Post by Ascanio Giovanni on Jan 29, 2011 21:39:01 GMT -8
What Is A Conclave?
While my compatriot and I were taking our ease in the well-appointed and perhaps overly secure (more on that later) Elysium last Saturday, a prominent member of the Domain let slip to us that the newly ascendant Toreador Primogen, Will Scarlett, was woefully ignorant of what a Conclave is.
At first, I was surprised that he had risen to hold the office in such a state, but as I considered the matter not twenty minutes ago in my smoky and paper-littered office; I realized that Primogen Scarlett is hardly a minority in either of our societies. After all, Conclaves are fairly uncommon events, and when they are called, they certainly aren’t called in America. So the shorter-lived and shorter-sighted of us must see very little point to committing that little tidbit to memory, especially when weighed against other subjects of Dad’s lectures, the importance of the Masquerade, for example.
Never let it be said that the Anarch Soapbox doesn’t do its part to deliver erudition to the benighted masses. This is probably the easiest way to summarize these events, now that they have become the chewy chocolate center of 500 years of accumulated custom and tradition:
A Conclave is the biggest court in the world. Far, far more powerful and vengeful than that United Nations thing they have these days. Entire Domains can die at the whim of the collected Assembly of vampires, but only in exceedingly rare cases (e.g. if the entire Domain shattered the Masquerade, or somebody was owed just enough Boons to make it happen anyway.)
The assembled court is supposed to judge cases based on the Traditions of the Camarilla; six laws that tower against the sky, harder than granite bedrock, meanings more certain than sunrise. Creating and Ending us. Outweighing Princes.
In theory, any vampire can go to a Conclave and even request the court’s judgment (probably not a great idea if there’s another option; several hundred vampires who have the opportunity to be in the Assembly of a Conclave will probably try to make it memorable, and we’re known for being a bit bloodthirsty after all.)
Another way to look at a Conclave is as an enormously exciting schmoozer dogfight that gleefully accepts all comers. They could be described as a brief holiday from the political oven into the political volcano.
One could even say that they are a hugely satisfying statement of order and common purpose in the chaos of the modern nights, or one could say that they’re really just a bunch of bigwigs that you don’t know that sit around and chat about important stuff you’re ignorant of and probably wouldn’t understand properly if you weren’t.
Of course, what one got away with saying would probably depend on what one said to whom.
Article by Mitchell King
While my compatriot and I were taking our ease in the well-appointed and perhaps overly secure (more on that later) Elysium last Saturday, a prominent member of the Domain let slip to us that the newly ascendant Toreador Primogen, Will Scarlett, was woefully ignorant of what a Conclave is.
At first, I was surprised that he had risen to hold the office in such a state, but as I considered the matter not twenty minutes ago in my smoky and paper-littered office; I realized that Primogen Scarlett is hardly a minority in either of our societies. After all, Conclaves are fairly uncommon events, and when they are called, they certainly aren’t called in America. So the shorter-lived and shorter-sighted of us must see very little point to committing that little tidbit to memory, especially when weighed against other subjects of Dad’s lectures, the importance of the Masquerade, for example.
Never let it be said that the Anarch Soapbox doesn’t do its part to deliver erudition to the benighted masses. This is probably the easiest way to summarize these events, now that they have become the chewy chocolate center of 500 years of accumulated custom and tradition:
A Conclave is the biggest court in the world. Far, far more powerful and vengeful than that United Nations thing they have these days. Entire Domains can die at the whim of the collected Assembly of vampires, but only in exceedingly rare cases (e.g. if the entire Domain shattered the Masquerade, or somebody was owed just enough Boons to make it happen anyway.)
The assembled court is supposed to judge cases based on the Traditions of the Camarilla; six laws that tower against the sky, harder than granite bedrock, meanings more certain than sunrise. Creating and Ending us. Outweighing Princes.
In theory, any vampire can go to a Conclave and even request the court’s judgment (probably not a great idea if there’s another option; several hundred vampires who have the opportunity to be in the Assembly of a Conclave will probably try to make it memorable, and we’re known for being a bit bloodthirsty after all.)
Another way to look at a Conclave is as an enormously exciting schmoozer dogfight that gleefully accepts all comers. They could be described as a brief holiday from the political oven into the political volcano.
One could even say that they are a hugely satisfying statement of order and common purpose in the chaos of the modern nights, or one could say that they’re really just a bunch of bigwigs that you don’t know that sit around and chat about important stuff you’re ignorant of and probably wouldn’t understand properly if you weren’t.
Of course, what one got away with saying would probably depend on what one said to whom.
Article by Mitchell King
