Set/Sutekh

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Followers of Set

Sutekh.jpg

Sobriquet: Sutekh

Appearance:

Behavior:

History: Set was once a mortal man, born on the river Nile of Egypt, almost 7,000 years ago. He was a great hunter and warrior whose only rival was his elder brother, Osiris. They were the grandchildren of Ra, a mighty chieftain who conquered the people of the Nile uniting Upper and Lower Egypt.

The death of Set's parents, Geb and Nut, was ordered by Ra who felt that they had betrayed him for having additional offspring. Ra felt threatened by having royal bloodlines and commanded that they must not bear children. Set was anguished by the order of his parents' deaths, and his voice in the matter subjected him to banishment. Osiris, on the other hand, possibly out of fear, expressed loyalty to Ra and became heir to throne.

After the death of Ra, Osiris took control over the kingdom, declared his grandfather as divine and promoted worship of him as a god. Set returned to his brother Osiris, in hopes of reconciling. However, his reigning brother continued the order of banishment. Therefore, Set took on the name "Sutekh" and traveled north to Assyria. During his journey, he encountered his sire, who is thought to be Zillah. The Gangrel claim that Set met Ennoia, who challenged him to a riddle contest. Set lost, and Ennoia tore him apart, devoured his entrails and filled him with her blood. When Set reawakened, he was delirious, believing himself to be divine and became enamored with reptiles and similar vermin. Needless to say, the Setites regard this as slander at best and blasphemy at worst.

According to the Malkavians, Set was a "brother", more likely a Kindred brother, to Malkav and Saulot. In these tales, Malkav and Set have an argument over the nature of Truth; with Set's position that all truth was already known within the soul, but had yet to be understood by the senses and that the best way to come to this understanding was the breaking of inner barriers, with the Embrace as the final of these revelations. Set was presumably in Enoch at some point and then took residence in the Second City after the Great Deluge. The Ventrue say that he was banished from the Second City, by Malkav, for eating the heart of his twin sister, Arikel.

As the legend continues, Set returns to Egypt to strike down King Osiris and his son Horus. Taking Egypt as his own, Set ruled in power - and perhaps (or perhaps not) sought to free mankind from the bonds of law imposed by Ra. Whatever the truth may be, Horus came back from death as a Mummy and sought vengeance for his father's destruction, ejecting Set from the throne of Egypt and beginning a crusade that would consume millennia.

The Great god Set: There are some Setites who reject the notion that their "Founder" was ever mortal, or even embraced. Instead, there is the belief that Set, Osiris, Isis and Horus were all truly gods. After his nephew's triumph, Set was cast down to Duat, the Egyptian land of the dead, to rule as the God of Storms. There, he bested Apep, the great serpent of the Underworld, and took the creature's knowledge by eating it's heart. He learned that Ra, Osiris and Horus all hid the truth from mortals: that creatures souls were not fundamentally different from those of the gods, and that all souls could grow as powerful as the creator's.

Set swore to overthrow Ra - not to get revenge, but to liberate the souls of humanity - and escaped from Duat through the Primeval Waters, disguised as a water-serpent. Despite the power gained from Apep, Set still had to hide from the sun; he could not break the curse of Ra. Nor was he truly alive, for he had tasted the waters of death during his imprisonment in the Duat. As he walked the night, however, he recruited twelve talented Disciples. He taught them the truth, and together they swore an oath to bring down Ra and the other false gods and become gods themselves. Set mingled his blood with that of his Disciples and when they drank of it, he gave up the greater share of his power, granting all thirteen almost equal might (though as a true god, he remained the most powerful).

Their meeting did not go unnoticed, for the Moon (whom Set thought he could trust), betrayed him to the other gods. Seeing their blood oath, Ra interrupted the meeting, he castrated and cursed them to share Set's banishment from the Sun. And having sealed their pact in blood, the thirteen would feed on blood alone. The Disciples begged for mercy, saying Set mislead them, thus betraying Set and his teachings. Their betrayal outraged Set, and he swore that if they would not help him fight the gods, he would destroy them as well, even if it took him a million years!

Set the Betrayed: Another story of Set is that he was once the protector of Re against the chaos serpent Apep. Prideful of his elevated role, he mocked the other gods for their weakness. Doing so earned him the wrath of his brother Osiris, who plotted to embarrass Set before Re by allowing Apep to best him. He tricked his brother into drinking a potion that would dull his wits and hid himself on Re's barque.

When Apep rose, Osiris, seeing that his brother moved clumsily, lunged forward to defeat the serpent himself, but was knocked unconscious by Apep's tail. Then Set had to watch helplessly as the serpent's fangs bore into his chest. Not willingly to let himself be defeated, he held Apep's head against his chest with all his might, driving the poisonous fangs even deeper into himself. At last, on the verge of suffocation, Apep thrashed mightily and escaped back into the river of the underworld, not to return until the next night. But Set had been infected by the chaos of the underworld. In his efforts to strangle Apep, he had driven the serpent’s fangs, which were the length of a man’s hand, into his own heart, which is where the serpent’s venom took root.

Set was now a cursed figure, alive but marked by the realm of the dead. Unable to withstand the rays of the sun, he was now forced to prey upon Re's most treasured creations, mankind. It was there and then that Set swore vengeance upon his brother, vowing that he would repay Osiris in pain for everything that had been taken from him.

The Role of Set in the Final Nights: After a brief awakening shortly after the Crucifixion in 33 AD, Set disappeared from view and has not been seen in the modern era. In the Final Nights, however, many signs and portents seem to indicate the impending rebirth of Set and/or his most powerful childer. The opening fiction of VTM: Gehenna (book) revolves around one such event, and Set himself is involved in most of the Gehenna scenarios in varying degrees.

Aspects of Set's Divinity: While not every Setite accepts Set as a literal god, Serpentis offers various transformative ways of presenting oneself as one. Many of these aspects reflect theological interpretations of Set, both mortal and vampiric. Since Set's history in the Egyptian pantheon experienced gradual shifts over the course of several millenia, there is a multitude of aspects to revere. Each Temple holds one particular aspect of Set above others, in most cases represented through a childe of Set that exemplifies this aspect.

  • -- The King -- which sees Set as the patron and god-king of Upper Egypt.
  • -- The Warrior -- the protector of Re against the chaos-serpent Apophis.
  • -- The Ruler of the Desert -- the master of serpents, scorpions and similar vermin.
  • -- The Master of Storms -- the Lord of Storms and the desert winds.
  • -- The Master of Duat -- the rightful master of the netherworld who strives to recreate the original peaceful state of the Underworld.
  • -- The Lord of All Outside Egypt -- an aspect in which Set represents the fear of foreigners and foreign domination.
  • -- The Triumphant -- Set as kinslayer who defeats and ceremonially dismembers his corrupt brother Osiris.
  • -- The Typhon -- an aspect which sees Set as a cultist of Apophis and a harbinger of corruption and malady, who seeks to plunge the world in eternal darkness.

Other gods that are identified with Set by the Clan (sometimes against the wishes of the cults themselves) are the quatrain of Pluto, Mars, Dionysus and Typhon (sometimes syncretized with Hermes Trismegistus to Typhon Trisgemistus) in certain Mediterranean cults; the triad of Shiva, Rudra and Vritra in India; Jormungandr and Loki in Scandinavia; El Cristo Negro in the Caribbean and several others, including Dis, Nergal and Damballah, to name a few.

Progeny:

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