"I should be profoundly grateful if you would permit me the chance to defeat you"
The members of the Order of the Thorned Wreath follow the teachings of Artus Le Jumel. Spina vampires have his teachings in their very blood, for they are of his bloodline. The overwhelming majority of members of this bloodline are also members of the Thorned Wreath; joining the Order is usually a prerequisite to finding a sponsor to awaken the bloodline — and leaving the Order is normally regarded, and punished, as betrayal. Still, the Order and the bloodline are not identical. Le Jumel explained it thus: “The Order of the Thorned Wreath is a duty, a task that we have taken on. We perform that duty because we have sworn to perform it, but had we chosen to swear a different oath, we would also have chosen a different duty. Our blood is what we are. We fight with courtesy because of our nature, not because of any oath. Had we chosen to swear to bring the Invictus down to the dust, we would yet have done so without descending to boorishness.”
Members of this bloodline believe those words even tonight. If anything, the Kindred who have left the Thorned Wreath hold this belief even more strongly than those within. Spina are still courteous warriors. They maintain their courtesy and courage as highly public virtues, to prove that they are still Spina, even if they have pledged allegiance to a different organization.
Courtesy is what most Kindred think of when they think of the Spina. It is relatively easy to find a vampire who will claim that a Spina has been rude to him; rather harder to find one who can produce any reliable witnesses to the event. From the night of their Embrace, all potential Spina are taught how to maintain their calm in all situations and the correct polite responses to a wide range of insults. In time, these become second nature, allowing a Spina to belittle another vampire mercilessly without once saying anything that steps across the bounds of politesse.
It is very important to remember that the Spina are polite; they are not nice. One meaning of their name is “thorn,” and they see themselves as the thorns in the Thorned Wreath. The Spina are sharp and wounding, and not merely in physical combat. Spina not infrequently become Harpies, dreaded for their satires and respected out of pure fear. Publicly losing control to frenzy is a source of great shame within the Spina. The Beast is many things, but it is certainly not courteous. Most Spina also try to avoid losing control in private, as you never know who might be watching. The bloodline’s greatest contempt, however, is reserved for those who “ride the wave,” sacrificing courtesy for a little raw power. Absolutes are dangerous, so one should not say that the Spina never “ride the wave.” However, no vampire known to have done so is ever accepted into the bloodline.
While courtesy is more visible, the Spina define themselves equally by their courage. This is primarily physical courage; the Spina do not back down from a fight because it is dangerous. As most Spina are highly trained warriors, this attitude results in fewer losses than might be expected. However, physical courage is not the only kind. Spina are expected to stand up for their beliefs and stand by their wards, even under severe moral pressure. Most Spina live up to this standard, and the bloodline loses more members to hunts called by Princes defied on matters of principle than it does to battles in which the Spina fought despite overwhelming odds.
The importance of courage means that, of all the types of frenzy, fear frenzy is regarded as the worst. Many Spina try to train themselves to react less badly to fire or sunlight, but that fear is deeply rooted in vampire nature, and such training typically has no effect other than to inspire a few unnecessary frenzies. Still, “spina” can also mean “spine,” and the Spina like to think that they have backbone. Indeed, more broadly, they see themselves as providing the backbone of any organization to which they belong. They do not generally seek to rule; Le Jumel was quite clear in his rejection of wide-ranging authority. The Spina do, on the other hand, believe that they have the right, and indeed the duty, to judge the rulers. Criticisms should be voiced, politely, of course, but repeatedly, until they are addressed. The Spina are also happy to enforce the standards of a group on others, and, in many cases, they have the capacity to do so. For those Spina in the Order of the Thorned Wreath, this tendency to become an Inquisition of sorts is held in check by their oaths of loyalty, which prevent them from moving against any members of the Invictus. However, Spina outside the Thorned Wreath have no such restriction, and frequently cause trouble for other Kindred.
One group of non-Thorn Wreath-aligned Spina has a certain level of notoriety and even respect from the Thorned Wreath itself. These Kindred listen for rumors of vampires who abuse the service of the Thorned Wreath, and then punish these vampires in public, and generally spectacular, ways. It is possible to survive such a punishment, but it is not common. This group takes no name for itself, but many call them the Furies. Their numbers are unknown, and they may not, in fact, be organized in any way. A few Spina, such as the French vampire Martine de Perpignan, have become renowned and dreaded as Furies. Martine cuts the right arms off her victims, and then chains them to watch their own flesh burn. It takes some time to heal an arm, in the best case, but if she feels the abuse was severe she chains the arm to the vampire’s chest before setting it afire.
Parent Clan: Daeva
Nickname: Barbs (as in barbed wire, barbed words)
Appearance: Unsurprisingly, the basic appearance of the Spina is very similar to the basic appearance of members of the Thorned Wreath. Those members of the bloodline who are members of the Order of the Thorned Wreath uphold its standards with enthusiasm, and always display its symbol.
The barbed wire version is less popular within the bloodline than with external recruits, but some younger members still affect it. The Daeva influence is clear in the strong tendency of Spina to maintain individual styles, while still contriving to look like warriors of the Order of the Thorned Wreath. Those Spina outside the Order of the Thorned Wreath generally try to send two signals with their styles of dress. First, they are elegant, sophisticated and utterly confident in their own style. Second, they are clearly and completely distinct from the Thorned Wreath. On the whole, these Spina try to keep their outfits practical for combat, as most Spina see themselves as warriors, but Nur of Zagreb was renowned, during his time in Bremen, for wearing nothing but hundreds of chains, of dozens of different weights.
Almost all Spina carry a “polite” weapon visibly at all times. In Kindred society, this often means a firearm, as the vampire resistance to bullets makes such weapons less of a threat. Antique dueling pistols, or modern imitations of such, are quite popular, combining as they do elegance with near-complete uselessness, which means that there are quite a few Princes who will even permit the Spina to carry such weapons in their presence.'
Haven: Spina havens are always elegant, usually beautiful and appointed for polite conversation and high-class soirees. It would be unpardonably rude to ambush someone you have invited to your haven, so those who are not actually enemies of the Spina might learn to accept such invitations when they are offered. The Spina issue such invitations fairly frequently, as well, as invitations allow them to display both courtesy, in treating guests well, and courage, in allowing the locations of their havens to become known.
Of course, the Spina are not stupid. Almost all have at least one secondary haven, where they can rest if their enemies decide to attack the main one. Almost all Spina havens also include an armory and martial training area. The armory not infrequently doubles as a collection of noteworthy historical weapons, and may be shown to visitors. Almost all Spina armories include a flamethrower, prominently displayed but never mentioned to visitors. Asking whether it is loaded is extremely boorish; many are not, but there are some Spina who refuse to admit that sort of weakness even to themselves, and keep the weapon charged.
The training area may double as a dueling ground, for dealing with guests who are so rude as to require a physical lesson. Guests get quite a bit of leeway, but refusing to leave when asked to do so often provokes a duel, as does attacking the host. Attacking another guest gets you attacked on the spot, as the host defends his own hospitality.
Background: It is important not to forget that the Spina are a Daeva bloodline. They do not Embrace unalluring people, and are drawn to beauty almost as much as their parent clan. However, as the Spina do have additional criteria they are more willing to Embrace those who may fall short of stunning beauty. The primary additional criteria are a natural courtesy and a degree of courage. Spina tend to test both of these, quite deliberately, before deciding on an Embrace, but they do not expect someone to live up to the standards of the bloodline right away. Some Spina train potential childer while they are still mortals; other Spina Embrace those who have the potential and only accept them into the bloodline if the potential is fulfilled.
The first group believe that the second pass the Curse on too casually; the second group believe that the first underestimate the influence of vampirism on mortals’ characters. The Spina do not, on the whole, care about class, race, sex, money or age. The elderly, once Embraced, can be just as strong as the young, and are often better at both courage and courtesy. The Spina very rarely Embrace the young, as most children find true courage (as opposed to simply not thinking about risks) as hard as being polite.
Clan Disciplines: Celerity, Courtoisie, Majesty, Vigor
Weakness: Like the Daeva, Spina find it difficult to resist their impulses, and lose two Willpower points when they opt not to indulge themselves.
In addition, the Spina simply cannot tolerate rudeness. They suffer a –2 penalty to Mental + Willpower dice pools to resist any frenzy inspired by reckless, crass or insulting behavior. Of course, an anger frenzy is never polite behavior, so the Spina loathe this weakness of their souls. It is perhaps fortunate for them that most Kindred realize that deliberately goading a skilled warrior into frenzy is extremely foolish.
Further, all Spina vampires suffer from a kind of Delusional Obsession built around the concept that courtesy is the saving grace of the Damned. With time and vigilance, the attitude of courtesy may eventually domesticate the feral nature of the Beast, or so say some Spina. A Spina Kindred must expend one point of Willpower to act in a discourteous manner to any creature.
Concepts: Thorned Wreath Knight, aspiring Harpy, Thorned Wreath Knight with doubts about his calling, Fury avenging abuses of the Thorned Wreath, Sanctified vampire spreading his faith with courtesy and obstinacy, vampire struggling to overcome his Beast and become perfectly courteous, bodyguard to a powerful Kindred, puppeteer of a powerful Kindred pretending to be a mere bodyguard, revolutionary concealing his true beliefs in order to strike at the system from within,violent upholder of the social order.
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