Sects

The World of Darkness includes various different species and beings, and each of them has their own organizations and political factions, vying for power in titanic struggles that barely manage to remain hidden from humanity. Each denizen of the world was, after all, human (or close to it) at one time, and they have never lost the human urges to fight for power, make their wishes known, and demand the right to change their place in the grand scheme of things.

The Camarilla

The vampires of the world are mostly split into two major factions, the Camarilla and the Sabbat. Generally speaking, the Camarilla represent the "civilized" face of vampire society, although they are by no means incapable of savagery and cruelty, especially if they think it might gain them a political advantage. Its founding clans are the Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavians, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, although the Gangrel have since left the organization to become Independent. The ostensible mission statement of the Camarilla is to keep mortals from discovering the existence of vampires in order to responsibly maintain the world from behind the scenes, although how well they succeed at that, or whether some of them are even trying very hard, is often up for debate.

Members of the Camarilla refer to vampires as "Kindred", regardless of whether those vampires are members or not - which is not surprising, considering that they consider all vampires to be members of the Camarilla. In their view, the Camarilla is the necessary and agreed-upon political template for vampiric society, and anyone who disagrees is not only being unnecessarily difficult, but is literally a traitor to the sect. There are some side benefits of this haughtiness for the other sects (for example, Anarchs and Independents are allowed to live in, interact in, and even sometimes thrive in Camarilla cities as long as they follow the rules, since they are technically counted as members of the Camarilla), but it shouldn't be surprising that many younger vampires don't know if they believe that this is all that benevolent.

Traditions

The Traditions are the Camarilla's most fundamental laws, applicable to all Camarilla Kindred and enforced scrupulously in all Camarilla territories. According to ancient lore, they were handed down by the very first vampire as the incontrovertible laws of the species, although this origin story is considered mere folklore by most, and the elders maintain that they hammered out the Traditions through common sense and compromise millennia ago. Breaking a Tradition always carries extreme consequences in the Camarilla; although a few Kindred might get away with being saddled with negative Status or bloodbound to someone in order to teach them a lesson, most major infractions result in the lawbreaker in question being sentenced to death.

The Masquerade

The Masquerade is the Camarilla's poetic way of describing the rule that no Kindred may ever reveal themselves to humanity or allow humans to discover the existence of vampires. Exactly how a Kindred keeps the Masquerade intact is up to them, and the most common methods are avoiding being in the mortal public eye, using costuming or makeup to more closely approximate a human while in public, never using obvious Disciplines in front of mortals, referring to other Kindred only by nicknames instead of by vampire-specific vocabulary, discouraging mortal belief in vampires wherever possible, and even killing any human who might have accidentally found out too much.

Breaches of the Masquerade are serious, and all Kindred nearby or capable of helping are expected to do so if one occurs, even if they had nothing to do with causing it. Influences in the media are often used to cover up or spin a story so that it doesn't appear to have a supernatural explanation, and even averted breaches of the Masquerade can cause those involved to be punished for their carelessness.

The Anarchs

basic description of the anarchs, mission statement; respect most cam trads

The Sabbat

basic description of the sabbat, members, mission statement, we hate the shadowy antediluvian illuminati

The Independents

basic description of indies, members, why they don't enter other sects

The Autarkis

basic description of autarkis, we are old and throwing a tantrum

The Inconnu

basic description of the inconnu, we are the illuminati the Sabbat fear

probs not even bothering with full description of splinter groups