#and arthurs stone being a vampire hunter is so fascinating but so perfectly in character that it makes me crazy

[malevolententity]

Staring at you with my big eyes

(I know nothing about vtm aside from the suckening but it really interests me and I'd love to hear about about edward and the vampire micro politics)

HELLO!!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! WELCOME TO VAMPIRE POLITICS 101 EDWARD TWILIGHT IS SO SO FASCINATING TO ME and i have no idea if charlie did any of it on purpose because i dont know if he actually looked that deep into the politics of vtm to plan for any of this.

how do i start this. youre getting an essay. dear lord this is going under a cut. because i gotta explain the normal politics before i can get into why edward politics is so fun for me personally.

everything below comes with a massive banner of context that i have been obsessed with vtm for a literal 13 years. so i have a lot of opinions on how stuff can be explained mechanics and lore wise. that charlie might not agree with and/or might not have been intending the read to be because we are two different storytellers.

SO in world of darkness (the book setting) there are three main political parties. there are the Camarilla which are traditionalists who created the rules of the masquerade and they want kindred society to be united and for there to be a hierarchy. this is the governing body that charlie has implemented and plays around with. then there are Anarchs who obey the general masquerade because they recognize its usefulness but they do not believe in a true hierarchy and bending the knee to The Prince of a city. and then theres the Sabbat who think the masquerade is stupid and think that kindred should live openly and blatantly rule over humans.

charlies camarilla is so interesting from the get go because queens are not a thing. thats a charlie thing. so were already off to a fun micro politics of what the fuck? hey charlie? is The Queen part of the inner circle and the head of the camarilla of the entire world? and you just invented a title? bro? because why would she as just prince of LA be called queen? female princes are still princes. so i work under the assumption that she is part of the main governing body for the entire world camarilla not just LA. because normal princes live in their cities. if she lives in fucking romania in umber castle shes not just a normal prince.

so within the camarilla theres a bunch of jobs but the main ones charlie plays with is primogen, sheriff, and prince. and he does a decent job at explaining them. primogen are voices of their clan. they are the most powerful person in the clan in a given city and serve to represent the needs of the clan within the camarilla. not every clan gets a primogen as it depends on if theres enough camarilla kindred in that clan to warrant needing a primogen. the sheriff is the front facing enforcer of the rules. who is elected by the primogen and prince together. and then the prince is The Prince. they are like a dictator mayor. they are the one who creates and expands the masquerade rules of the city to make sure that mortals do not become aware of vampires. princes are typically not elected; they come about from coups or if the old one wants to abdicate they endorse/instate a new prince.

theres also keepers, harpys, scourges, seneschals, heralds, archons, and justicars. but explaining those does not help with my why edward is fascinating so i can go into those a different time. also because we only have maybe two examples of those within suckening.

SO IN ANARCHS which charlie never brings up to my memory theres a lot less official titles! you have the Barons which function similarly to a prince but they will kill you if you say that; hate princes with a passion. cities depending on their size will have a number of barons who control neighborhoods/sections of the city. they all work together but compete with each other to maintain their footholds in the city and to resist the princes rule. and then the other main one is Proctors who just keep tabs on whos in the territory and doing what. which can function as mini sheriffs. 

so using LA as an example edward rules over the entire city but unless he killed all the anarchs in the city the specific territory of santa monica has a baron who also imposes rules on the kindred of that specific territory.

and then we have the Sabbat who charlie also never brings up. who also have their own chain of command in cities but also the world at large! the most important titles here for this talk are Bishop and Archbishop. a Bishop is going to be akin to a primogen it is a title that is given to a powerful kindred who then leads a large group of sabbat within a section of the city. bishops answer to archbishops. and an Archbishop is akin to a prince. they are the sabbat ruler of an entire city. every sabbat within that city ultimately answers to them.

a big thing with the Sabbat sect as a whole is they do not care about the masquerade. they commit mass masquerade breaches be it mass turning events or just having them run around in the wild doing whatever not caring if kine see a vampire using their powers or feeding.

Edward Twilight is a serial masquerade breacher. like theres no way around it. like yes he is a toreador so he is going to want and demand the attention of everyone. but theres a line. and one of those lines is mass ghouling an entire city and making a large portion of the mortals in your city look like you. that is an insane massive breach that is going to get the inquisition/grimslayers to raid your city because thats not normal. that is a massive red flag that vampires are there. that is a thing that only sabbat would do.

because even with charlies camarilla being his own spin on it and not 100% by the book. i can not bring myself to accept that a genuine camarilla member would pull the shit edward does. like it does not make sense to me. and thats slightly compounded by the fact that camarilla traditionally; even the toreadors; want to stay hidden. they do not like mortals knowing vampires exist they LOATHE cellphones because cellphones put a camera in everyones pocket and is the easiest way to make the entire world aware of your existence and status as a monster. and then your meet your final death when the city gets raided. camarilla toreadors chase fame and beauty but theres still a line ya know.

a sabbat on the other hand? loves a cellphone. doesn't give a shit if the world is aware of them because being known isnt a threat, its the goal. it is the goal to have humans aware that vampires are real and you can be one or to serve one.

so with all that said. i genuinely believe that Edward Twilight is an Archbishop of the Sabbat who has been playing the longcon with the Camarilla. because he is involved in the camarilla, theres no denying that. he has underlings that are clearly real camarilla and work in camarilla terms and conditions. but all of his goals that we know about just scream sabbat to me. he has been vying  for the prince position trying to get that endorsement from shilo to further legitimize himself and his hold on the city, that is a fact. but the amount and types of breaches he commits are the kind no right minded camarilla would commit and he does not have an affliction that drives him to madness. so to me he comes off as a sabbat agent trying to destabilize the cams.

theres also the factor of viv and vex. traditionally in VTM, clans are predisposed to certain political sects, with special cases made for individual vampires. in lore this is because the different sects will consider entire clans just a walking masquerade breach that they don’t want to deal with. so having them be a part of the sect is rare and special. now every storyteller handles this differently some are rigid by the book and some just do what fits best for the story they want to tell. charlie ran this in v20 and by v20 lore tzimisce are purely sabbat because they are an inherent breach. they are a clan who makes weird meatball creatures and turn themselves into literal flesh monster that barely look human. and in v5 tzimisce as a whole are welcome to anarchs but only individually welcome to camarilla. charlie mixes a bit of v20 and v5 because he read them both and touchstones are a thing so we know he pulled some v5 things. but with the shit viv and vex do i just find it hard to believe theyre genuine cam who respect the masquerade. those are edwards fellow weird little sabbat guys who are helping him destabilize and take over. they made edward sexy. they are the ones performing the procedures to turn ghouls and bloodbonded vampires alike into edward clones. that is the most sabbat ass shit ive ever heard of besides mass turning events and weird meatball snuff films

edward twilight is fascinating to me regardless of if m right. because knowing charlie and his love of bits and “well wouldn’t that be silly” it is likely that edward to him is just a genuine camarilla toreador primogen who climbed the ladder and his version of the camarilla are a little more lax in some regards. or because of the bloodbonding the other primogen and deacon won’t go against edward and his mass breaches.

but for me it is so much more interesting to think of edward as an archbishop who decided to infiltrate the camarilla god knows how long ago to become a prince and then probably climb up even higher into the Inner Circle because literally too many details line up and point at that being a possibility for me to ignore as coincidence.

because we do know that this campaign was supposed to be about the political climb until they all started playing and charlie realized that the boys ended up being more interested in the relationships and personal mysteries than an actual political power struggle against each other campaign. so i KNOW he had to do some amount of research into the camarilla i just dont know how far into the other sects that research went to have him genuinely on purpose make edward a sabbat.

and i cant wait for season 2 to drop eventually so i can learn if i put in waaaay too much thought into all this because i know too much about this system. or if charlie actually did an insane amount of research on vtm politics and i picked up on clues that are genuinely there LOL

i really hope this made sense and you enjoyed it! it’s like 4 pages long and if theres anything in here that needs clarifying i will gladly talk even more or explain other things within vtm because this is my favorite system and i do Not know how to be normal about it :D