Ur-Shulgi
"I traveled to the land of our ancestors and faced the herald.
He is dark and terrible - the fury of your heaven and the fire of your hell.
Black and impenetrable as the darkest night." -- Thetmes
Ur-Shulgi, herald and loremaster of Haqim, is the current Eldest of clan Assamite and the primary advocate of the fundamentalist revival running through the clan. Second Childe of Haqim, ur-Shulgi is a being of incredible age and indescribable power.
Sobriquet:Herald of Haqim
Appearance:Time has not been kind to ur-Shulgi, nor have the ravages of the beast within it or the numerous enemies it has challenged. It looks like nothing so much as a scarred, burnt child, a young god born from fire and violence. Its skin, obsidian-black with age, displays a lattice of scars, some of which weep blood when the Methuselah becomes agitated. Here and there, bits of bone and sinew protrude from beneath its skin, as if its body has been flayed. Additionally, ur-Shulgi's eyes have been either gouged or burnt away, though it claims to be able to see without hindrance. When it deigns to clothe itself, ur-Shulgi wears unadorned, light-colored caftans and robes, often with a bone or amber necklace.
Its voice seems to billow up from the depths of a dry desert well (surprisingly to some, ur-Shulgi is perfectly fluent in any modern language in which it is addressed). Ur-Shulgi normally remains motionless when conversing with its childer or other "Kindred," unless it wishes to make a rhetorical point through a cat-like flash of violence. If it absolutely has to shift position to do anything other than kill, it does not move so much as flicker from point to point. It is a creature of near perfect violence and does not possess emotions or other attributes recognizable as the human it must have been over 80 centuries ago.
Behavior:ur-Shulgi is the most efficient war-mage on the face of the planet, though it does not think of itself in such simplistic terms. In fact, most of its thought processes are completely incomprehensible to anyone not of its age and power stratum. To outside observers, it is violence given physical body, the vengeance of Haqim upon all those who would oppose his will. It remembers the glory of the Second City and the old gods who walked there.
It views "Allah" as an upstart whose faith has corrupted the line of Haqim, and it must either show all those who worship him the error of their ways, or purge them from among the rafiq. Casually shattering the "curse" that the Usurpers laid upon the Assamites was the first step on this road, and those presumptuous meddlers will be the first to fall before the whirlwind that the Camarilla attempted to chain.
History:ur-Shulgi's only loyalty is to its sire and remodeling the clan into a form more worthy of Haqim. Since awakening from 18 centuries of torpor, ur-Shulgi has been primarily devoted to purging clan Assamite of weaknesses, notably the clan's general adoption of Islam and schismatic Assamites such as Talaq and its own childe, al-Ashrad.
It is moving the clan towards a darker, bloodier (if that's conceivable) role, reinstating the Path of Blood as the clan's religion and terminating any dissenters with extreme prejudice. Its unwavering plans have led to a schism in the clan, particularly among the Vizier and Sorcerer castes, with a collection of Assamite dissenters under al-Ashrad seeking refuge with the Camarilla.
Early nightsEdit
Ancient Times
In certain fragments of the Book of Nod, primarily those recovered in the Middle East, passages appear that speak of the old gods - those worshipped by the mortals who dwelt in the Second City. Some of these names are familiar to the Cainite scholar of the modern nights: Ashur, Kel-nach, Enkidu, Rashadii. Some have no direct correlation to any other record of Kindred history: Mancheaka, Nar-Sheptha, Sha'hiri and ur-Shulgi. This last name appears in four separate passages, and Setite scholars infer from its context that it is an avatar of one of the Second City's war-gods: the war-god Haqim.
According to legend, ur-Shulgi first appeared during the Second Baali War, single-handedly turning the tide in the conflict with its command over blood magic. In the most common Assamite telling of the war, it was ur-Shulgi who destroyed the Baali's armies, causing the very stones to scream and a river of blood to flow. It made its first appearance to the clan afterwards, its skin already burnt and its eyes already lost.
A tale regarding the origin of its childe, al-Ashrad, tells that ur-Shulgi managed to mediate an argument between Haqim and the still-living al-Ashrad and was commanded by Haqim to embrace the mortal mage as compensation for a childe of Haqim that al-Ashrad had slain in self-defense. After that, its figure vanishes from recorded Assamite tales, perhaps linked to its long torpor.
Awakening from TorporEdit
Modern Times
In the late 90s, ur-Shulgi awoke and was greatly displeased by the state of its once-proud clan. Through its power, it broke the Blood Curse of the Tremere and began to test Haqim's childer, destroying all those who would refuse to convert back to the old ways of the Clan and the Path of Blood. Additionally, it interpreted the Law of Judgement from the Laws of Haqim to mean that all other vampires (and many of Haqim’s Children) have failed to live up to the standards of honor and integrity put forth by Haqim in the nights of the First City and are thus to be destroyed before their taint spreads, an interpretation members of the loyalist faction share to one degree or another.
This led to a fallout with other Assamites, most notably its own childe, al-Ashrad. The Schism tore Alamut apart, only fueled by the discoveries of Sarah Schneier, a member of the Council of Scrolls that was destroyed quickly by ur-Shulgi following her publication of her findings. ur-Shulgi itself remained unconcerned with the departure of the Schismatics, instead conducting researches to end the other curse that plagues the Clan. Ur-Shulgi removed the Tremere curse set upon the Children of Haqim, but the Baali’s is beyond even its power.
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