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r/vtm • … • u/Martin_Horde

Questions on the Church of Caine and Salubri

So I'm looking to do a few chronicles as a storyteller set in St. Louis, I like the idea of having the rich lore with the religions/cults fighting for dominance. I've been reading up on the Church of Caine because they will obviously be a big influence on the area with their Bishop. My main questions are how they square their humanity with the concept of Golconda, and how the Salubri would fit into it. I have a lot of interest in the Salubri and have a player who wants to play one so I wanna get it right.

My assumptions: The Church of Caine would typically be low humanity because they keep themselves far away from mortals and see them mostly as prey, they see the embrace as a blessing, and love to utilize their powers and grow them. Following this, they would also see Salubri as heretics (since they see embrace as an unfortunate curse and view humans favorably, so the opposite beliefs) and would likely hunt them down and feel free to Diablerize them (for that reason I'm planning on having them basically be a small hunted faction where both the Camarilla cuz of Tremere and the CoC are trying to kill them).

The contradiction and question: Some of the teachings of the CoC say that Golconda is sacred, but I feel like their lifestyle would all but prevent it. And some of their teachings seem to be trying to be virtuous but they contradict it quite a bit. I get that religions are very often hypocritical, but as a storyteller which teachings should I prioritize? I had it in mind that they are basically evil even by vampire standards (especially compared to the Salubri that they would be a foil of), but they do have some weird parts where they seem to extol some virtues like controlling the beast, only killing those deemed unworthy (though their concept of "worthy" is questionable), and liking Golconda.

My party seems to be leaning somewhat "moral" anarch-aligned and I figured they would be a great antagonistic force, but I want to get them right.

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