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| History • Strongholds • Advantages and Weaknesses • The Viziers in DC • Vizier Characters |
The Viziers are one of the least well-known of the Middle Eastern bloodlines, a group of scholars, artisans, and teachers dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the education of the undead. Descended from the Assamite clan, they are still closely connected to them and their other bloodlines, and are focused on both protecting secret knowledge from outsiders and making sure all those within know everything they need for the long, long nights ahead.
Viziers are insular shut-ins for the most part, avoiding other vampires and pursuing studies that tend toward the unfathomable or the deadly detailed, and tend to live in small pockets and isolated areas rather than frequently spending time together. They maintain an internal hierarchy based on scholarship and publishing, with the eldest and most powerful of the bloodline referred to as Masters of various types and the youngest and least referred to as Aspirants.
History
According to ancient Assamite lore, the Viziers were founded when the Antediluvian Haqim, seeking to pass on all the sacred knowledge he had gained, taught them the ways of politics, scholarship, and the search for enlightenment, empowering them to become researchers and spiritual advisors for the rest of the clan and the other newly-born bloodlines. The Viziers do not argue with this, although they tend toward individual interpretation and several of them have published work considering the story apocryphal, metaphorical, or to be leaving out key details about some other possible founder.
The bloodline appears to have come into being in fairly ancient times, and most members consider it a "sibling" with the similar bloodlines of the Courtiers, Magi, and Nomads. The lack of dramatic stories or intriguing historical events is largely due to the fact that the Viziers simply do what they were meant to do and do it well with a minimum of fuss, or so they maintain when put on the spot about their activities for the past thousand years.
Strongholds
The Viziers are not unified enough for a central stronghold; if they can be said to have one, it would be Alamut, where like the other Assamite-spawned bloodlines they are welcome as long as they show proper respect and continue to follow the teachings of Haqim. For the most part Viziers appear in isolated groups of one to three in various cities throughout the world, most often either where there is a large enough Assamite population to need their resources, or where a given Vizier suspects that something pertaining to their particular interest may be nearby for study.
Advantages and Weaknesses
Advantages
Viziers are incredibly focused on their quest for knowledge and teaching, and have much less trouble than most vampires when it comes to focusing. They are incapable of succumbing to Frenzy while they are learning about, teaching, or otherwise interacting meaningfully with the object of their study; if they should Frenzy due to starvation, terror, or other problems, they will automatically delay doing so until they are no longer working on their topic of interest.
It goes without saying that while this is a very useful advantage when it comes to fulfilling their function and keeping their cool in crunch situations, it also results in Viziers sometimes erupting into screaming, frothing rage for what appears to everyone else to be no reason whatsoever, and this can occasionally result in gaining a reputation for being unstable or even insane.
Disadvantages
All Viziers are obsessed with a specific topic, becoming almost incapable of doing anything but throwing themselves into learning and mastering everything about it that they can. If they discover that knowledge of their topic exists that they don't have, they will stop at nothing to gain it; if they discover that there is hands-on experience to be had, they'll be there before anyone else even registers what they're so interested in. This compulsion is so strong that most Viziers are fully willing to cause themselves enormous problems, hurt friends, contacts, or loved ones, or permanently damage things to reach for that all-important extra bit of their interest. A Vizier who is actively prevented
Interestingly, the Vizier tendency toward blind obsession with and perfection of a topic has invited many comparisons to Clan Toreador over the centuries, with some scholars in the Middle Ages even theorizing that the Viziers must have split from the Toreador rather than the Assamites. This is a false positive; where the Toreador become entranced by art and can think of and do nothing else, the Viziers are the opposite, spurred to action with a single-minded determination that a Toreador in the throes of art appreciation could scarcely imagine.
The Viziers in DC
There is a small Vizier presence in DC, largely centered on Dipali Suri, an information-trader and artisan from west Asia who has been slowly expanding her net of contacts and seeking to bring more of her bloodline to the fore. They are not formally considered members of the Camarilla and thus largely go ignored in the city, but are excellent sources of information for those in the know.
Vizier Characters
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| Arjun Shah | Dipali Suri | Namaan ibn Asif |