Durga Syn
- Arrayed by Clan -x- Moscow -x- Ravnos -x- Sofia-Grad
Appearance:
Behavior: The mysterious Durga Syn grieves for the dream days when magic filled the land, and would sacrifice herself to return the magic. Torn between her role as pagan priestess and her supernatural corruption, Durga is a woman of two worlds. She has wreaked havoc in the land and has also bound the wounds of a tortured Russia. Those who have crossed her path either love her or hate her with a passion, but most fear her. She hungrily quests after renewal and healing, just like her people and her land.
Her History
Prelude: For centuries the Russian peasants feared the the Czars, the Cossacks, the curses of the Gypsies and the night-dark creatures that skittered through the silent woods after dusk. But, most of all, they feared Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga the hag. The Sorceress. The flesh eater.
The undying Nosferatu vampire Baba Yaga spread a long, corrosive influence over the land, and even the mightiest heroes trembled before her. Her shadow lingered over the Rodina long after she entered torpor. She worked her wicked will through human vessels, enslaved enchanted beings, and her Blood Bound Nosferatu childer. Only the mysterious vampire priestess Durga Syn possessed the strength to challenge her and survive.
Her Life: For centuries the ancient Mother Goddess religion enjoyed strong popularity and devoted adherents among the people of pre-Christian Russia. Peasants worked vigorously in the ancient land, worshiping their fertility gods and goddesses with equal fervor.
The young priestess Durga Syn lived an exciting life of initiation into the mysteries of the Goddess. The beautiful and clever initiate delighted in the wild ecstasies of the pagan rituals, and devoted her life to the fearless exploration of the inner and outer realms.
In those magical days, wise women and cunning men consorted with immortal enchanted creatures as often as they associated with their fellow mortals. Durga Syn enjoyed the company of a host of faeries, Lupines, vampires and spirits no longer known to our world. The purity of her sexuality and the innocence of her spirituality gained her the admiration and friendship of many beings, who saw her as a trusted mediator and peacemaker in their many disputes.
Unfortunately, the young priestess also attracted the attention of Baba Yaga, an ancient fourth generation Nosferatu who had degenerated into cruelty and madness. She behaved mainly as an unstable instigator, gleefully terrorizing the Russian countryside with powerful spells and far-reaching curses. Her manipulations pitted one force against another, and she created mistrust and war where once there was accord and harmony.
But many of her tidal waves of war evaporated into mist after Durga Syn shone the clear light of reason and compassion on them. After Durga Syn helped settle a precarious disagreement between the Ravnos clan and the Lupines of the Novgorod Forest, Baba Yaga declared the priestess a severe obstacle to her sport, and vowed to stop her.
The hag, who had herself been a follower of the Mother Goddess before the Nosferatu Antediluvian Embraced her, offered Durga Syn power, immortality and great wisdom as her closest daughter. All she demanded was eternal obedience.
Durga thanked the hag for her offer but rejected the gift, explaining that she preferred to experience the full cycle of life and death naturally, and under her own will. Baba Yaga screeched that no one ever rejected her and lived to boast of it, and put a curse on both Durga Syn and her Motherland.
"If you are so eager to feel your supple bones grow brittle and your firm flesh sag and grow mottled, then so be it!" Baba Yaga shrieked. She cast a powerful spell of deep illusion on the young priestess. Durga no longer looked young and innocent, but old, haggard and vile. Baba Yaga then embarked on her cruelest game of all. She cursed Mother Russia to suffer an incursion of war that would last for centuries and hound Durga Syn's ancient religion unto death.
Her Death: Shortly after Baba Yaga's curse, the Christian missionaries came, bringing war and pestilence. They would not accept Durga Syn's mediation and fought all who would not convert. They crushed the old religion and instituted their own in its place. Durga and her allies fell before the onslaught, which coincided with the time that magic began to fade from the world.
As Durga lay dying, Baba Yaga appeared before her, prepared to take her in vampiric Embrace. Russian Ravnos vampires, irate over the horrors Baba Yaga capriciously inflicted on their land, created a great illusion of Christian soldiers attacking the hag. While Baba Yaga fought the illusions, the Ravnos whisked away the dying priestess and gave her the gift of unlife.
Though saddened by her undead condition, Durga Syn determined to use her new-found power to resist the forces of intolerance blanketing her Rodina (Russian - literally = mother-land). She fought Baba Yaga's cruel plans and resisted the sword-point conversion of her people.
Though she silently endured both Baba Yaga's curse of age and her newly acquired blood-lust, every fiber of her being rebelled against the twin violations of her human spirit. Due to the unnatural extension of her existence, she was forced to watch as the centuries eroded magic from the world and washed her dearest immortal companions from the shores of Earth.
Her Unlife: But even immortal evil cannot continue indefinitely. The witch Baba Yaga, wounded by the same forces which sapped magic from the Earth, lost much of her power and ultimately had to go underground in a state of torpor. The Nosferatu clan saw to her business in her absence, though many of them went their own way.
With Baba Yaga gone, Durga Syn found clever ways to sabotage the Nosferatu's more insidious plans. She threw herself into her studies of magic, and succeeded in partially unbinding the magic spell holding her in an ugly, weak, decrepit form. (Even today, however, she has not fully freed herself; her unbinding spell works only briefly, and during those times her power grows stronger and stronger.)
She funneled vital information to Kindred and mortals whom she thought could help right the many wrongs inflicted on the world by the likes of Baba Yaga. She helped mortal rulers resist the manipulations of vampires and other wicked supernatural creatures. Prince Vlad Dracula of Wallachia heeded her advice and became one of the few independent vampires. She later assisted him in his search for Golconda, and magically bolstered his efforts to keep the Inconnu demon under control.
She helped Camarilla vampires go underground and remain hidden from the Inquisitors. She instructed members of the Sabbat in unifying their anarchic group when it threatened to fly apart in a thousand different directions. She warned the Inconnu about the dire consequences of their trafficking with demonic powers, and has maintained contact with Lupines and the few mages still remaining in the world.
She has aided both Camarilla and Sabbat forces during their endless wars, infuriating both groups. She helped the Brujah stir the Russian people to revolution against the corrupt Czars and invader Church during the early twentieth century, but withdrew her support after the revolutionaries embarked on a horrible path of destruction and genocide. She struggled mightily against the forces of living death that settled over the Russian Motherland like a shroud, but was powerless to stop them.
Suddenly, near the end of the twentieth century, Baba Yaga surfaced from torpor and returned to reclaim her nation. The hag destroyed the Communist government and now has begun to rebuild the Church. The forces of science weaken her magic, but when the forces of religion are strong, people return to sorcery, and strengthen her.
Durga Syn fears that Baba Yaga's return presages Gehenna, and that the hag paves the way for the return of the Nosferatu Antediluvian. She knows she must soon confront Baba Yaga, and has built a formidable coalition of vampires, Lupines and other creatures of power to assist in that task. The showdown is coming.
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