Grabaere, the Unfettered Knights
The Grabaere are a Revenant family with their origins in Cappadocian ghouls. The Cappadocians studied death extensively and became masters at giving the dead a semblance of life and animating corpses. Among their tools was the creation of Athanatoi, twisted parodies of the Persian Immortals. Athanatoi, also known as Corpse Knights, were corpses raised from the dead to become soldiers with one imperative - to fight and kill. Through ritual concoctions, the Cappadocians learned how to give their ghouls tainted blood that would turn them into Corpse Knights upon death. Bound by the blood bond, the Corpse Knights created in this way were loyal without the need for the necromancer to wrest mental control over a berserk.
Much like prolonged consumption of Vitae gave the rise to normal Revenants, consumption of Vitae mixed with Corpse Knight ashes gave rise to the Grabaere - Revenants who become Corpse Knights upon their death. If the Cappadocians ever learned what they'd created, all records were lost when the Giovanni put the former Clan to the sword. While their domitors were hunted down to a man, the ghouls that had served them often slipped between the Giovanni's fingers. A small clan of Grabaere families, led by patriarchs and matriarchs taught the very basics of necromancy by their Cappadocian masters to serve as assistants in the study of death, survived by escaping to the fringes of the Holy Roman Empire, where they attempted to hide their mystical condition from the assassins of the Giovanni.
The Grabaere have survived to the Modern Nights as a secretive clan of small families with a penchant for necromancy. And turning into murderous monsters when when they die.
Animating as Corpse Knights
Like all Revenants, the Grabaere produce their own Vitae by 'natural' processes. As long as a Grabaere has at least one point of their own, tainted, Vitae in their blood pool when they die, they will immediately rise as a Corpse Knight. What was once a somewhat resilient person becomes an avatar of Death itself, rarely driven by anything but a desire to spread death far and wide. To mortal onlookers, there is little reason to believe the Grabaere has died at all - the sudden invigoration the Grabaere experiences is usually interpreted as a dying mind using the body's last reserves to attack anyone its animal brain recognises as a threat - that's at least what numerous coroner and police reports say, when they don't simply write it off as a criminal drugged to their eyeballs on PCP. In the Modern Nights, Corpse Knights rarely have time to show off their paranormal nature; when they begin their killing sprees, local police are usually able to put them down long before they begin to rot, and few think to test a Corpse Knight for a pulse while it's still ambulatory.
Not all Grabaere animate as Corpse Knights, and among those who do, not all are fully mindless. With the long lives and natural fortitude of Revenants, many Grabaere meet their ends addled by diseases that slowly sap their lives. What little Vitae the ghoul has is spent in a desperate attempt to keep alive, and many Grabaere die in bed, clean of the tainted blood that has coursed through their veins since before they were born. These do not rise as Corpse Knights.
Most often, a newly risen Corpse Knight will attack anyone and everyone. Some Corpse Knights, however, are more selective in their targets. If the Grabaere was focused on visiting violence against a hated enemy, the Corpse Knight may be filled with a monomaniacal drive to kill that specific person. Only when that task has been fulfilled will the Corpse Knight go on a general killing spree, though they will kill anyone who interferes with their mission.
The inner sect of Grabaere necromancers knows rituals that can compel a Grabaere Corpse Knight to obey the necromancer and visit violence upon whomever the necromancer wishes.
Playing Grabaere
Appearance: The tainted Vitae marks the Grabaere with the visage of death. They troubled with extreme pallor and can barely blush, making them appear emotionally cold at best and sickly a worst. At a glance, they appear not to move or breathe at all, though even a cursory inspection will reveal they do have signs of life.
Character Creation: Like their parent Clan the Grabaere have always been inclined towards intellectual pursuits and the study of the dead. Many are drawn to work as coroners, morticians, nurses and doctors, with Mental Attributes reigning supreme. Some take a less conventional approach to come into contact with the dead and seek to employment as soldiers and police officers - a cultural remnant of their role as Cappadocian foot-soldiers. Owing to this and the needs of the family in the Giovanni pogroms, the Grabaere value martial skills.
Disciplines: Auspex, Fortitude, Necromancy
Weakness: The Grabaere suffer the effects of the Visage of Death Flaw, giving them a corpse-like appearance and +1 to the Difficulty of Social rolls not based on Intimidation.
Special: The tainted Vitae make the Grabaere more resilient to pain, reducing all wound penalties by -1. When a Grabaere dies with at least one point of their tainted Vitae in their blood pool, they become a Corpse Knight. If the Grabaere had a particular hatred of a specific person when they died, roll the Grabaere's Willpower against a difficulty of 7. On a success, the rising Corpse Knight will seek out that person specifically rather than going on an indiscriminate killing spree. This roll fails automatically if the target cannot be reached by foot before the Corpse Knight would stop being animated from lack of tainted Vitae.
Corpse Knights:
STR 3 DEX 3 STA 4
CHA 0 MAN 0 APP 0
PER 1 INT 1 WIT 2.
Athletics 2
Brawl 2
Dodge 3
Firearms 2
Melee 2
If the Grabaere had a higher rating in any of these Abilities, use that value instead.
Corpse Knights have 5 Bruised (0) and one Crippled (-5) health levels. They soak Bashing and Lethal damage like vampires.
Corpse Knights are mindless undead, giving them the usual immunities to mental Disciplines. They can perform few tasks outside of fighting; opening doors or smashing windows to climb through is the level of creative thinking they're capable of.
Corpse Knights are created with a pool of tainted Vitae equal to the amount of tainted Vitae in the Grabaere they rose from. For each day that passes since the Corpse Knight rose, one point of tainted Vitae is spent. When the pool becomes empty, the Corpse Knight becomes a regular corpse.
