Gangrel

We are Savages.  What a horrible, horrible thing that is.  The freedom to be what we want to be.  To go where we wish to.  And to know our Beast, to embrace it fully, in a way you can never understand.  You have to spend so much time pretending to be anything, everything, other then what you really are.  Me, I can do other things. Tonight I feel like hunting.

The Gangrel are creatures that came from the wild, from the deep and dark places in Europe. The Gangrel are beasts with a strength that would test even the greatest of heroes, whose physical prowess are unmatched among the undead. It is said that the Gangrel arose one night in the Gaul to find that the Romans had destroyed their greatest city and tracked the armies responsible back to Rome. There they were “tamed” by the legendary Julii – until Rome fell, the Julii were destroyed, and the Gangrel, their claws stained red, retreated back into the wilderness.

The Gangrel Embrace as a clan; when the Clan needs new blood, several Wanderers take new childer, who are brought to the undead as a group and fostered by each of their sires in turn. This custom creates rivalries and bonds of fraternity that don’t follow blood or politics, and creates a sense of community that is not often found among the undead. Packs of Gangrel swept across Europe with the invasions of the Vikings and the Magyars, destroying any other Kindred who crossed their paths. Others roam the streets of large cities as urban hunters and street soldiers.

The Gangrel have come to England in two distinct waves.  They were present with the Saxons when they raided the English coast.  And then, centuries later, they followed the Vikings as they invaded London.  While many of the Saxon Gangrel made their homes in the English countryside, fewer Vikings settled in the area.  Perhaps the descendants of those Vikings could be found as footsoldiers in the ranks of the Norman conquest, but the differences between them and the old Saxon guard, who have settled and become a part of the local politic, is the difference between night and day.

There are those, however, who suggest the Gangrel presence on the British Isle goes back much further.   Some say there are Gangrel who get their blood from Roman days, some say there were Gangrel wanders who came before Ceaser.  And it is hard not to look at the Scottish uprisings, the skirmishes and battles to the north, and not see some Gangrel influence of an ancient sort.

Character Concepts: Saxon Baron, Solider, Scout, Prisci, Harpy, Deputy to the Sheriff