Elzbiet was a character I created for "From the Ashes," a Carbondale LARP. Although I only played her a couple of times, it was interesting to try to portray an elder Tzimisce, particularly one with such an unusual world-view as Elzbiet.
The section headings for this background are the Rationales on the Path of Death and the Soul Hierarchy of Sins, taken from the Guide to the Sabbat, White Wolf Game Studio, © 1999, p. 134.
As a background for an elder Cainite of the Sabbat, be warned that you may find aspects of this story offensive!
Although the inheritance and lands would go entirely to Mikel, the families of Freiburg knew that Elzbiet would bring a sizeable dower to her marriage. As she approached a marriageable age, she received more than her fair share of suitors. Most were near the same age as she, but a few were older men. Elzbiet knew that she would eventually marry, but also knew that her parents would choose the man for her to marry, a solution to which she was amenable. In her view, any husband would be about the same, and it certainly wasn’t anything with which to concern herself.
A few weeks before her fifteenth birthday (1623), Elzbiet married Johann Block, a well-off merchant whose family lived in Freiburg. He had two sons by a previous marriage, one of whom was a year older than Elzbiet. Although Johann spent most of his time traveling, he was approaching his 40th birthday, and hoped to settle down in a year or two and raise a second family. Thus Elzbiet became the stepmother of two ‘children’ whom she had known for nearly as long as she had been alive, and the mistress of a household with only a part-time head.
While Richard, the younger of Elzbiet’s stepsons, was kind and caring, he was also mentally retarded—branded an idiot by the doctors of his day. However, he was not the source of any of Elzbiet’s problems in her new household. Adelbert, the older son, was lazy and devious. He also envied his father for having won the hand of a girl far more suited to be his own wife than that of his father. About a year after Elzbiet and Johann were married (1624), Adelbert’s envy and deviousness, coupled with mild intoxication, led him to rape Elzbiet one night when Johann was away.
Elzbiet was mortified by this event. In the eyes of society, not only was this adultery, but also incest. Although she considered confessing her sins, Adelbert warned her against doing so, threatening to tell Johann that she had seduced him. Thus Elzbiet suffered in silence as Adelbert continued to sate his lust with his stepmother.
Inevitably, Elzbiet became pregnant with Adelbert’s child. When the child, a daughter, was born (1625), it was simple enough to claim that the baby was the child of Johann. But Elzbiet and Adelbert knew the truth. Just one week after Elzbiet’s daughter was born, even before the child was baptized, Adelbert forced Elzbiet to watch him smother their baby in her crib. Elzbiet remained impassive, for although she could barely stand to watch this murder before her eyes, she saw it as absolution for her sins. With the evidence of her sins thus destroyed, part of their burden lifted from her heart.
When Johann returned, he was distraught to find the child he believed was his own buried. He vowed that soon he would be able to retire from his merchant business, hand the reins over to Adelbert, and spend his time with Elzbiet rather than on the road. Adelbert stayed away from Elzbiet for a time, but inevitably returned to her bed. By this time, Elzbiet was accustomed to his advances, and barely bothered to attempt to dissuade him. Reflection on the death of her daughter had led her to believe that she was damned, beyond redemption. Her only option now was to await her inevitable demise and damnation.
Once again, Elzbiet became pregnant with Adelbert’s child. When she was six months pregnant, Johann returned home, this time to stay. Adelbert took over Johann’s business, and left their household. Faced with the first peace she had known since Adelbert’s first advances, however, Elzbiet panicked. Claiming complications with her pregnancy, she retreated to the convent in Freiburg, where her sister, Frederica, had become a nun. Minutes after her arrival, she had confessed everything to her sister, who listened in stunned silence.
Unbeknownst to Fredericka, in fact to any of the nuns at the convent, the convent was the resting place of an elder Tzimisce by the name of Olexa. Olexa had Dominated all those nuns who might have reason to venture near her hiding place to be virtually unaware of her presence, as well as her comings and goings. To them, she was simply a particularly reclusive member of a cloistered order of nuns. The nuns served her purposes well, as they ministered to the sick and dying, allowing Olexa many subjects to observe for her studies as a Necronomist.
On the night that Elzbiet came to the convent, Olexa happened to overhear her tearful confession. Yet when Olexa probed Elzbiet’s thoughts, she found that much of the remorse that Elzbiet attested to was not entirely genuine. Far more prominent in Elzbiet’s mind was a sense of detachment from her life. Yet she had not retreated into a fantasy world, nor had she tried to end her existence. Olexa was intrigued, and decided to study Elzbiet more closely.
For the final three months of her pregnancy, Elzbiet was urged by the nuns to spend time alone in prayer and contemplation. The room in which Elzbiet spent her days and nights happened to be in a rather vacant wing of the convent, which was actually the wing in which Olexa resided. Every night for three months, Olexa visited Elzbiet, conversed with her extensively, and then altered Elzbiet’s memories to make her believe that the conversations were entirely within her mind. Although this might have fractured Elzbiet’s mind, driving her to insanity or suicide, she held up remarkably well.
When Elzbiet’s son was born (1627), she named him Alexander, and implored the nuns to allow him to stay at the convent and be raised as a foundling. She also convinced them to tell anyone who asked that her son had been born dead. As much as it pained her to give up her second child, she knew that if she took him home, Adelbert would eventually see to it that this child died as well.
Elzbiet was upset by the loss of her husband, but not to the extent that wives were expected to be. It was not until she received a letter from Adelbert, stating that he would be coming home to help her sort out the family’s finances, that she became truly despondent. Having no where else to turn, she hurried back to the convent, where she was able to spend more time in perceived "solitary contemplation."
After Adelbert’s return to Freiburg, Elzbiet made several brief visits home, but always returned to the convent as soon as she could. Many people of Freiburg saw this as a sign that she was a changed woman, truly shaken by the loss of her husband. Others, however, including many of the influential villagers, saw this as atonement for her previous uncaring attitude about the death of her husband. Such a divided opinion was of little consequence to Elzbiet at first, but ultimately proved to be her undoing.
Almost one year after Johann’s death, Adelbert slipped on a patch of ice near the stable in which the family kept their milk cow, horses, and carriage. On her return from the convent early the next morning, Elzbiet found Adelbert’s body, trampled almost beyond recognition by the livestock. Her startled gasp awoke the neighbors, and within an hour, most of the village knew of Adelbert’s demise (late in 1628).
Suspicion was instantly cast towards Elzbiet. Those who knew her well knew that she often grew uncomfortable when Adelbert’s name was mentioned, although none knew why. This, coupled with Elzbiet’s assertion that she was not at home when Adelbert died, led to some whispers of witchcraft, whispers which grew to shouts as time progressed. The year was 1628, and the witch trials in Germany were rising to a fever pitch. The prevalence of death in Elzbiet and Johann’s family, her seeming lack of remorse or sadness over these deaths, and her coincidental recent adoption of a stray black cat were more than enough "evidence" to try Elzbiet for witchcraft.
An excerpt from the Malleus Malificarum—"He must not be too quick to subject a witch to examination, but must pay attention to certain signs which will follow. And he must not be too quick for this reason: unless God, through a holy Angel, compels the devil to withhold his help from the witch, she will be so insensible to the pains of torture that she will sooner be torn limb from limb than confess any of the truth. But the torture is not to be neglected for this reason, for they are not equally endowed with this power, and also the devil sometimes of his own will permits them to confess their crimes without being compelled by a holy Angel."
Johannes Junius to his daughter, July 24, 1628—"Innocent I have come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and—God pity him—bethinks him of something."
Elzbiet had been marginally aware of the witch craze that had been sweeping over Germany; when she was accused of being a witch, she knew that the trial could only end in her death. Hoping against hope that Frederica could do something, Elzbiet asked that her younger sister be sent for as her confessor. Although the idea of a woman as a confessor was highly irregular, one of the ranking officials of Freiburg, who had known the sisters from their infancy, permitted Frederica to be sent for.
Frederica did not travel alone when she came to the prison in which Elzbiet was being held; Olexa followed as closely as she could. She watched as much of the torture as she could, marveled at Elzbiet’s strength of body and mind, and ultimately decided to bring Elzbiet into the fold of Clan Tzimisce and the Sabbat. Olexa planted information in Elzbiet’s mind, sufficient to please the officials, and saw to it that Elzbiet would be hung rather than burned. The night before Elzbiet’s execution, which was conveniently scheduled just before sundown on the following day, Olexa came to Elzbiet’s cell and ghouled her. Olexa hoped that the supernatural fortitude imparted through ghouling would keep Elzbiet partially alive for several hours after she was hung, allowing Olexa to Embrace her soon after.
As she hovered on the edge of the world of the living and the world of the dead, Elzbiet’s thoughts turned to the course of her life. She reflected upon all that she had done and all that she had left undone. In the end, her only regret was for her young son, whom she knew she would never see again. Carefully pushing this deep inside her mind, Elzbiet finally felt prepared for her reawakening.
For her Creation Rites, Elzbiet was sent to Bamburg in an attempt to prevent the witch hunts from seriously impairing the activities of the Sabbat in Germany. Elzbiet’s personal efforts involved some minor modifications to the flesh of several prominent citizens, usually in the form of witches’ marks.
Unbeknownst to Elzbiet, she was one of several Cainites sent to Bamberg at this time to bring an end to the witch hunts. In some cases, their efforts worked directly counter to one another. Late one evening, Elzbiet was approached by a Malkavian antitribu named Reaver. He had also been recently Embraced and was taking part in his Creation Rites. After a discussion of several hours, Elzbiet and Reaver realized that the extent of the Sabbat’s plan in the area was considerably larger than either had previously known. Over the next few nights, while both attending to their assigned Creation Rites, they noted the involvement of others in the area who were undergoing their Creation Rites. Ultimately, Elzbiet and Reaver were able to coordinate the efforts of many of these young Cainites and helped the Sabbat become successful in what was originally believed to be a fools’ errand. Both were viewed as having passed their Creation Rites with flying colors, and were subsequently made initiated members of the Sabbat in their respective Sires’ packs.
With the Creation Rites behind her, Elzbiet’s studies took on a new intensity and fervor. Olexa began training her as a Necronomist, a follower of the Path of Death and the Soul. Although the Metamorphosists were prevalent in the region, Olexa and her brood had long studied their chosen path, and naturally wished for Elzbiet to join them in their studies. She progressed along the path relatively smoothly, and thus spent a number of years with Olexa’s coven.
Der Schwartz Hammer was a nomadic pack which operated largely in the Black Forest region of Germany, near to Elzbiet’s old home. There was little Camarilla presence in the area, and the members of the pack generally spent their time learning tactics and political maneuvering from other packs whom they encountered. Every few years, they ventured out of the Black Forest in search of rumors of a Camarilla elder. Several such elders, the targets of Der Schwartz Hammer’s sporadic War Parties, fell beneath the fangs of the other members of Elzbiet’s pack. In each encounter, she fought beside her brothers and sisters, but, at the moment of victory, she hung back from the pack to observe the passing of their victim.
Unfortunately, such a tactic ultimately led to a grievous injury that sent Elzbiet into torpor. While participating in a War Party in Southern France, another pack was invited along for the action. Der Schwartz Hammer arrived at the elder’s resting place first, and as Reaver sunk his fangs into the elder’s neck, the other pack arrived. Their ductus, a Brujah antitribu, had entered frenzy on realizing that his pack had been beaten, and, as Elzbiet stood in the doorway between him and the elder, he struck her down. This unfortunate Brujah antitribu was later destroyed by members of his own pack, but, for a time, Elzbiet was out of action (1741).
Fortunately for Elzbiet, one of those watching her was Ana, one of Olexa’s other childer. As ductus of the pack which had just seen one of their members drained by Elzbiet, Ana was able to prevent her pack from destroying Elzbiet immediately. After a long exchange with Elzbiet, Ana was able to determine what had happened some 100 years previous.
The year was now 1897. Reaver and his pack had left for the American continent around the beginning of the American Revolution, convinced that Elzbiet would not awaken from torpor. Olexa’s brood had all gone their separate ways. Although Ana’s pack was reluctant, they escorted Elzbiet to the residences of Viktor and Ibrahim. She opted to remain with the latter, deciding that a few years of contemplation and study would help her to reintegrate herself into the world and the Sabbat.
The few years of contemplation and study that Elzbiet initially planned quickly became a more permanent arrangement. Ibrahim and his pack, Gewissenspüfung (Soul-searching), were in search of a pack priest, as their pack priest had recently been called to become a Bishop in the Americas. Elzbiet accepted the responsibility with pleasure, and aided her fellow Necronomists in their spiritual studies.
Over the next seventy years, the pack diminished in size as the other members were called to positions of prominence within the sect. During the Sabbat sieges of cities on the East Coast in 1999, Josef Hagel, the final remaining member of her pack, was destroyed. Elzbiet continued to help with the sieges and their aftermath, but realized that a part of her had died when Josef was destroyed.
Spending several months in contemplation, Elzbiet was able to recognize her strong emotional attachments to the members of her now defunct pack. She also recognized that such attachments were preventing her from reaching further enlightenment. Casting out for an out of the way location in which she could seek enlightenment and help others attain the same state, she settled upon Washington, Illinois, located in an area that vaguely reminded her of her ancestral homeland.
Elzbiet is currently struggling nightly to fight back the emotions that threaten to shake her faith in the righteousness of her path. She wishes to seek out young Necronomists so that she might be furthered in her own studies by their fresh perspectives.
Back to the Fiction page
Back to the Carbondale and Edwardsville LARPs main page
Back to Anneke's Haven
References to products created by White Wolf or other companies are not challenges to their copyrights.