Salubri - Healer Caste - [Bloodline]

Demon-hunters. Arbiters. Soulstealers. Since Enoch, the Healers have shepherded the race of Caine, uplifting those who stumble. Three eyes gaze from their holy faces to match the three bloodlines of the clan. Between the castes — Healer, Warrior, Watcher— the Healers seek to keep humanity hale and vital. They guard the liminality of Cainite and kine, ensuring that Cainites never draw attention from the sleeping giants they prey upon, and that disease and injury may never threaten the blood-darkened throats of vampires. Beneath their hoods and wimples, Healer Caste Salubri whisper righteousness in the soft-spoken certitude of zealotry.

Saulot was Caine’s best-loved grandchilde, say the Noddist tales, so adored and steadfast that he alone remained uncursed by the First. This gives the Salubri great prestige amongst those who pay heed, forming the basis for their mandate to keep outside and above Cainite society and endlessly ensuring vampires and humanity remain symbiotic. Healers tend to mortal herds and bestial Cainites, salving bodies and souls. They stand silent in the courts, scrutinizing the Roads others walk with a mere glance. Shepherds hold counsel with rabbi, bishop, and imam alike. They preserve the lore of Nod and the promise of Raphael. The Long Night was cruel to the Healers. The mantle of arbiter was dependent on the mythos of Caine, so the Salubri held fast to the religions of Abraham. Yet the fury of the Crusades shook their unity to the core, and their numbers thinned with the Albigensian pogroms.

Worse, it was they of all the clans who first tasted their progenitor’s madness, fury, and despair ripping through the stolen vitae of their near-mythical Antediluvian. They watched in horror as Saulot’s diablerie fueled the rise of the Trembling Ones. The loss of Saulot left the clan riven by disagreement, and their lack of unity led to the loss of the title of clan itself. Without Warriors to stand beside them, the Healers cannot prevent the worst excesses of clans judging themselves above Salubri arrogance. Without Saulot to guide them, the three bloodlines pursue their mandate separately. Without us, they cry to uncaring hearts, what darkness will the Damned embrace?

Sobriquets: Unicorns, Shepherds, Souleaters (derogatory)



Appearance: The far-flung nature of the clan leads to Salubri traveling vast distances from their birthplaces. If they cannot blend in with skin or manner, they attempt to do so with dress, preferring muted colors and a lack of extravagance. The predilection of the clan to develop a third eye necessitates a fondness for wimples, hoods, and headscarves. Healers are often Embraced from religious orders and usually maintain the trappings of their breathing days. No few Healers wear the yellow cross of the heretic with pride, though those with Warrior sympathies might carry the white star of the Hospitallers.

Havens: Healers rely on the grace of human communities to host them; how else would they ensure thesafety and health of the human herds? They have a talent for finding the lairs of the dispossessed — catacombs, crumbling ruins, caves. Shepherds are hosted by monasteries, convents, and heretical cults (particularly Cathars). When they travel, they go ensconced in convoys of pilgrims or Hospitallers, or accompanying Warriors on Precept journeys.

Character Creation: All Salubri castes value Empathy and Willpower. Healers prioritize Mental Attributes as primary with Social as a close secondary; Ability-wise, they focus on Perception, Medicine, and Hearth Wisdom. It’s rare for a Healer to have knowledge of arms, but not unknown, as no few are battlefield physicks or students of Warrior Valeren. Almost unanimously, Healers walk the variant Roads of Heaven and Humanity. The clan’s predilection for spreading into teeming masses of humanity grants them Contacts, while their ancient associations with powerful Cainites cultivates Allies. Healers create quiet cults of personality surrounding their miracle workings.

Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Presence, Valeren. Shepherds are talented at perceiving hidden things and engendering awe in their miracles.

Weakness: If a Salubri learns but one dot of Valeren, he manifests the Discipline’s signature third eye.
Salubri Healers must succeed on a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) if they attempt to feed on the unwilling; if they fail, they must find a willing vessel or suffer a two-die penalty on all rolls for the remainder of the night. Victims enthralled by Presence count as willing vessels.

Organization: The Acre Conclave of 1192, an enormous gathering and debate that led to the Healers refusing to seek vengeance for Saulot’s diablerie, shattered the clan as a cohesive entity. All three bloodlines have effectively gone their separate ways. Even prior to that, the Healers of the al-Amin — Islamic Salubri — were often at odds with the Judaic and Christian elements of the clan. Montségur is the caste’s largest stronghold outside of Cyprus and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a place where all three bloodlines gather still. No few Healers are attached to the Knights Hospitaller, surrounding themselves with mortal warriors in the absence of their clanmates.

Stereotypes
Assamite: They claim judgment as their right, but we are the lawbringers.
Brujah: You’d think our shared love of philosophy would earn us more respect.
Cappadocian: Perversely fertile, infectious as death. Peaceful as corpses, but dead flesh putrefies the body entire.
Lasombra: As entwined with Caliphate and Church as we. How sad that shadows shrink from the light.
Malkavian: Our poor mad brothers. Soothe them when you can, defend them when you cannot.
Tremere: Our Blood stains their lips. But if we ignore Saulot’s desires, are we still Salubri?
Tzimisce: Noble and trustworthy, fast friends against the Usurpers. Long have we worked to salve their ghouls’ wounds.
Ventrue: Puppets, their strings pulled by Usurpers. Would that we claimed kingship as our birthright.
Warriors: Our furious younger brothers. Remember always that we are family, but if they continue to refuse our guidance, they deserve their fate.
Watchers: Mysterious cousins with their own familial agenda. Still, the Blood of Saulot runs so thin these nights...