Human society is a structure by which human beings decide what is murder, what is justice, and what is just an unfortunate but necessary evil. This culture determines who starves in the winter, who doesn’t have the medicine to help their sick child, and who gets to spend all day playing chess and reading books while others struggle to make ends meet. By being a part of society, you become an explicit co-conspirator to murder and slavery, and potentially consent to your own death if society deems you somehow unworthy.
Cainites on the Road of Beast dismiss the most basic premises of society: the culture, the people, and those living among each other do not have inherent right, as a group, to judge each other. Or perhaps this manifests most selfishly in that society can do what it wants, but for the Outcast, society can make no claims of authority. To the Outcast, each monster creates her own rule and her own rights, and exists on her own terms. Any attempts to tie her down or force her to acknowledge an authority greater than her own is tantamount to attempting to murder her soul.
Sobriquet
Outcasts
Preferred by
- Bloodlines: Ádísur, Anda, Gargoyles, Bratovich Tzimisce
Ethics
- You have survived death, and now preservation of the self is the truest goal you can seek
- The Beast exists to help you survive, not as some manifestation of evil
- You have fought for everything you have, and have the right to everything you’ve fought for
- You cannot be led; you can listen to experiences gained by others, but no one determines the conditions of your existence but you
- Civilisation is a cushion that softens you and makes you weak. Exist beside it, but never in it.
| Level of Sin | Description |
| 1* | Risking your own life or acknowledging a leader |
| 1 | Killing for pleasure rather than need |
| 2 | Choosing to live in order over chaos; engaging in cruelty for pleasure |
| 3 | Doing something for nothing; failing to kill when survival is on the line |
| 4 | Not protecting what is yours |
| 5 | Refusing to feed when hungry; having no things that are yours |
*: only for someone with Road rating of 6
Initiation
It is a common (if mistaken) assumption that those wild and alien vampires who drift from place to place come very naturally to the Road of the Beast. While this happens, it is rare. Most often, those vampires who come to the Road of the Beast come to it by manipulation or education. Often, the difference between those two ways onto the Road is hard to distinguish.
Sometimes, out of a sense of kinship from one outsider to another, a vampire on the Road will provide wisdom or guidance onto the Road. More frequently, a vampire on the Road will spot a vampire who otherwise cannot hang on to society and drags them into the metaphorical woods. They might sabotage the vampire’s life, driving him further and further from the comforts of civilian life until he has no choice but to embrace the Outcast life. From the outside, these lessons might appear cruel, as the Outcast destroys everything in the young vampire’s life. To the Outcast, though, this is the greatest act of kindness. Liberating anyone from the yoke of society and freeing them to be the predator that’s in their nature, no matter what it takes, is never cruel. It is for a blessed purpose.
Organisation
It is antithetical to the Outcast to acknowledge any structure or authority beyond what she has created herself. There is nothing above the Outcast. Neither god nor vampire can tell her the best way to live. She exists only on her own terms and any compromises she makes are out of enlightened self-interest, not in pursuit of dogma or prestige. Still, at times, a group of Outcasts may work and live together via a series of endless challenges for leadership or some kind of grudging neutral balance where no one is technically in charge. Some Outcasts allow for a tense respect between teacher and student on the Road, though no one is likely to call the relationship out in such a way.
It is in this way that the Outcasts come together to participate in the decision-making of the Anarch Revolt; they select their representatives in a relatively unstructured, free-for-all manner that might involve combat as readily as force of personality. No Outcast willingly surrenders their autonomy, but few are sufficiently bestial as to only recognise strength of arms as a sign of dominance. And, of course, the Outcasts make much of the similarity of the Vinculum to the relationships within a pack or pride of social predators; it does a lot to limit internecine violence in the war against the elders and the Inquisition.
Rituals and Observances
Ritual suggests dogma, and in general, the Outcast rejects both entirely. There is at least one exception though, and that is in a sort of ritualistic relationship to the hunt. No matter how the Outcast comes to the Road, it is universally understood that the Beast sees the hunt as sacred, and in this, there is no questioning the Beast. There are uniform rules in which the hunt must be honored and treated as sacrosanct, but it should be clear that the hunt is separate from any other activity. Some Outcasts prepare in silent prayer or meditation before going to hunt. Some wear personally precious talismans or adornments to hunt. For some, a complicated series of songs, dance, physical demonstrations, and physical or metaphorical sacrifices precedes the hunt. To some Outcasts, ritual to separate the hunt from her nightly activities is not just proper, but necessary. Some Outcasts believe that hunting belongs to the Beast, and a liminal space where the Beast takes over without a full frenzy is necessary to hunt correctly.
Aura
Menace. The Beast is welcome in the Apostate’s skin, and it shows not only in the penetration of her stare, but in the flickering reflection of her soul. The Beast, in many ways, is her spirit, and its dangerous lust for survival at all costs paints savage shadows and blood all over her aura.