The Tomb of the Patriarch

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The “Dream” — a Cainite utopia of enlightenment and learning shepherded by a cabal of long-lost Me- thuselahs — took root in Byzantium over a millenni- um ago. As is ever the case with the Kindred, though, spurned loves and malicious treacheries conspired to lay low the Dream, and the ultimate betrayal came when its primary caretaker fell to foul diablerie during the Crusades. Since then, the ragged banner of the Dream has persisted in one form or another in the hands of would-be successors, but none with the glory of its original champion, the Patriarch.

The focal point of Byzantium’s Dream, the Hagia Sophia, remains a monument to both the ambition and perfidy of the Kindred condition. According to Kindred historians, a replica of the medieval basilica of Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia exists beneath the “true” Hagia Sophia, standing silent testament to the Patriarch’s ambition for the Dream. Some Byzantine elders still regard the Tomb of the Patriarch as a great spiritual landmark, and Kindred of all clans have safe- guarded its legacy since the fall of its progenitor. Indeed, scholarly Kindred regard the Tomb of the Patriarch as a treasure of the Damned on the order of the Library of Alexandria, holding both verifiable history and clues to the prophesied fate of the Damned. The academic riches of this ancient haven are difficult to access, however, as feuding factions of Kindred still war over the right to its legacy. The Tomb tragically lies at the forbidden center of a hostile entente, with vampires of the mutually suspicious factions choosing to keep the Tomb inaccessible rather than share its intellectual and spiritual bounty among outsiders and the godless. Thus, the Dream is all but broken in the modern nights....