The thing is, with my thought processes running through this, I think
we collaboratively hit on truthful things more often than not. Do my mental meanderings sometimes venture to the extreme? Well some would say that the Astrid theory was wild.
Truth be told though, that was not an original concept. As I mentioned before, Loki would use his trickster abilities frequently to cause harm, and occasionally to do good. These included posing as a fish, as a woman, as a giant, and as ravens (and many other things). Loki was reputed to have many childer, not all of them at all nice! The idea that Astrid could be affiliated with those other "gods" was not that far fetched nor was her proposed plot. It seems that with the resolution of the second chapter, that Virgil may in fact be the Him, so Astrid is off the table which pleases many folks,
Ayhsel more than most I would wager!
Yet now Virgil/Plubius is now suspect.
The idea of Artemis does not depend on what the Goddess embodied so much as how that myth could be used to explain relationships amongst the vampires. In that role, the virginity of Artemis, and for that matter Calisto who had sworn herself to virginity, only to have it robbed by Zeus and fathering Arcus on her, is really not so applicable to VAMPIRES. A Vampire is a monster by our terminology. Calisto certainly is no longer chaste, and Artemis, if she was at one time pure, is no longer pure. No vampire, even Sharon, stays pure. You have the BEAST ravening within you as a vampire. And it always wins at least some of the battles, no matter how pure your intentions may be.
BigStuffedTiger does raise a point that I like to propose out of the box ideas, which entertain me greatly, and at least some of our fellow posters have a good time with them as well. I would wager that many of my coffee induced, or gawd forbid Mountain Dew induced visions, do tend to certain extremes, and yet they are entertaining and some grain of possibility does exist in them all. The graciousness of the group in taking in my ideas and agreeing or disagreeing is a trademark of this thread pretty much alone... it is a very welcoming and forgiving place where we all have fun. It needs to keep that trademark. It is singularly wonderful, and full of wonderful folks.
To each of you I give my thanks.
Artemis Rising-(and other meanderings)
What follows is "
pure conjecture". *Popcorn times my friends*
As many of us have stated in the past, Calisto being the head of a pagan church poised over the city where her ancient sire is buried is not something beyond the realm of possibility. In fact it seems to become more likely all the time.
Who is Calisto- In Greek times, she was a nymph, one of the senior and most powerful and alluring of that group, who swore her loyalty to Artemis and like her virgin mistress swore chastity. Calisto is not a teenager, or even young 20s nymph looking woman. She is MILF like, as the tag states in the game heading. She is beautiful, almost beyond compare. She is the head of a church which has some number of select and important members. It is very unlikely that they are as potent as she is, because let's face it, that many Methuselahs would be draining the city population of vampires dry in just a few nights. (Quick reminder that there were a number of 4th generation vampires running around in the WoD stories so having them here is not that far fetched-again this is not related directly to that work, but clearly it is partially inspired by it)
Yes I believe she is powerful enough and ancient enough that she likely must feed on vampire blood (mortal blood will of course be something she will drink for fun or whatever, and in the case of our main character, she drained him dry). So she likely mixes up a nice batch of numerous vampires she is loyal to and wants to protect (quasi Vaulderie), or (more likely) she has other vampires create children for her to devour whole-thus avoiding any unfortunate entanglements.... She would not put herself into a position of being thralled or bound to anyone. (
OR most likely she is already thralled to her mistress Artemis- as such power of the blood transcends the normal rules on blood binding) ***Side note- it is said in the WoD that Caine has ghouls which are alive from pre First City times to the modern nights, that are out doing his bidding, as powerful as any vampire they meet, but never having to feed again, having become super revenants of a sort!!(these super revenants may in fact be related to, or inspirational in how the WoD Tzimisce learned to create revenants in their times)
Calisto's powers likely mirror those the MC has manifested so far, plus several others. She demonstrated Domination early on, when ordering the reluctant MC to follow her. So that is also in her arsenal. More on that in a bit, lets talk about the Temple:
Temple-
She exercises her reputation and secrecy to found a neutral ground, sacred place, The Temple where any vampire willing to pay the price may come and enjoy complete safety, work out deals, have disagreements of words only, make pacts, enjoy blood dolls, and of course pay Cindy compliments for the services provided, while usually never laying eyes on the true Power which makes the Temple the Sanctum of Peace that it is. As for the role of Calisto, she probably exercises her power not unlike the way a king-maker does, by having a "Face" even if she is that face, in another guise or illusionary appearance. As the Arbiter of such conflicts or issues, the price will always be blood, and likely a great deal of blood. Vampire Blood. Likely stored by a process that the Templars have in storing and preserving vampire blood.
Thus one of the tie ins for why she keeps Fabian personally, and his associated folks fed, and in her fold on a leash of blood, perhaps at the request of her sire's relationship to Apollo and his children which would work its way down to the Templars. Look up to my bold and underlined title here for the reason why she is collecting such a vast quantity of Vitae (will use that and vampire blood interchangeably- could also use Vampire Ichor and that would be as correct. If Artemis is in fact the progenitor of her own bloodline/clan, she will be very very powerful and depending on how long she has been down, quite thirsty. Thus the reason for a temple, where vampires know they can go in absolute safety for a goodly dose of their blood, not only explains why she is there, why the temple is there, why she supplies blood dolls, why we are in some Western European or North American city instead of the Middle East. If Artemis wanted to sleep undisturbed, without the almost assured threat of being hunted, why not go outside the traditional haunts of the Ancients to dig your Sanctum of Solitude for your long rest?
Calisto- *** part of the myth associated with Calisto involves a rather convoluted story of lust/love, betrayal and consequences, ending with redemption, soooo :
Calisto was the high priestess of Artemis, and content in that role. Zeus, that horny old fuck, came to her, seduced (He was the master of seduction) and fathered a childe with her. While that does not, in and of itself, fit into a vampire tale so to speak, it does. Vampires in this game may have sex, and according to Virgil, they all screw each other at some point or another. Likely Artemis had embraced and loved Calisto as a favored childe. She placed her as her high priestess/chief guardian, and all was well. Artemis' sire Zeus (paternal figure of Artemis and Apollo the twins-Artemis as the elder) came along and had an affair of the traditional sort with Calisto, perhaps encouraging her to embrace her first childe, a promising young warrior Arcus, as Zeus loved to meddle in the affairs of those he loved and or had a relationship of family over, or hated, or just thought they would be a good roll in the hay, as I said; Zeus is a horny old fuck!
Arcus was no doubt a lot like our MC, which is probably why the MC was chosen. Gifted in musical talents, smart, with a good physique and great looks, he would have been a great catch for many of the fellow vampire nymphs, but Zeus wanted her to have this one, for him.
Arcus quickly grew to meet his vampiric potential and was a source of pride for Zeus who had picked him out, and for Calisto as his Sire. *** this is an important note- Some folks have raised the length of time and pain associated with the embrace of the MC as a sign that Calisto has difficulty in siring childer. I do not believe this to be the case. After the failure of Arcus, she simply did not embrace another childe as in her view it would be more trouble than it is worth. The length and pain associated with it could simply be that the extreme power of that blood relationship required a rewriting of the MC's body/DNA so thorough (which other vampires in modern nights do not have that difficulty as they are like 10-15th generation and the difference in the bodies and minds are there, they just are not as completely different or powerful) So the "difficulty" and "lengthy process" were due to the crazy power being imbued in our MC. Back to Arcus etc-
(Probably around the time Calisto was embraced, Apollo was embracing the witch Hekate who has been tied to him through myth - I note this so I can tie in Fabian shortly)....
Hera-Wife of Zeus and fellow member of his generation (2nd) ((Cronus the Titan being their line's founder if you will, as 1st generation-remember we are not proposing that LB is in any way infringing on the copywrite of WoD materials, but certain concepts of that line of games have an almost universal application and may be "used" carefully- so Forget Caine and Lilith as those are related to Jewish and Christian faiths and tenants of the Vampire the Masquerade line of products- Nos is widely enough used in myth as to be more or less open territory, but Shreknet is not.))
Titans appear in many if not most ancient religions and are set as antagonist of the more "modern" gods. This is particularly true of Greek and Norse mythology, which completely use Titans as loving, hating, creepy, cthonic (Not Cthulu, but blood cults which are a very Osiris type of vampire cult thing to do), progenitors and enemies almost identically.
Anyway Hera, a power unto herself, was having difficulty with yet another infidelity of her mate Zeus. So as a punishment she cursed Calisto with a beast form she could assume as well; A Bear. Another name for Calisto in fact is Ursa Major, and Arcus is Ursa Minor. This came about due to Arcus hunting Calisto while in her bear form. Some tales say he succeeded in his hunt, and others (the majority) state Zeus became aware of his jealous wife's mischief and saved Artemis and spared Arcus. To signify this traumatic event, he set Arcus in the Sky as Ursa Minor and Artemis as Ursa Major. How that renders in to vampire speak is most likely Zeus stopped Arcus from diablerizing Calisto. Consequences being Calisto did not want another childe to hunt her so she abstained. Arcus- we do not know what his fate may be as he vanished. Most likely hiding his true identify and changing his appearance and demeanor to fit the times and his needs..
***Could He BE VIRGIL?????
Some predictions and conclusions thus far:
So if Artemis is rising, those in her bloodline will know. Frank was just a crazy Nos who got too close to finding the entrance to her Sanctum, so she has warped him and sent him on wild goose chases.
Calisto will have known for a long time, and is thus collecting a shit ton of vampire blood to feed the starving Artemis. She was Melancholy with this task, because being bound to someone, and even loving them, does not mean that you're happy with what they do and what that means for you. Also being bored, caring for her sire for eons could well have tired out her patience and her psyche. Artemis, using such tools as Kassandra aka Malia (Most likely a member of very observant and talented clan not unlike Malkavians, as she was reputed to have the gift of visions/prophesy but to never be believed, beautiful, but ultimately insane) to screen potential candidates for her reluctant daughter to embrace. She no doubt had others looking as well, and finally having chosen the MC, made the necessary arrangements to have him play music at one of the Sacred Temple's arbitration meetings.
So when Calisto met the MC, she became intrigued, and gave in to the temptation, since he closely resembled what attracted her to Arcus, and even making almost resigned comments on what the gods do and why, she embraced him.
Fabian- if the Templars can store vampire blood as I suspect, he not only handles this for his liege he is sworn to, but he brokers such treasures to other vampires in the city, which gives him and his clan/bloodline, respect amongst the elders, while the youngsters have no clue as they see no outward signs of great magical work. (poor deluded Sharon).
So yes, Fabian pushed for the Princeps to support the creation of a new domain, and placing young Sharon in charge. This makes the Princeps nervous, but more importantly, it makes Virgil/Publius/Arcus??? more curious, paranoid and suspicious.
If Virgil is Him, our MC better get really tough REALLY fast. If Anne Rice is a source at all, the MC is likely a more powerful embrace than Arcus, which would be the only reason he has a shot at taking him on.....
Ok there is my treatise for today.
Peace all!
