Aztec roots

Following are some findings Cronos has unearthed in his recent research...

Aztec roots
Recently translated by the Librarian Christianus. Source: fragment of document from Tremere Chantry of Ottowa.

Abstract: Shaitan, progeny of Saulot, was embraced in the Second City, and later cast out. Sometime thereafter, he met Ba'al, one of the Great Demons, and became the first Baali. He walked to Mexico and proclaimed himself Huitzilopoctli, the Aztec god of War.
The Origins of Infernalism
Delving into dark and forbidden arts, Caine sought the answer to his dilemma. The answer appeared to him one night as he consorted with demons. Nn'theraq'pss, a great Lord of Hell, appeared before him. He offered to give Caine the secret knowledge he needed to end his solitude.

"What would you ask in return?" asked Caine. "I know from my studies that your kind does not do these things for free."

"I desire very little," Nn'theraq'pss replied. "I do not wish your soul, for you not have one." Caine's heart became heavy at those words. "Instead, all I ask is that a line of your children become my priests. I want to be worshipped on Earth, as a mockery to the One Above."

...fragments lost...

But his many years in the desert were his undoing, for his hunger grew greater the more he denied it. And so it happened that, during the course of his wanderings, he came upon a mortal sitting beside an oasis. And Enoch's hunger came upon him like a great flood, and he was carried away by it, attacking the mortal and draining his life's blood until the last of it adorned Enoch's lips. And as the hunger abated, Enoch saw the man's face for the first time. It was a gentle face, a face full of compassion and gentleness. And Enoch felt a deep shame for what he had done, and in his weakness he shared his blood with his victim, and made him his childe. In this manner did Enoch beget Saulot.

Enoch spent an age with Saulot, talking of a great many things not as a parent would to a child, but as a brother to a brother. Saulot was a man of learning and discernment, and possessed a wisdom beyond his years. He was a great comfort to Enoch, until the Beast which slept within him began to awaken.

At this Enoch fell into despair. Saulot, his greatest childe. Saulot, the most moral of his kind. Saulot, the one whom Enoch had groomed to be his successor. Saulot, the Beast. And in his despair, Enoch fled once more into the Land of Nod, never to return.

Saulot created many childer in the absence of his Sire. These he chose in his own image, and were scholars, philosophers, and priests. And though they were all his line, they battled each other like enemies. Saulot was saddened by this, and saw the harm and evil his actions had caused. And like his Sire, and Caine before him, Saulot fled east into the Land of Nod to find purpose in his life.

It was there, in the Land of Nod, that Saulot changed. He regretted his actions, and was determined to make right that which he had made wrong. He desired forgiveness for his actions, a way to conquer the Beast. As he lay sleeping, an angel of the Lord appeared to him. "Saulot," it said to him, "you alone of all your brethren have asked for forgiveness. Know you that the Lord is a just God, and that by your supplication forgiveness is granted. Return to your people, and spread to them the doctrine of salvation, that those who seek the place of Golconda shall find it." Saulot awoke, and named the place where he had slept Golconda. He then returned to the world of his Kindred, that he might tell them of his peace, and the mark that had been placed upon him as a sign of his forgiveness. For a third eye had appeared on his forehead while he slept, signifying his redemption.

Those that Saulot embraced after that day were those whose lives were filled with sin and predation. By embracing them, their consuming nature was brought to the attention of their souls so that they might be redeemed. Saulot redeemed many in his travels.

Saulot's greatest failing, however, had occurred long before his redemption. His first childe never sought the redemption he offered, and rebuked the forgiveness offered by the One Above. Instead, he cursed the One for the mark that had been put upon all his kind, and conspired with infernal powers.

Thus began the Baali, the evilest of Caine's line, the cursed seed of Enoch, the fulfillment of the contract made so long ago.
Excerpt from the Book of Nod
The Beginnings of the Line
...His name was Shaitan, and he was a philosopher like Saulot, though dark and brooding in contrast to Saulot's optimism and hope. Shaitan had been embraced for much the same reason Enoch had given Saulot eternal life - he desired someone to talk to, a ompanion for the endless nights. Their differing attitudes sparked many heated debates, some of which ended with the loser, unable to counter a particular philosophical riposte, stalking off into the night in a frenzy. Both were highly intelligent, and more importantly, highly stubborn. Each refused to give an inch. However, Shaitan's constant fault-finding with the universe began gnaw away at Saulot's resolve. While he felt that vampirism was merely another obstacle in humanity's quest toward perfection, Shaitan considered it both a gift and a curse. His main point, reiterated over hundreds of years, was this: God turned Caine into a vampire as a punishment, and that punishment was levied across countless years and generations. Why would God do this to Caine? The answer was seductively simple.

God feared Caine. It was the only answer. Caine was the first to show creativity and intelligence. Adam and Eve were little more than animals, who needed prompting by the serpent before they rebelled, and even then they didn't know why they did it. But Caine...Caine knew what he was doing, and it was his own idea. He showed independent thought, not mindless, animalistic obedience like Adam, or the easy gullibility of Eve. He was the first to challenge God at his own game. And God wouldn't stand for it. Fearful of what might happen, Caine was cursed. A powerful curse for a powerful man.

Shaitan reasoned that he would not calmly accept his curse like a docile cow, as Saulot and the others had done. If he was to be cursed, then he would earn that curse, using all the powers that had foolishly been given along with it. He would exact his vengeance upon God.

Shaitan's tongue was both serpentine and silver, and with this philosophy he brought many of Saulot's childer to his way of thinking. The rift between Sire and Childe grew and festered. Shaitan and his 12 followers began to wrest control of the Mesopotamian city of Kala-At-Sherghat from its rightful rulers, and twisted the city and its inhabitants to their own deviant ends. Humans were cattle, they said, and thus our property to do with as we wish. Did not even favored Abel slaughter his sheep in sacrifice to the Lord? If humans were the rulers of animals, and thus placed above them, then vampires were placed above humans by none other than God himself. The kine were theirs to raise and slaughter at their whim.

Saulot wept at this, seeing all the evil and sorrow he had brought about through the wrongful embrace of Shaitan. He left his home to wander the Land of Nod as his Sire and his Sire's Sire had done. And it was there that Saulot was the first vampire to find redemption.

Shaitan and his followers transformed Kala-At-Sherghat into a pit of despair, hatred and pain. It was there, amidst the charnel house that had once been a great city, that Nn'theraq'pss appeared to Shaitan.

Nn'theraq'pss approved of Shaitan's philosophy and methods. He offered Shaitan the one thing he craved most: power. Power enough to bring down even the One Most High. All that was needed was eternal servitude and Shaitan's dark, twisted soul. Shaitan agreed instantly.

Under the guidance of Nn'theraq'pss, which is the True Name of the demon Ba'al, Shaitan's dark empire flourished. Nations were conquered within the space of a night, their inhabitants offered up to the great hunger of the Dark Lord. With Ba'al tutelage, Shaitan mastered the dark path of Daimonion and the whole Dark Thaumaturgy, as well as refining the philosophy which became the Path of Evil Revelations.

At the height of power, however, disaster struck. Civil war wracked the Second City as those of the third and fourth generation rebelled against the second. Zillah and Irad were destroyed; Brujah diablerized by his Childe, Troile. But these victories were costly, and the Second City was demolished in the process. Left homeless and hungry after their phyrric victory, the surviving kindred migrated toward the great empire that lay to the east - the empire of Shaitan.

Shaitan did not welcome these intruders in his realm, and destroyed all he could find. Angered by the rejection of one of their own kind, the leaders of the clans united for the second and last time in history. They destroyed Shaitan's legions like a flash fire sweeping across the plains. They stormed the walls and razed the great towers of the city. Within a night, the city of Kala-At-Sherghat was burning.

The Baali had been easily defeated. They numbered only 13, and had held the city so tightly in their grip that they refused to allow any other of their kind to be created, fearful of a threat to their power. Those that were embraced were created as victims, a powerful sacrifice to their twisted master, ritually slaughtered for their heart's blood. As such, their limited ranks of schemers and evil priests were easy prey for the threshing machines of the Brujah, Assamites and Gangrel. They were all destroyed - save one.

Shaitan escaped the carnage by dint of his unswerving loyalty to Ba'al. Warned of the impending attack, he left under cover of daylight a full two days before the assault of the city. He alone was spared, he alone was worthy to survive. All his brethren were weak and had not served their Lord Ba'al with all their souls. They deserved to die.

Shaitan traveled east yet again, where he came to rule the Indian tribes of Central America under the name of Huitzilopoctli.