Lasombra

Organization Lasombra naturally seek positions of power and authority, as a result they form the bulk of the Sabbat's administrative offices - ducti, prisci and the like. Tzimisce are more likely to be pack priests, while the Lasombra focus on the practical matters of administration and leadership.

Separate from Sabbat organization, the Lasombra maintain a clan-specific organization, the Friends of the Night, usually called les amies noir (amici noctis during the Dark Ages). While a Lasombra can be in the clan and not a Friend of the Night, all Lasombra who matter are part of the organization. The Friends are something of a formalized favor network within the Lasombra - they grant prestige and prestation, but the most notable feature of the friends are the Courts of Blood, which regulate diablerie.

The Lasombra are a clan driven by ambition, and consequently they accept diablerie as a necessary facet of their existence; from the Lasombra perspective, the only tragedy in diablerie is that such an unworthy vampire as the vessel was sired in the first place. The courts regulate diablerie by accepting petitions to diablerize other Lasombra and authorize hunts - these hunts usually have conditions attached because the target must be guilty of something before the hunt is authorized. The court system ensures that diablerie is managed - Lasombra are allowed, if not flat-out encouraged to cannibalize appropriate targets, but those targets must be judged worthy of this attention by a court before the attack can take place.

Culture

Lasombra are fiercely predatory creatures, and the Lasombra mindset is defined by an enthusiastic embrace of social darwinism. The Lasombra firmly believe that power is best held by the most worthy, and that the primary test of worthiness is acquiring said power. As a result, they are predatory, backstabbing, power-hungry and unapologetically arrogant about their position. Needless to say, the Lasombra and Ventrue despise each other. Historically, the two clans have sought out parallel dominions - the Lasombra focused on the Mediterranean, the Ventrue on Germany. The Lasombra went to the Church, the Ventrue went to the state. The Lasombra went to the Sabbat, the Ventrue to the Camarilla. That stated, as the ruling clans of their respective sects, they are naturally prone to come to loggerheads.

That stated, the Lasombra embrace of the Mediterranean and the Church has left odd marks on their clan culture. Many Lasombra are drawn to the sea, and the majority of antitribu are sailors. Even now, the Lasombra are prone to some ancestral Catholicism, notable figures such as Archbishop Ambrosio Luis Monçada still view the world in Catholic terms - they believe in the God and their own damnation with equal certainty. Elder Lasombra in particular place a strong emphasis on confession, although without redemption.

The Lasombra are also noted for a strong fascination with Chess; the game serves as a metaphor for Vampiric existence (or at least, as the Lasombra see it), and consequently any Lasombra who plans to get anywhere in the clan is proficient in the game.

Finally, something must be said about the impact that the lost visage has on the Lasombra. The clan weakness makes it impossible for a Lasombra to ever see his own image again - mirrors, photography and other reflective media fail, and the Lasombra react to this problem in a variety of ways. Clan culture places a strong emphasis on not overreacting to this problem - it is generally acceptable to sit for a portrait every few years, but extreme reactions (such as hiring a Tzimisce to fleshsculpt a ghoul) is considered a breach of good taste and grounds for diablerie.

The Lasombra, as a rule, loathe ghouls with a passion. To them, a mortal in the world of Cainites is as absurd as a poodle putting on a tutu and walking around on it's hind legs. Due to their command of Potence and Dominate, mortals are laughably easy to control, both physically and mentally - how could the Lasombra possibly respect or value such a pathetically weak and frail thing? As a consequence, the ghoul of a Lasombra is typically a sniveling and timid wretch, living in terror of a single mistake which could end their lives.

Lasombra ghouls fall into two broad categories. The first are the raft of accountants, lawyers and bankers that the Lasombra need to keep the finances rolling in, and perhaps these are the luckier of the two groups - as long as the books balance at the end of the day, they'll live to see another one. The second group cater to the Lasombra's difficulty with their own image. Some Lasombra keep an army of personal attendants - scores of ghouls to brush the mistress' hair, do her makeup and dress her. Such attendants are punished severely for infractions. If the hair is not brushed with exactly one hundred strokes, the ghoul might find themselves on the wrong side of the hairbrush, a Potence fueled hand wielding it. Also due to the Lasombra's curse, ghouls of either stripe might have their faces reduced to identical spider-webs of scar tissue, or be forced to wear featureless white masks.

Resources

• White Wolf Wiki