History

We have heavily edited the information below from the White Wolf source material. More information can be found at https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_(WOD). Please note that anything occurring before about 500CE is outside “living memory” for the vast majority of Cainites. The further back something happened, the more likely it is to have been distorted, mythologised, or simply lied about.

Many terms used below are defined in the Glossary.

Pre-history

  • The Garden of Eden: Adam and Lilith were created, the First Man and the First Woman.  Lilith was not content to submit to Adam, and so was cast out, and Eve was created as the Second Woman.  Adam and Eve were in turn cast from the Garden for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and had three sons: Abel, Caine, and (later) Seth.
  • Lilith survived with the aid of angels and demons alike (possibly having seduced them), protected by a cloak of night, and planting stars as seeds for her Gardens of Hope, Renewal, and later of Sorrows
  • Some say it was Lilith who tricked Adam and Eve into eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and becoming outcast, after sneaking back into the Garden of Eden by beguiling the angels on guard
  • The First Murder: Caine murdered his brother Abel, and was cursed and cast out into the Land of Nod.  He encountered Lilith, and the two became lovers.  Caine drinks Lilith’s blood and is visited by three angels who offer him the chance to repent; he rejects them all, and each lays a new curse upon him.  A fourth appears and offers a path to redemption (Golconda).  Following the encounter, Caine gains great power and leaves Lilith behind.
  • Enoch, the First City: Caine came to a city named Ubar, at the request of its king, Enoch.  Enoch the Wise relinquished his crown to Caine in exchange for the Embrace, and that of Irad the Strong and Zillah the Fair.  They in turn learned the ways of making progeny and Embraced many Cainites of the Third Generation. Under Caine’s order, he declared it law that no more childer be made.  Caine and his brood established themselves as Ubar’s ruling pantheon, exploiting and reshaping the city as they saw fit, with Caine renaming the city for Enoch.
  • In an effort to control his wilful childer, Caine sought out the Crone, who tricked him into Embracing her before teaching him the ways of the Blood Bond (by tricking him into that too).
  • Some Banu Haqim tell the tale of the King and Queen of Ubar, who were the first Embraced by Khayyin (Caine); as a mortal, Haqim served as general of the King and Queen’s armies, but the rulers became evil and cruel after their deal with Khayyin, so he decided to cut off their heads and use their blood to bestow the Embrace upon himself.  Khayyin escaped with the Royal Prince Enoch, and Haqim retreated to his mountain, determined to bring justice to Khayyin and his brood.
  • Some Toreador claim that Caine first Embraced two lovers who were so saddened by their new state that they walked into the sun together.
  • The Mesu Bedshet reject this story entirely.  To them, the First City was Annu, the citadel of the Aeons (false gods whose goal is to enslave humankind, reducing them to a state of senseless obedience), where Atum-Ra held court. From this city, Set was banished after Horus had defeated him to avenge his father’s murder.  Set gathered twelve allies around himself and set them to oppose Ra.
  • The Deluge: In response to Caine and his brood ruling the City like gods, a Great Flood comes to cleanse the world of their hubris.  Caine went into exile, leaving his surviving childer to fend for themselves.
  • After the Flood: the surviving members of the Third Generation (now the “Antediluvians”) rose up en masse and destroyed their sires and sought dominion over what the Second Generation once had.
  • The Second City: The Antediluvians tried to recover while the descendants of Noah spread across the earth. They built a new city, bringing to it thirteen tribes. It was a beautiful city and its people worshipped them as gods. The Antediluvians created progeny of their own, the Fourth Generation of Cainites. But it was forbidden for those childer to create others of their kind – this power the elders kept for themselves, and when a childe was created, it was hunted down and killed, and its sire with it.
  • The First Baali War: The Salubri and Banu Haqim worked together with a few Brujah and Malkavians to drive the Baali from the Second City, and Lasombra priests of Ereshkigal seemed to obliterate Nergal, the leader of the Baali.
  • The Fall of the Second City: Caine cursed the Antediluvians (the curses each clan bears to this day) for the destruction of Enoch, Irad, and Zillah, and they and their childer fall to civil war.  The Second City was destroyed and their power extinguished, and they were forced to flee, their progeny along with them. Without the Antediluvian’s control, the Fourth generation were free to Embrace as they chose.

Ancient History

-1500 (approx): The Second Baali War. Claiming to be the sire of both Moloch and Nergal, the Baali Shaitan appeared in the city of Ashur and rallied almost all the Baali except for Moloch’s few remaining followers.  In fact, “Shaitan” was Nergal who had faked his own death. Numerous powerful Cainities of all the Clans eventually ended the threat by causing the volcano Thera to erupt. 

-930: The Banu Haqim sorcerer al-Ashrad is instrumental in ending the “10,000 Djinni Plague”

-814: Founding of Carthage – Brujah take the opportunity to try to recreate the Second City

-753: Founding of Rome, with Ventrue influence

-509: Founding of the Roman Republic

-350: approximate date of founding of the Eternal Senate, the means by which Ventrue control Rome

-149 to -146: Third Punic War, during which Roman Ventrue defeat Carthaginian Brujah once and for all

-68: Haqim last seen at Alamut

1: Start of the Common Era

33: Set awakens and darkens the sky for three days, speaking great prophecies before vanishing

69: Majority of Lasombra leave Rome, relocating to her colonies around the Mediterranean

71: Mithras settles in Londinium

121: Haqim visits Mithras in Londinium, before retiring completely from Cainite society

196: Byzantium is sacked and sections of it are razed. The Cappadocians are driven from the city

326: Emperor Constantine enlarges Byzantium and renames it Nova Roma. After his death the city becomes known as Constantinople in his honour. The Triumvirate – Mikhail (Toreador), Antonius (Ventrue), and the Dracon (Tzimisce) relocate here.

389: Great Library of Alexandria is burned, although much of its contents had already been transcribed by Obertus revenant servants of the Dracon

413: Founding of the Cainite Heresy in Constantinople, and the “Book of Shining Blood” is smuggled westward to stop its destruction by Michael

476: The last Roman Emperor is dethroned, and the Roman Empire collapses.  A group of Brujah called the Lexor become Scions in Constantinople.

Early Medieval Period: the Long Night

477: The Triumvirate formally establish themselves and the role of their Scions.  Any Cainites that do not accept their protection (and authority) are forced to leave Constantinople

489: The Triumvirate invite the Mesu Bedshet heretic Khay’tall to become a Scion

541: Plague of Justinian – A major pandemic that struck the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, causing the estimated deaths of 25 million people.

622: Foundation of the Ashirra by Suleiman ibn Abdullah, a Lasombra convert to the new religion of Islam

651: Islamic conquest of Persia. After about 20 years of warfare, the Sassanian Empire collapses, allowing the Islamic caliphate to take control of most its territory. This is one of the most important events in the expansion of Islam.

701: The Dracon Embraces Gesu as part of an effort to mend rifts within the Triumvirate

717-8: Siege of Constantinople. A one-year siege by the Umayyad Caliphate against the capital city of the Byzantine Empire ended with the Umayyads withdrawing. This would lead to significant changes within the Islamic world.

726: Antonius rejects the use of religious icons as part of his war with the Dracon

754: Cainite Heresy brought into the open in Ostia and declared anathema

793: Vikings raid Lindisfarne. Raiders from Scandinavia attack a monastery at Lindisfarne. This is the beginning of Norse attacks and expansion in Europe.

796: In Constantinople, Michael and the Dracon meet with Antonius’ childer Septima Dominica and Caius.  They agree to sanction the killing of Antonius to reestablish peace in the face of Antonius’ support of Iconoclasm.  Caius takes Antonius’ place among the Triumvirate.  The Nosferatu Malachite becomes a Scion.

800: Charlemagne crowned emperor. On Christmas Day, the Carolingian ruler is crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, the first person in Western Europe to hold that title.

810: The Giovani family is credited with helping defend Venice from siege

843: Treaty of Verdun. An agreement between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, dividing the Carolingian Empire. This is the beginning of the states that eventually become France and Germany.

850: Rough period when the Furores start to form as a radical sect of disenfranchised Cainites

879: Formalisation of the Cainite Heresy, the belief that there will be three Caines – the original one, Jesus Christ, and the Third Caine, a messianic figure predicted to cause Gehenna in 1239.

888: The Dracon leaves Constantinople to destroy anyone who might threaten the Dream, including the Cainite Heresy.  Gesu takes his place among the Triumvirate.

910: Cluny Abbey founded. Founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine, this French monastery would become an important centre of Christianity in the Middle Ages.

911: Foundation of Normandy. An agreement between King Charles III and the Viking leader Rollo establishes the Duchy of Normandy as a defence against other Norse raiders.

980: A group of mortal magi (Tremere, Goratrix, Etrius, Meerlinda, Arundinis, Anguisa, and Ponticulus) consecrate the ground of Ceoris (in the Transylvanian mountains) as a chantry, killing Ponticulus as part of the ceremony

988: The establishment of Christianity in Kievan Rus leads the way for Tzimisce and Ventrue to expand east

High Medieval Period

1001: a mortal witch-hunter kills Septima Dominica in Constantinople

1005: Tzimisce warriors kill Arundinis for investigating their existence; Goratrix retaliates by hunting down a childe of the Voivode Vladimir Rustovich and forcing him to Embrace two of Goratrix’ apprentices

1022: The Archmages Tremere, Meerlinda, Etrius, Calderon, LeDuc, Goratrix, Epistatia and Anguisa become vampires

1025: The Persian scholar Ibn Sīnā completes his encyclopedia of medicine, which would remain the standard work on the topic for centuries.

1037: Approximate start of the Omen War (Tremere vs Tzimisce)

1054: Great Schism – An official break between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches.

1066: Norman conquest of England.

1095: First Crusade is launched. At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II calls upon Christians to undertake a military expedition in support of the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks. It would lead to the conquest of Jerusalem four years later and a concerted effort by Western Europeans to take control of the Near East.

1112: Christian missionaries attack Odin the All-High, Gangrel Methuselah, in Uppsala, destroying him and scattering his childer

1125: A few years after their creation by Goratrix and Virstania, Gargoyles first used in the Omen War in and around Transylvania

1133: Tremere widely accepted as a Low Clan in Europe’s courts; they start a successful smear campaign against the Salubri, accusing them of diablerie and infernalism.  Goratrix takes control of Paris chantry

1154: Mithras returns to London in triumph

1170: Norman Toreador and Ventrue combine forces to establish a foothold in einherjar-claimed east Ireland

1185: Hundreds of vampires in Constantinople killed by angry mobs.  The Latin Quarter becomes independent from the Triumvirate, under the Lasombra Alfonzo of Venice

1193: Brujah, Nosferatu and Gangrel of Constantinople unite to form the Covenant of the Three to defend the Dream.

1197: Erciyes Fragments discovered in a hidden monastery in central Anatolia

1204: Constantinople falls to the forces of the 4th Crusade. End of the Dream of Constantinople – the entire Triumvirate are killed in the Fourth Crusade

The War of the Princes

1206: Genghis Khan becomes ruler of Mongols. Temüjin unites the various nomadic tribes in Mongolia, and begins a series of conquests that would stretch across Asia and parts of Europe.

1215: Magna Carta – A charter agreed to by King John of England and his rebellious barons, the document would come to be seen as the beginning of legal limits on the power of monarchs.

Rose Treaty signed between Mithras of London and the Toreador of Anjou

Sisters of St John founded as an Inquisitorial Order

1216: New Pope finances and authorises the start of “Shadow” Inquisitions

1219: Order of the Poor Knights of the Passion of the Cross of Acre formed as a knightly order charged with protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land and fighting against demons, fiends, heretics and witches (and therefore Cainites) with a combination of militaristic precision and monastic devotion

1222: Cainite refugees from Constantinople move into Nosferatu warrens just outside Paris

Riots break out in Paris between supporters and opponents of the Cainite Heresy

1223: Pope Honorius III issues the secret bull entitled “Inquisitores contra Diabolum enim at alii daemones” (The Holy Inquisition Against the Devil and Other Demons)

Alexander is removed as Prince of Paris, replaced by Saliana and Geoffrey du Temple who act as co-rulers.

1231: Pope Gregory IX establishes permanent tribunal of ecclesiastical judges – the Inquisition – and the Society of Leopold along with it, giving Leopold von Murnau special dispensation to combat supernatural evil and answering only to the Pope.  Witch-hunts flourish

1232: Papal bull describes the heretic as an “ice-cold pale man” who extracts the faith in the Church with his kiss.  Cainites become very worried.

1239: Date predicted for Gehenna by followers of the Cainite Heresy; it does not occur

1252: The Inquisition uncovers and destroys its first Ventrue.  The Clan now believe that witch-hunters have gotten out of control.

1258: Pope Alexander IV explicitly forbids the Papal Inquisition from investigating charges of witchcraft – which means they focus even more on Cainites

1271: Jürgen von Verden, Prince of Magdeburg, thrown to the Inquisition by his sire, Hardestadt

1291: Salubri warriors sail north from Acre to combat the Tremere in a series of doomed one-vampire crusades

At some point in the 14th century, Brujah Prometheans attempt an uprising against the elders to recreate Carthage; humans engage in unrest, but Promethean uprising defeated, feeding into later creation of Camarilla

1314: Goratrix summoned to Ceoris to face judgement for her part in the destruction of the Knights Templar.  She is stripped of her authority and flees the Tremere, disappearing into the mountains of Transylvania

1315-17: Great Famine. A series of crop failures and bad weather that struck large parts of Europe.

1320: Dante Alighieri completes the Divine Comedy

1326: Ban on the Papal Inquisition investigating witchcraft is overturned.

1337 – Beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. The Kings of England and France begin a war – fought off and on – that would last until 1453.

1347: The Black Death reaches Europe. Over the next six years a third of the population of Europe dies (estimated between 75 and 200 million deaths). This in turn put significant pressure on the Cainite population and forces some to be far more obvious in their feeding, which increases attention from the Inquisition.

1350-1400: Significant numbers of younger Cainites are sacrificed to the Inquisition by their Elders, creating resentment among those of higher generation.

1378: Western Schism begins, a split within the Catholic churches that would see two or three men claiming to be Pope at the same time.

1395: Meerlinda (Tremere) and Hardestadt (Ventrue) propose what will later become the Camarilla at a meeting at Hardestadt’s castle in Bavaria.  Patricia of Bollingbroke (Brujah Furore) attacks the meeting and diablerises Hardestadt – Spanish Brujah start the Anarch Revolt – but the Ventrue claim Hardestadt still lives!

Start of the Anarch Revolt

1397: Kalmar Union established. The kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark and Norway are joined together by Margaret I.

1401: A competition held is in Florence to design the doors of the buildings, won by Lorenzo Ghiberti. It is one of the key moments in the beginning of the Renaissance.

1405: Gratiano is approached by a delegation of Brujah and Tzimisce to join the Anarch Revolt and to attempt to kill the Lasombra antediluvian. They storm the Castel d’Ombro, kill many of the Elders of the clan and free Hrotsuitha, but fail to kill The Shadowed One. With their Antediluvian on the run, the majority of younger members of the clan side with Gratiano and the Anarchs.

1413: Tzimisce killed, Lugoj agrees to join the Anarch Revolt along with his Clan

Anarch activity and Inquisition activity both intensify over the next 70 years

1434: Father Albion Greagoire begins a pilgrimage across Europe to save those condemned to hell. He gains a large following of other vampires, who want to use their cursed state to redeem themselves by saving others

1435: Camarilla officially formed.

1439: Gutenberg invents printing press. The first European to use movable type, Johannes Gutenberg would usher in a revolution in the creation of books and the spread of information.

1444: Augustus Giovanni usurps the Cappadocians, Clan excluded from the Camarilla

1453: Siege of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmed II conquers the capital of the Byzantine Empire, establishing the Ottomans as a major international power for the next several centuries.

End of the Hundred Years’ War

1465: House Goratrix leaves Clan Tremere, casting their lot with the Anarchs

1469: Marriage between Ferdinand and Isabella. The union between Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon would lead to the establishment of Spain as a major international power. The unification of their forces allows them to take more territory in the Reconquista.

1476: Gargoyle Revolt! 

1484: Summis desiderantis affectibus kicks Inquisition into even higher gear

1485: Having secured the aid of the Banu Haqim, Gratiano tracks the Lasombra antediluvian to an Abyssal keep. This time he is successful and emerges with his sire’s blood on his lips. He presents the clan with his fait accompli and allows them to choose their path.

1486: First national conclave of the Camarilla convened, Blood Hunt declared against all Banu Haqim, Founders become Justicars

  • Adana de Sforza (Brujah) – Prince of Florence
  • Milov Petrenkov (Gangrel) – Prince of Kiev
  • Camilla (Malkavian) – Queen of Toulouse
  • Josef Zvi (Nosferatu) – Prince of Prague
  • Rafael de Corazón (Toreador)
  • Meerlinda (Tremere) – Councillor for Great Britain
  • Hardestadt (Ventrue) – Prince of Munich and ruler of the Fiefs of the Black Cross

(GAME STARTS)