ones in which she had failed to
corrupt some prospective toys, such as the Sabbat Pack which moved into
Los Angeles), partly to save her own hide and partly to test the Empire's
willingness to participate in murder, destruction and mayhem. The
diablerie of one of the Sabbat members by Vincent Giovanni assured her
that the Empire would be willing pawns.
- Janet DeMilo, a Tremere (eventual antitribu) of the New Orleans
Chantry, was not an agent of the Baali. She was assigned to assist June
by Camarillan elders who "needed to free June from the Sabbat of LA."
When she later wrote to June for help freeing herself from the clutches of
the Tremere of N.O., who by then she'd realized were involved somehow in
an ugly, ugly situation involving experimentation on wraiths, June saw an
opportunity to consolidate resources and made sure the Empire went to New
Orleans to destroy the Chantry there.
- The above circumstances were, through and with June's manipulations,
an effort on the part of the Baali to accomplish several objectives:
- To destroy the New Orleans Chantry, which had served its purposes
and now Knew Too Much.
- To further test the Empire's willingness to destroy their enemies for
the sake of personal power.
- To give the Empire a taste of the sort of activities going on, and
measure their interest in such things.
- The Baali in question were a network of Baali nests, headed by June
Hanesway. When the term "the Baali" is used here, it does not
refer to the entire bloodline; rather, a further subsection thereof.
- The Baali were obsessed with one goal: the raising and control of one
of the First Ones/Dark Ones/Old Ones/etc., a demon or demon-like entity
supposedly buried deep within the earth.
- The method of raising it was undetermined, but it involved a powerful
series of rituals developed by the New Orleans Tremere and a cabal of
Pisanob Giovanni, under the unwitting sway of the Baali. They had been
corrupted over the course of a hundred years, at least, and carefully
hidden their own infernalist sway from the others of their chantry until
almost everyone except Janet DeMilo (who had always been distrusted
despite her natural gift for magick) was fully aware and involved in the
plot.
- The purpose of controling a demon was not really power in and
of itself. While the demon would have been powerful, their real goal was
to simulate Gehenna by faking several of the signs of the End Times. Then
they would roll out their Demon, claiming him to be Caine, and say that
all other Kindred must fall in line behind them or be destroyed by the
All-Sire. Their purpose in doing so was that they feared the real
Gehenna, during which time they feared the Setites would prove to be the
favored line -- based on remnants of a part of the Book of Nod called
Trials of Set.
- The Baali had successfully begun to corrupt the Empire's leadership --
with the exceptions of Ed Simpson, Mage delegate, and Emperor Norton,
Malkavian leader. It was not until signs began appearing on their
foreheads, and they scourged themselves with the assistance of wraiths in
Vincent's control, that they began to realize how close they had been to
becoming complete tools of the Baali.
- The Baali assisted the Empire, early on, at every turn. The Tremere
of New Orleans had been "pre-prepared" to make them easier to destroy. So
were the Tremere which came to Sacramento "to seek revenge for their
fallen brethren." The Ventrue who accompanied them, at the direction of
that clan's Justicar, were killed by the Baali in such a way that, if
everything went terribly wrong in the end, the Ventrue would believe the
Empire had been responsible, not some outside force (ie, the Baali).
- Joel is a member of the True Hand, the Tal'mahe'Ra, and a
centuries-old combatant in the Shadow Crusade. He was well aware that his
Childe, June, had spurned the ways of Infernalist fighting in order to
join them instead. But, were he to destroy her immediately, he would have
lost a source of information on what the Baali were up to; as long as June
remained alive and rebellious, he knew whom to watch. It was also through
June (as she was partly Bound to him and partly Dominated into sharing her
secrets and forgetting she'd done so) that Joel learned of the Empire.
- Joel's notes on the Baali (handed to the PC's in the form of
Clanbook: Baali, by Black Dog Publishing) were not entirely
correct. If they acted based on his information, he would know the Baali
had not absorbed them completely. If they refuted his information, he
would know they had another source on the Baali -- very likely the Baali
themselves.
Back to the Red Moon Rising 1/2
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