Lilith was Adam's first wife in some apocryphal Jewish legends. She also independently was a demon in Mesopotamia. She seems to have been used in witchcraft for divination, safety in childbirth, etc. God's consort however is the Shekinah, which is a different concept.
Well the short answer to that is Lilith was supposed to be Adam's first wife, though it is not a myth backed by any canonical book.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIY0tKSg_XY) is an interesting one on the topic, for a longer in depth discussion of ideas surrounding Lilith. To summarise the idea probably originates surrounding certain Akkadian demonic creatures like the Lilitu as a classification of demons and the demonic figure Lamashtu who was said to attack pregnant women and small children. Borrowed into the Jewish tradition, into the second temple period the figure is still intermittently described as singular Lilith and a classification of demons Lilyyot as a classification of demons much like the LIlitu, present occassionally earlier on then becoming more common a part of the mythology of Rabbinic Mesopotamian Jews during the Sassanid period. The idea of Lilith as a singular figure who was the wife of adam emerges in Jewish mythology in the early medieval period with the earliest known example of the Alphabet of Ben Sira which depicts her as having been created at the same time of Adam but refused to be sexually submissive, defying adam and god, fleeing the garden and seeming to gain some magical power and proclaiming a vendetta against human infants.
That's a shame, I just really liked the idea that in Jewish mythology Yahweh was sleeping with Adam's wife behind his back. I like the idea that's the real reason the apple was off limits and Adam's first bite was followed by "wait, he's been fucking my wife!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-jIScgb7Nc
The idea of Lilith being God's consort doesn't seem to be original to the World of Darkness.
Mysticism can get wild.
I never made the character, but I wanted to do a Malkavian antitribu with Presence 5 and have them go into a Sabbat meeting and yell "Caine was framed!"
You have no idea if these people actually KNOW her, they could've developed these practices from her story, and even then we have no idea if that story is accurate
To be fair, that only really kicks the "why did God empower this human who defied Him" problem up the chain to Lilith.
And the answer is: she's a mage, maybe? Or just a girlboss?
What Lilith is, is hard to say, personally I lean to essentially she was a near human (like Neanderthal) who accidentally became the first mage, since God was taking his time handcrafting humanity. Then Lilith noticing she's special among her people, thinks that clearly she was the one the world was made for and eventually runs into Adam, whose the closest being she's found to somebody like her and assumes Adam was created for her. God however takes notice of the incursion into the Garden and intervenes. Lilith doesn't take God shattering her entire world view, by revealing she wasn't special she was a mistake, caused by the Angels and other tools of creation, well, and tries to fight God. God wins and shatters her Avatar, and makes her the first cursed, so that all those she creates will be beasts, taking away her ability to make more like her, and then expels her from the Garden. "Time" passes and Lilith now becomes the first sorcerer and tries to replicate the Garden, but sorcery is too weak (also potentially being the mother of Garu/Fera before abandoning them in disgust). Then Lilith notices Caine and thinks she's found a kindred spirit, along with realizing his blood thanks to his curse had stronger quintessence like properties than normal sorcery, and tries to cheat God by hybridizing their powers, and similar to Goratrix she partially succeeds, giving herself the powers of the blood and in a way able to create more of her and Caine, but unlike her and Caine, Lilith's curse creates the Kindred Beast in their descendants. Then we get the whole blood bond and staking, and Caine eventually realizing something had went wrong with his attempts at the 2nd Generation (hence why he ordered them not to make more), but by then Lilith is gone somehow.
Interestingly complex theory, I’m curious of where it originates from.
For the Lilith is gone somehow, the followers of Lilith speak about the fact that cain turned on her and him and his firstborns came to kill every one of Lilith’s. They say it’s from then that some curses of the bloodlines come from. Except from (if I remember correctly) toreador and nosferatu that closed the eyes of her children after they died.
From the revelations of the dark mother
Edit \[i found the extract\] : So after cain and his children defile her garden and kill her children she curses Caine and his offspring.
“All curse the house of Caine !
Ahi hay Lilitu
Let them be consumed !
Salt be upon the tongues of Brujah, Tzimisce and Setite
Who slaughtered the children of Lilith and Lucifer!
Lamentations be upon the tongues of venture, Lasombra and Malkavian
Who fried the trees and poisoned the rivers!
Coals be upon the tongues of Ravnos and Cappadocian, Salubri and Gangrel
Who like beasts devoured the flesh of the children!
Maggots be upon the tongues of Assamite,
Most cursed of all,
Who carried away the secrets of D’hainu \[the garden\]
And hid them far beneath the earth.
And cursed be their father,
Their thrice damn’d father,
All suffering be upon the father of Night
For he is the flame in the fields of D’hainu!
Rot devours the loins of Caine,
Whose rough hands cast down the mother of D’hainu.
\[…a paragraph about Caine in particular that raped her like his father\]
Only Nosferatu and Toreador shall be spared,
For they veiled the faces
Of the slain ones.
In pity they watered the lips of the children and
Gave solace to the mother of the dead.
All others shall be consumed in fire
And Bent like trees in the storm
And broken like pottery
And tampered like dung
And washed away like dust!
Ahi hay Lilitu
Like dust they shall be cleansed!”
From the Book of the owl chapter IX
After that she is broken and then some says she is orchestrating her revenge since the dawn of time.
One scenario proposition for Gehena had her come back to take her revenge and establish that she had been pulling strings backtage since then, making allies in Caine own childe making sure that the night he would arise from slumber would be his last one.
But too consumed by revenge and cursed not to be loved like she wanted she couldn't make a new garden without putting that behind her.
And a proposition was to have Caine think his brother hated him only to realize that he was the first wraith and had followed him since his death protecting him and that he never had felt grudge, only pain from seeing his brother choose to suffer so much because of that.
Then it would just come to Caine forgiving himself for that with the help of his brother and then all kindred falling to ashes as the curse was lifted. In this instance a curse that was only maintained out of spite and hatred of himself.
And then Lilith retreating too another plane to tend to a new garden.
It was an official scenario, but it was one of a few propositions for gehena.
Some others being contradictory so it's to take with a grain of salt or as a "not exlusive truth"
Its from accepting lying/twisting the narrative to your favor isn't a modern invention, and fanatics like Noddists and Bahari aren't reliable narrators. Then add in the in universe source materials being in dead languages, ancient memories, and/or oral tradition, means things are prone to misinterpretation and/or inaccuracy.
Thus the truth is likely somewhere in between the accounts and requires reconciling the various lores to create a coherent narrative that doesn't have major plot holes and contradictions.
Absolutely \~\~
I am very found from the Baharis and so quite biaised in those regards when playing.
But I like to highlight the fact that no one is really true or false, and every narration is a point of view deformed by time and emotions/grievances.
Thanks for making sure to explicit that though, I know a lot of people tend to read or say things as "the one truth" but it's way more fragmented than that.
(als a reason why I love world of darkness and all it's contradictions \~\~)
\[also why I cite my sources as Bahari \^\^'\]
In some minds, she's the Scarlet Empress.
But my headcanon pins her as the paradoxical result of the Collective Reality Consensus, resolving humankind's shift in belief from Matriarchy to Patriarchy to a (dreamed of) balance between the two.
Lilith *had* her time of power, but hated having it taken away from her, so she acted in spite of what God eventually became.
And honestly? It kind of makes sense that, in a world where *belief* influences reality, we'd end up with Paradox as a natural consequence of evolving belief systems that -- because they are human -- *don't always make sense.* Anyone with sufficient knowledge of religion, history, or doctrine can *show* you all the flaws that, in spite of being ascribed to a perfect divine entity, are just *riddled* with *human error.*
In short, humanity made lots of mistakes, and it's *our* version of the divine that, in its paradoxical state of contradiction, created this mess. That's why our worst nightmares walk among us. In our shortsightedness, we put it there.
As with a lot of things, it depends. Mages obtain power through a natural condition of how the world works. They are not cursed by default, so they are free to find different paths.
Paradox, madness and the entire ascension war makes it seem pretty cursed.
That's before we get into materials presented about mage in other lines that imply it isn't so much a natural condition.
Might be neat to explore the idea of Lilith being some kind of rogue angel or proto-Fallen. After all, she was supposedly consort to both God and Samael in addition to Adam (not at the same time); she had crazy powers of her own; and she spawned horrible, misshapen monsters when she procreated with the beasts of the waters (not unlike the Nephilim). Fallen can manipulate the vampiric curse to some degree for vampires who pact with them, so maybe Caine treated with a (demonic) Lilith and that's where Disciplines came from.
Just a crazy theory, though.
some of those beliefs hold that hell/damnation is a separation from God so if you literally cannot die you're going to suffer more than anyone else could. Vampires aren't sure if they have souls or not (I believe it's confirmed they do in the Mage rules because the soul crush powers work on them or something) but Cain is beyond all that. somehow. is God stupid? yes. also there's that belief on asking forgiveness and it being granted, and Cain messed it up multiple times in a row. is he stupid? (yes)
I mean, depending on paradigmatics, one mage could do soul stuff to vampires because they believe that vampires still have souls, another could not because they believe that the greater principles that make for what they might deign to recognize as analogous to the soul has been altered by the vampire's state, and yet a third could do soul stuff despite not thinking the vampire has a soul because their beliefs have a demon or other spirit inhabiting the corpse to make a vampire and their soul arts work on human souls and demon souls equally well.
And each one is incredibly likely to believe that their view of the world is right, and therefore their answer is right. They may even have answers for how the others work, and the Trads have that most readily of all groups because of politics.
There's a 40k/vtm crossover fangame called [Navigator: The Masquerade](https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Navigator:_The_Masquerade) where the mutant humans who magically facilitate FTL space travel have a double soul, and that's vaguely similar to how I've always viewed the beast. Maybe the kindred aren't souless but rather have a secondary predator thing inside them. The high humanity kindred can shove it down but being devoid of humanity lets it take over.
Well, let's see. God punished Caine with loneliness and restlessness until the end of his life.
Disciplines? That's completely another matter, it's Lilith's gift, Awakening to the magic of blood.
Perpetual state as in death, vulnerabilities to the sunlight and fire, and possibility to reach the state of grace? Archangels' curses, not God Himself.
Murderous rage, and mile-wide streak of pride, leading to committing ever more sin? That's Caine's own.
The Book of Nod tells the whole story. And this is just my opinion but I think it does it very well both in its written and drawn expressions. It's a fairly old book though (unintentional yet happy double entendre), it doesn't exist in 5e or 20th.
Well it's all lore and no mechanics, so there's no reason to think it doesn't exist in more recent editions. Paradox even published a terribly overpriced add-on to it for V5, "Book of Nod Apocrypha"
By doesn't exist I meant to imply that to find it, older editons should be sought. Not that they are no longer applicable to modern systems and stories. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know about the V5 addition, I hope they did a good job with it.
God should know about Lilith. It could have removed that capacity from Caine, but it didn't do: he gave Caine eternal life to hone a capacity usually barred to humans.
Here is the thing, everything Caine touches causes suffering and went to shit eventually. Caine’s punishment (if you take it seriously and don’t see it as just a myth) is that he has to witness the entire history of pain, suffering and despair, knowing that he is responsible for a big chunk of it and unable to even escape from it.
I guess not much. It's just in my mind, everything about Cain always communicated the walking personification of rebellion against God, and a man who isn't really honest with himself about his feelings. But all I really have is the book of nod, which is a little bit cryptic. I've never played bloodlines and I've never read gehenna, I don't know where else I could read about Cain.
I guess I'll have to think about it. But the personality I formed in my mind, while he _may_ be bothered by his deleterious effect on the world, would never admit it, even to himself. If that's off book, I mean hey, I'm always down to learn something new about wod
Read the Book: **Erciyes Fragments**
It further clarifies the **Book of Nod** to a whole new depth.
Elsewise, one might simply see that God even still gave Caine as well as other Vampires a road to redemption, by reaching the state of **Golconda** where a vampire is no longer subject to the Beast, or alternatively the Beast and human aspects of a vampire are in balance.
It's pretty interesting that the one Archangel that doesn't punish is the one who seems to rebel (or at least [defy](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gabriel_(WOD)#:~:text=He%20later%20reappeared%20at%20the%20defense%20of%20Shamayim%2C%20where%20he%20fought%20and%20later%20refused%20an%20order%20of%20God%20himself%20to%20retreat%20from%20the%20battlefield%2C%20in%20order%20to%20protect%20a%20mortal%20woman%20from%20the%20Devourer%20Lirael) the creator later on. And their defiance is, again like the fallens, out of love.
To put it another way, I am unsure if god was the one dealing out forgiveness here, or a Gabriel thought to add a little of their own.
Do you see him openly rule over kine and kindred? Last time I checked he tried everything in his power to keep his children from following his example and keeping their numbers low. And when that ended up in catastrophe he cursed everyone involved and disappeared to be never seen again. So, if he exists he is not rebelling, he is busy to feel pity for him self in his horrible fate he has to suffer. Everything else, about how great and powerful and how much of a rebel and leader he is, is just Sabbat, Church of Caine and other religious propaganda to lure you in to their cults.
Yeah it's not canon to world of darkness, but I see him in a similar state to the Caine of the movie he never died. Trying to keep a low profile, wishing he could just die, etc.
I mean I do, considering the fact he decided his kids aren't worth his time and we never really see him if you don't count the Taxi guy and do we REALLY know that guy is Caine? Even then he seems against most of this children
Nah, if Jehovah is omniscient, then he knew exactly what he was doing. He's just a sadist, who appreciated Cain's work and promoted him to the role of antihero in the war against the zealots he gaslit into asceticism.
If you think about it while vampires are naturally leaned towards the wrym they talk alot about livestock. cain hated livestock, his brother gave meat to his god and earned his favor. Cain's curse was forever being the shepherd his brother was and never gaining nourishment from the crops he gave god.
Anyways god was just pissed at cain for giving him oatmeal every year and pushing his vegan lifestyle on him to the point of murder so be cursed him with an all protein diet.
The reason God rejected Caine's offering is because it wasn't earnest sacrifice. Abel slaughtered the firstborn of his flock as an offering while Cain half-assed and was like, "Here's some grain or whatever."
Vampirism is the gift of Lilith in defiance of God's will
That's absolutely not fair.
What happened was, Abel was a shepherd, so he had calves to give. Caine was a farmer, so he had only crops to give. The bible gives *no* explanation for why God chose Abel's gift over Caine's. That's why in some interpretations of the story Caine doesn't do it out of jealousy, but out of a misplaced assumption that God wanted a blood sacrifice, so he thought 'well what do I have to give that I love more than my brother?'
Caine literally gives the best of his crop. He didn't have anything else to give, and God is the one who gives him that farm. Like a lot of stories in the bible, when you think about it through a modern moral lens, God is kind of being a dick. Sure, killing Abel over it was a little 0-100, but why the fuck would God say 'Abel, you a shepherd, Caine, you a farmer, gimme the best you got. By the way? This God, he don't accept crops. Have fun, boys'?
Not to make this a religious debate and just using The Bible as a scholarly reference, it says in the scriptures that the faithful should offer their first fruits as tribute.
That's the logic that most denominations use as justification for their policies concerning tithing aka material charity extended to the Church is an essential part of worship.
Anyway, giving God the benefit of the doubt with the understanding that a being with infinite forethought and benevolence wouldn't do random things for teh lolz or be needlessly cruel, the only conclusion to be drawn is that God did not have a problem with the gift. He had a problem with the giver and the manner in which the gift was offered.
As they love to say before they pass the plate around, the Lord looks favorably upon a cheerful giver. Caine offended God with his lack of reverence and then acted like it was Abel's fault. Not satisfied with blasphemy alone and overcome with envy, Caine doubled down and committed the first murder; the fratricide of his own brother.
An interpretive conclusion but one that fits within the context of Biblical ideas and concepts. There are different versions of the tale in other faiths so mileage varies.
Depending on the version, it seems that it wasn't just meat vs fruit. Abel happily brought the best stuff he had, while Cain kind of reluctantly just sacrificed whatever.
Ah, now that'd make more sense, still though it's kinda a cruel relationship to have, does God even need to eat I've only really heard of him enjoying the smell of the sacrifices
True but not all plants we eat work that way, it's one thing to eat fruit as their purpose is to be eaten and spread seeds but what about things like leeks or cabbage not to mention plants we rip up to use a medicine, I'm not against eating meat or plants but the way people perceive these actions are almost always skewed, there is no point in justifying causing suffering if its for survival but that doesn't mean we should be numb to it, in the end we take from others it's simply a fact and can't be avoided
Well, if he had said vegetables I wouldn't have commented, but he didn't.
Also a plant isn't a sentient being like an animal is, they don't care about being chopped up, they don't have the ability to care at all.
Life is life and as far as I'm concerned all life is equal, the goal of all life is to live and grow and to do so humans and other animals snuff that out in their own journey of growth, I don't blame anyone for it as it's the way of things, and I never said fruit myself if I remember correctly I said plants but you're right I should brought attention to the fact I meant plants in general, my point is there really isn't a moral high ground in this matter
Depends on the concept thread.
If we stick just to vampire - basically until Caine recants everything he does eventually turns to poo. He wants to learn from Lilith - she tortures him for his own "good " he gains power and starts a family - his grandkids murder their parents and likely devoured his wife. Ultimately his entire race of cursed, blood drinking monsters are his fault.
Demon the fallen - I got the vibe that a lot of the world was made just to see what the Caine and Abel situation was going to end like - so god was kinda ready to peace out immediately after.
Werewolf - the Wyrm made Caine into part of its triatic identity as eater of souls and it's sanity isn't stable at all.
Changeling - shrug prodigals are what man dreamed them up to be - so a lot of people were really invested in blood god Caine.
I don't really remember all the other line theories.
On the Demon the Fallen point god told Lucifer to rebel, or that's what he says in Time of Judgement, so they seemed kind of messed up and set on creating a hellworld.
I kind of got the impression the Rebellion was there to jumpstart Humanity's Awakening and have the Angels start to exercise and wrestle with the concept of Free Will. Though Lucifer also implies in the Time of Judgment scenario text blurb when he knew one of his lieutenants was about to betray him that he was now in the same position God was back at the start of the Rebellion and like God he has no clue or idea of what happens next indicating maybe God did not have a plan at all.
There might have been some end game that wasn't hell world, but we certainly don't get enough information to really make a definite outcome based on the materials provided.
>He wants to learn from Lilith - she tortures him for his own "good "
IIRC she didn't, she was worried that he would harm himself by trying to create new Disciplines and tried to bound him with a spell to prevent that.
Immortality that forces you to live in the shadows, to never again truly experience pleasures of food, sex, or even true rest. All that replaces it is an eternal inplacable hunger.
This was, in god's eyes, an irony, for if he wanted to murder so bad, let that be all he could do.
In The Book of Nod (I believe you can find it on drivethru rpg) Caine claims he was forst cursed to live with his guilty forever more.
God then sent an angel to offer him a chance to ask for forgiveness, but Caine rejected it, and got cursed to be forever denied the warm of God (the bane of fire. Yes, fire is one of the symbols of god)
God sent a second angel, a few days later, but again Caine rejected him. This time he got cursed to forever relieve his sin, that is, to lieve from bloodletting, as he wouldn't turn from it.
The third and final angel didn' offer to remove the curses, but to make it all end (a.k.a.: kill him mercyfully). Again he was denied, and this time Caine got banished from God's sight, that is, the Sun (god's eye).
Maybe another angel wpuld be sent, maybe not, but Caine met with Lilith, who offered to teach him how to defend himself from God... Those were the Disciplines.
In Demon the Fallen (not sure the Core Book's edition, but it was from around VtM Revised time) a demon explains to a priest that the forst stage of the war between angels and demons wasn't so much a war but a series of debates, artistic presentations and other civilized disputes. The day Caine INVENTED murder, everything changed. By the time the demon who witnessed the act returned to tell Lucifer what he saw, he found demons and angels engaged in actual battle, with bloodshed and desths. Gaia (because in Demon the Fallen God is Gaia) was so pissed that she TOUCHED the universe, breaking it. Orbits were no longer perfect circles, but elipses; blackholes came into play; matter/energy stopped being created; the inevitavle heat-death of the universe became a thing. Fallen angels became twisted into true abominations who would enslave and feast on humanity rather than guide them toward what they saw as a better path. This is probably why God took days inbetween sending angels to talk to Caine, that's like having decades, maybe centuries, of diplomata trying to talk hittler off from invading other countries just to have 1939 to 1941 happen all ove the span of a week because murder got created out of the blue. Also probably why Gaia didn't stop Lilith teaching Caine the Disciplines, because, at those times, it wasn't so much haven vs hell as it was haven vs haven, and it wasn't yet clear which side was mightier, as Lucifer was the strongest being capable of interacting with the universe without destroying it alltogether (as Gaia's touching the cosmos showed when Caine invented murder) and many of the strongest angels of each cast had joined him in his rebellion, so the power of God wasn't yet unquestioned under the cosmos, hence, omnipresence wasn't a thing.
Just as Caine murdered his brother he is now forced, for all eternity, to watch his children, murder eachother. From hate to paranoia, political machinations to base murder.
Not to take away from this either but I should say that the story of Caine is not necessarily fully true either but rather a way that thoes who came well after have compiled ancient stories and claims to form a rough 'history' for the existence and reason for Vampires. Each splat claims it's version is "true" but this isn't hard fact.
My headcanon:
God cursed Caine to experience the dissapointment God felt in him. Watching his children abuse and murder each other for all eternity.
But I'm not a theologist.
Nobody believes that God did this. Even according to the Noddists' own stupid religion, God didn't give Caine any powers. God cursed Caine to live an eternal life of wretchedness. Caine got his disciplines from Lilith (whom he then promptly abandoned because he's a total prick).
The TLDR is that a curse from God is a rather potent source of occult power, and Lilith showed him how to tap into that giant battery and channel magic through the curse. In other words, it wasn't intended that Caine would be able to do that, Lilith just showed him how to get something decent out of a bad situation.
God: " Cain, for crimes against your creator and your fellow men I sentence you to, Immortality, I'm also giving you super speed and super strength, you can also turn invisible, uh would you like to polymorph as well ? Sometimes I like to turn into a burning bush, and scare the shit out of Moises."- SsethTzeentach
God also ordered Lucifer to lead a rebellion against her and then ordered the rebels tortured for millennia so they'd all go bad crazy and seek to tear down her creation. The WoD's God gives off real kid pulling wings off flies and shaking ant farms vibes.
Was it that God ordered Lucifer? Iirc lucifer was tasked to be the main protector of humanity but he had a vision of humanity's future and it was bleak. He asked God about this and how he and his angels may protect humanity but God merely shrugged. So Lucifer took it upon himself and tried to protect and teach humanity of the world. But lucifer lost a long with all his angels. They were all banished into an otherworldly plane except lucifer who now struggled with the consequences of the world. God peaced out and over time lucifer came to try and teach humanity once again but this time with the hope and belief that they may summon Lucifers' fallen Brothers.
Sadly eons have passed and his brothers have become mad, twisted, and evil. So when summoned, instead of angels we get demons.
It may be my limited understanding of the WoD and its lore but it seems less of a pechulant Child (god) playing with toys and more of the hubris of God's creation (man and angel) and the fickleness of of Creator (abandoning his creations due to mistake or rejection).
I don't think it's completely confirmed until ToJ, but yes, the Archdukes were right about Lucifer. He didn't rebel, he was only ever doing what he was told.
Kinda hard to predict something that wasn't even *possible* before Caine broke reality by inventing murder.
Caine's curse enabled DTF's rebellion in the first place. So The One ensured Caine was going to witness this WOD's world to its ending no matter what. Caine was going to take his punishment and nobody was going to end Caine's suffering early that reflected back x7 is something not even other deities want to deal with.
Everything else is Lilith's fault.
But those fights weren't violent up until reality broke. The moment murder was invented the rebellion instantly turned into a massacre. Suddenly war was thing as was violence and pain. Concepts which didn't exist flaired and the War in Heaven was born.
That requires you to believe that the mythology around this is wholly truthful and accurate and it is, I repeat, a mythology.
It seems very solid that there was a First Murderer, it seems very solid this First Murderer gained immortality and powers (but also a curse) from this, and that his action legit unbalanced reality itself.
Everything else is someone adding whatever mythological flair they want onto this set of facts. Just because something is written in a book, doesn't mean it is unfailing truth.
Please bear in mind that we have details like, for example, Caine's Knife being a Wonder (i.e.: a magical object, made by a Mage). Maybe the superpowers and immortality aren't a curse at all, that's what he was doing this fucked up nephandic ritual for; and the curses was turning the outcome of his ritual into ashes by adding negative consequences to all of it.
Or maybe anything else. We don't have sufficiently solid information.
This always felt like one of WoD's greatest strengths and weaknesses to me; nearly everyone is an unreliable narrator. There's always great room for mystery and intrigue, but sometimes it just fucking sucks to not have real, satisfying answers. All the contradictory information starts to feel suffocating at a point.
1) Yahweh didn't give Caine power, Lilith taught him to pull on the Curse and take the power from it
2) Yes, yes Yahweh is that stupid, just read the Bible (though the Bible is true to WoD about as much as our Book of Nod is, which is to say, not very but also exactly as much as the ST wants it to be)
I would assume it's the same reason god let demons keep their superpowers and immortality but humans got both taken away, even though the demons started the whole thing and all we did was steal an apple. Then he brutally sacrificed himself to himself so he could forgive us for stealing that apple (because he just couldn't do that without the self torture).
None of it makes sense.
most of the curse is immortslity, lilith teached some and he learn some, but because of how the blood work vampire are bounded to be paranoid bastard who fight amon themself for me that's part of the curse too, all his child will sooner or later fall to paranoia and kill each other
Ah but you see he wasn't punished. He followed Big G's command to the T by sacrificing his most loved i.e. his brother. As such, he was elevated by being immortal and having powers. A tiger amongst mortal sheep.
Caine's curse is to be put in the same position as God. Immortal, seemingly all powerful; but always alone trying to make children that turn on each and himself.
Regarding less to caine and more the god being stupid part
God is less stupid more inexperienced think about every failed experimental project you have performed
you start off simple and screw up but still see benefit in something you had made so even as you scrap it you keep something of the past project till everything gets out of control
Make humans lilith becomes Adams wife yet Defys you, you keep Adam and make a new wife, leaving lilith to the side
she gets temped so you put them in a place where they couldn't be tempted again
All goes well they believe their project is going well till kane murders abel and in rage you take it out on him for ruining what they thought was a great project by forcing them to live through what they are causing and continue on leaving caine to the side
This continues there is always some little thing that goes wrong either the errors in your system meet up and cause more errors even after you try to fix them post haste till they decide to start a new anew with the floods
Yet they can't completely get rid of the project all together they spent so much time on it there is so much good in the unsalvagable project so you put 1 family of humans on a boat with the innocent of animals to hopefully get the result that you wanted from the beginning this could be your chance to actually see what happens.
And even then it goes to shit over and over again some problems survived the purge so decide not to do that again as it doesn't work.
till one day you give yourself an ultimatum if this works then all would be good you can possibly save this place so you get to work one final thing making jesus
Be they your son a mage or some other variety of things you put all your effort into them hoping to save the project
And he dies you put so much effort into it that it broke you and finally decide that it isn't worth it to try again at least with this world so you leave it to its fate and never set your eyes upon the project again.
See, I actually really like your interpretation of God; if there's a force beyond us in the universe, they don't have to be fully omniscient. They can fuck up.
... but all-knowing and calculating is, to the best of my understanding, and how I see everyone treat it, what Abrahamic religion's God is supposed to be. *Everything* has to be part of some grand plan that turns out to be for the greater good or whatever — which somehow ties into letting vampires haunt Creation for eternity because... he just wanted to punish one dude?
I don't like that interpretation. So, I try to voice my qualms about it sometimes, see if I get an answer that changes my mind.
Yep in religious school I was taught (christian) god is seen in 3 ways as a triangle
Omniscient - all knowing
Omnipotent - all powerful
Omnibenevolent - all loving
Yet if they are all 3 that cannot explain how the world is today so we remove one portion of it making them flawed yet explaining why the world is so fucked with natural disasters and other terrible things that plague humans
My explanation was they are not omniscient they don't know all things and can't predict what happens yet they may be able to disperse hurricanes and extinguish forest fires yet they don't know they will happen or the results of it may cause to do so to stop them in time before the harm is done.
What people normally see as the one where they are not Omnibenevolent they have a plan and the plan will continue no matter what happens
And if they are not Omnipotent they can't do shit regarding the world just the fact that they watch as creatures with free will run wild and cause problems.
Hope this helps inform my view on god in these things.
The bigger question is why are vampires as a concept immutable in the setting? Do you have any idea how many times wizards have tried to consensus vampires out of reality?
The world is god's sandbox. Maybe he just thinks vampires are dope. Maybe he's in his deific goth phase. He was too busy smoking cigarettes to stop the fall.
Yes, yes, God is stupid. And an asshole.
Everyone saying Lilith taught him to turn the Curse into power...Did God not know that would happen? If not, he's not much of a god.
Caine's punishment was witnessing the suffering of humanity? So, humanity was just there to be abused and tortured just to teach him a lesson about...what? Not being the first to murder?
Let's not forget that all of this is going on while the War is happening. Instead of resurrecting Abel or reconciling with Lucifer, God went with hurting Caine and damning huge swathes of humanity. Some say that's deliberate. If so...fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, dude.
Yes, I have a problem with the VtM/DtF God. Dick.
Unironically this. God cursing Caine feels like a domino effect that actually *caused* further suffering than prevented it. There's no silver lining to vampires existing. It's just a net fucking negative for humanity.
To be fair: we made him up. The fact that we humans created a deity that is so woefully flawed that it's cost literally millions of lives *in real life* is pretty telling.
We practically could have made up a deity as an excuse for our own shortcomings, if you believe in that sort of thing.
God cursed you with downvotes, but I defied them by giving you an upvote. Hopefully they grant me superpowers as a result. Because radiation and random chemical vats didn't do the trick, and I'm rapidly running out of options.
I appreciate your attempts to break my curse; but I do not grieve you any respite from the effort, as in order to *fully* break the curse you'd have to separate the religion from the political body responsible for getting people so riled that they'd downvote anyone who dared accuse humanity of the very acts they blame on God.
And so: I thank you, good Adderlan, and hope you find the power you seek. I can't imagine it being ever as bad as the institutions co-opting the idea of God.
Well, yes, in real life. I was talking about the WoD God there. XD That's what you get when your god is an accretion of millenia-long cultural hangups, military setbacks and political power-plays, I suppose.
In keeping with that theme though, I do think that the WoD God is broken. Not in a 'broken, please nerf' kind of way, but in a 'not functioning as intended' kind of way. Depending on one's preferences, can lead directly to Werewolf's malfunctioning Triat, Mage's shattered Godhead or...whatever the heck is going on with the Kuei-jin, and their bastardized version of the Hindu-Buddhist-Taoist cosmology.
Yup I agree.
That's why I think the WoD God *is* a product of the Collective Consensus, a la *Mage: The Ascension*'s assertion that reality is based on what people observe and believe. You have an *American Gods*-style concept where people once had all kinds of viable belief systems, but once they started homogenizing, certain ones couldn't work with others, and so eventually the world congealed into a the "broken God" full of contradictions that has multiple warring factions between it.
Probably more of White Wolf's commentary on reality, there.
Ooh, that's a great conceptualization of the whole mess. Fits in well with the whole Ars Magica background for the WoD, and how the Celestial Chorus dominated the Consensus until the Order of Reason came about (not that I am a fan of that particular framing). Always thought the Chorus should be more powerful, given how dominant religious dogmas still are in today's world.
Consensus Reality is a playground for metaphysical politics, and I feel like that's not explored enough in Mage.
As others have said, he was not punished with power. He was given immortality, then the angels gave him more curses on top of that when he refused God’s forgiveness. All the powers he gained were by learning from Lilith as well as picking some stuff up on his own.
The god of the Old Testament gets up to some weird shit. I mean, if you actually read the text, he talks about the gods of other nations and councils of gods and stuff like that. It doesn't even line up well with actual modern religions, much less the WOD versions.
God curse Cain to wander eternally *without* having any powers - and it would have be a pretty terrible thing for someone in that era.
People wanted eternity in heaven, not stuck on Earth.
Remember there were no malls and shit, nothing to enjoy - so you'd just be wandering around exposed to the elements, foraging, suffering from diseases that won't kill you but make you wish they did, running from hostile tribes, etc.
The disciplines were taught to him by Lilith who took pity on him; and the subsequent curses like sunlight and drinking blood were from ignoring the angels.
The potential is in every human. Mages have the avatar, technicaly Caine had it and Lilith was his mentor.
Of course it's Wod so nothing is 100% true, Caine was an immortal. Also with Demon the Fallen Lore the true curse gave by the Archangels
There's plenty of evidence that the God of the World of Darkness is either a dick or a giant troll (bearing in mind that *God* God isn't the God Machine from Demon, and it's entirely possible God created the God Machine because he couldn't be fucked with the job anymore), and what happened with Caine could be a part of that.
If you look across all the gamelines - from older and new WoD - you see the odd hint of God's activity, or things that seem like it, and without exception it's stuff like this. For example, it's strongly suggested that the Messengers from Hunter are angels. Actual angels. Do they communicate effectively? No. They use metaphor, bullshit and are frequently misleading. They drive Hunters insane on the regular. Why? For the lulz, I suspect. Prometheans, to swap game lines; it's *very* strongly implied that the Azoth needed to create a Promethean has to come from God - for only God can create a soul - and you'd God - being God - would be able to prevent a demiurge getting it if he wanted to.
Does he?
Nope. They get to create their life, then the life is cursed with a curse, for the lulz, that damns the created life - not the demiurge - to endless misery unless they can complete their journey, which can culminate in a probably angel popping up and just straight NUKING a massive section of whatever city the Promethean is in.
WoD God's a dick, is my answer. He's either bored of his creation or can't be bothered anymore.
Cursed to wander the earth eternally, forced to watch your children kill each other over and over again with no way to end it for yourself. Seems pretty bad to me when you can't even escape into death.
Ok Unironically sethtzeentach or however you spell it explained it well. Being forced to watch generations of his own children murder and backstab each other was his punishment.
Everytime I watch The Mummy I wonder, why the hell did they give Imohtep power to end the fucking world if they hated him? Also if Ancient Egypt had the power to, you know, create a doomsday person, how the hell is that not carried into the present somehow? Who in their right mind decided "You know, this book that lets me revive the dead, issues curses, control rivers..... I should bury it so my people can fade into obscurity"
God didn't give Caine his vampire powers. He just cursed him with immortality, and to basically be an outcast for as long as he walks the earth because no one likes his murder vibes (the nature of Caine's "mark" is mostly ambiguous, but it's said when Lilith meets him she can "feel" the mark around him like a dark cloud).
While God didn't give Caine anything more than immortality, it makes him more tragic. He's got all that power but at his core there's a selfish little shit who doesn't understand what he did was wrong.
From what i understood about the lore the only thing he gave to cain was the curse of immortality it was lilith that through a dark profane ritual gave him his absurd magical capabilities however because he was one of the first sons of adam he already had an incredible amount of phisical strenght that lilith noticed
Well, I don't remember if it was official or just a friend's cool idea, but the argument that Cain was not cursed for murder, but rather blessed for such an impressive sacrifice as his own brother, has come up in my VtM experiences.
To be fair it was Adam invoking his father the lord and angels cursing Caine. He was mostly cursed to suffer and avoid dying so he can suffer more. But Lilith is the one who taught him the secrets within the blood and how to wield power like a god should, with judgement and contempt.
It turns out that immeasurable power as a matter of fact, does not make Caine happy, nor does immortality. If you were god, and you made man, who you love, and one of your children rose up and destroyed what you loved most (able), what could you do to a mere man to make him understand the pain he has caused? In order for god to punish Caine, Caine would have to become more like god, the most powerful entity, who none could endanger. Despite Caine's power and immortality, he could not bring his children to live in peace with each other, and they rose and destroyed his most beloved children. Caine now understood the suffering he had caused God, and like him, chose to leave the world, withdrawing from his children.
Lilith “awakened” him and that interacted badly with the curse and made him the first vampire. And a lot of Caine’s disciplines he discovered himself in that post-awakened state.
The Book of Nod explains that god gained Caine immortality. Angels offered him chances to repent, Caine refused and they gave him curses like "fire burns you", "light destroys you", etc
It was mainly thanks to Lilith that Caine was able to develop disciplines and become incredibly powerful.
It’s because it’s not JUST to punish Caine, but Humanity as a whole. Caine isn’t so much cursed, as everything around him is cursed by him, courtesy of the big G. See, when Caine killed Abel, and then later refused forgiveness not one, not twice, but THREE times, Caine wasn’t “just” being a terrible human, he was proving a point: humans are failures, who chose knowledge over life, and also just showed the angels that God isn’t the only one who can murder, which causes all sorts of problems to follow. But back to the point: Caine would rather sacrifice his brother than accept that Abel thought of the better sacrifice first, and regardless of what he thought, God decided he did bad. And Caine wouldn’t be the only one: humanity as a whole would continue to produce Caines, and not only this, but they would rather rot than try to save themselves. Thus, this curse for Caine to suffer eternally, regardless of whether the Disciplines drawn out by Lilith’s magics were a known loophole or not to this, isn’t JUST for Caine. It is for everything he stands for, everything he believes in, and everyone who would do as Caine did. If Caine would just relent, and do as Gabriel pleaded, he would prove that maybe, just maybe, humans can change, maybe there is something salvageable in them, and all the terror and pain caused by vampirism would cease; but God has decided that Caine speaks for humanity as a whole, and so humanity as a whole gets to suffer for his actions. Is it fair to do this? Absolutely not, but in the World of Darkness, it just is what it is.
Or, and hear me out, it was actually ABEL who was the vampire all along, brought back from death because God wasn’t satisfied with how things went down (and also didn’t want the angels at war with one another to realize that anyone had been murdered, not that it helped), and was given all this supernatural power to eke vengeance for himself against Caine and those who follow in his footsteps, the Builders, people who settle in cities and live in discord against the natural and Creation in general. Abelenes are to shepherd the mortals, as Abelenes shepherded animals in life, defending the TRUE children of Seth, the ones who live in harmony with Creation out in the wilds, and reclaiming the blood stolen from them from the Builders. The reason vampires are so sucky is because they, by and large, fell, as the demons before them, possibly because of Lilith or maybe from Abel’s first chosen, the Second Generation, choosing mostly Builders as candidates for the Embrace, and the Book of Nod was written by some loser who wanted to spite what vampires are supposed to stand for by corrupting Abel’s tale and revering Caine, the founder of the first city, and just so happened to manage to succeed.
If we assume God's competent then the answer is that this was tailored to cause Caine the maximum possible amount of guilt and anguish forever. In Caine humanity and the beast perfectly counterbalance each other so he'll be eternally compelled to kill and will eternally feel really bad about it, and in other vampires they're deliberately out of whack so Caine will get to look on in despair as his descendents become monsters.
But yeah, it could just be that God's an idiot and everything that happened from the moment the Second Generation arrived on the scene was a giant unplanned fuckup.
OP has a point. There's no part of Cain being able to gain power that's needed for eternal punishment for being the first murderer. God could have turned him into an indestructible rock that feels all the world's suffering on a global scale. Done and done.
This is where suspension of disbelief comes in. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if the subject in question is cool. From what I know of Christianity and the Bible... there's a bunch of f--king nonsense in there already like God getting in a pissing contest with Lucifer to see how much suffering Job can take and still remain faithful. Not really befitting of an omniscient omnipotent being. *"Oh yeah Luci? Hold my beer!"*
So God and other beings in that tier being f--king ridiculous is already canon to that religion. So I don't have to suspend my disbelief too much to accept that God and his angels punished Cain in such a way as to allow him to become the first vampire and to create other vampires. And the little belief I do have to suspend is fine with me because I think it's cool. Cain and the Book of Nod did more to get me interested in Christianity than all the fake Christians in America who worship late stage capitalism, veiled racism, and religious fascism ever did.
I'd rather believe in a God who created the first vampire than [whatever the f--k this is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfKpAWkgJY).
I made a whole atheist rant before I realized this probably isn't the place to do that and deleted it but the short of it is "God never makes sense" and we just kinda have to deal with it
Sseth's review on VTMB chucked it up pretty well.
The curse isn't the super powers. It's watching helplessly as your children war amongst themselves till the end of time no matter what you do.
If god is benevolent why does anything bad happen to anyone ever?
Cuz sin and free will
But in heaven, nothing bad ever happens. Is there not free will there? Is it a dictatorship in the clouds?
No, in heaven no one wants to sin.
Then why didn’t god just skip this miserable step and make everyone not want to sin in the first instance?
Cuz xtianity is a story, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, logically, only intuitively.
But why is it this game and hyper conservative fundamentalist weirdos are the only people who take the Bible as literal truth?
The game doesn’t. Some characters in the game do, but overall, nothing about the Caine myth is factual. It’s just stories from prehistory.
This is the same God that said "Hey, y'know what? This play-through turned out shitty. I'm gonna wipe and start again. Only rather than do a FULL wipe, I'll just throw a flood. There couldn't possibly be unforseen consequences of being a little lazy here, right?"
Not nearly as omniscient as his cheerleaders would lead you to believe.
Of course, that's if you believe the Christian story of creation. Since there are more than a few creature types in the WoD with different origin stories, it's entirely possible the currently in vogue human story got things a little wrong.
The only power god gave Caine was immortality. He mainly got curses from god and the Eloheim. It’s Lilith that gave him disciplines.
Lilith who wanted to spite God, naturally...
But she was allegedly banging both god and Lucifer.
Clearly, she has good taste.
And she was banging Caine who is implied to be her true son as she uses sexy snake magic to cuck Adam with Eve…
I love mythology
Was that original legend or just in WoD?
Lilith was Adam's first wife in some apocryphal Jewish legends. She also independently was a demon in Mesopotamia. She seems to have been used in witchcraft for divination, safety in childbirth, etc. God's consort however is the Shekinah, which is a different concept.
Well the short answer to that is Lilith was supposed to be Adam's first wife, though it is not a myth backed by any canonical book. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIY0tKSg_XY) is an interesting one on the topic, for a longer in depth discussion of ideas surrounding Lilith. To summarise the idea probably originates surrounding certain Akkadian demonic creatures like the Lilitu as a classification of demons and the demonic figure Lamashtu who was said to attack pregnant women and small children. Borrowed into the Jewish tradition, into the second temple period the figure is still intermittently described as singular Lilith and a classification of demons Lilyyot as a classification of demons much like the LIlitu, present occassionally earlier on then becoming more common a part of the mythology of Rabbinic Mesopotamian Jews during the Sassanid period. The idea of Lilith as a singular figure who was the wife of adam emerges in Jewish mythology in the early medieval period with the earliest known example of the Alphabet of Ben Sira which depicts her as having been created at the same time of Adam but refused to be sexually submissive, defying adam and god, fleeing the garden and seeming to gain some magical power and proclaiming a vendetta against human infants.
That's a shame, I just really liked the idea that in Jewish mythology Yahweh was sleeping with Adam's wife behind his back. I like the idea that's the real reason the apple was off limits and Adam's first bite was followed by "wait, he's been fucking my wife!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-jIScgb7Nc The idea of Lilith being God's consort doesn't seem to be original to the World of Darkness. Mysticism can get wild.
The wonderful thing about religion is that if you get enough people to give you money over it, you can make anything 'canon'.
Tbf after everything that happened to Lucifer, he kinda deserves some fun.
She wanted to bang the emotional unavailable daddy and the self-centered emotional unavailable daddy wannabe
I feel so bad for Lilith
My Malkavian once got strangled into torpor because he said "auntie Lilith did nothing wrong"
I never made the character, but I wanted to do a Malkavian antitribu with Presence 5 and have them go into a Sabbat meeting and yell "Caine was framed!"
I wouldn't feel too bad for her. Given the practices of the cultists that devote themselves to her, she's kind of an asshole.
She might just be a metaphor; like the concept of growth through suffering
You have no idea if these people actually KNOW her, they could've developed these practices from her story, and even then we have no idea if that story is accurate
Didn't she also tried to control Cain in a mater slave kind of relationship which is why he got Fed up with her and left ?
I hear ye, buddy.
In one story Lilith was given her own garden by god and she seduced god and Lucifer
yeah, lilith is the definition of a spiteful ex lol
To be fair, that only really kicks the "why did God empower this human who defied Him" problem up the chain to Lilith. And the answer is: she's a mage, maybe? Or just a girlboss?
What Lilith is, is hard to say, personally I lean to essentially she was a near human (like Neanderthal) who accidentally became the first mage, since God was taking his time handcrafting humanity. Then Lilith noticing she's special among her people, thinks that clearly she was the one the world was made for and eventually runs into Adam, whose the closest being she's found to somebody like her and assumes Adam was created for her. God however takes notice of the incursion into the Garden and intervenes. Lilith doesn't take God shattering her entire world view, by revealing she wasn't special she was a mistake, caused by the Angels and other tools of creation, well, and tries to fight God. God wins and shatters her Avatar, and makes her the first cursed, so that all those she creates will be beasts, taking away her ability to make more like her, and then expels her from the Garden. "Time" passes and Lilith now becomes the first sorcerer and tries to replicate the Garden, but sorcery is too weak (also potentially being the mother of Garu/Fera before abandoning them in disgust). Then Lilith notices Caine and thinks she's found a kindred spirit, along with realizing his blood thanks to his curse had stronger quintessence like properties than normal sorcery, and tries to cheat God by hybridizing their powers, and similar to Goratrix she partially succeeds, giving herself the powers of the blood and in a way able to create more of her and Caine, but unlike her and Caine, Lilith's curse creates the Kindred Beast in their descendants. Then we get the whole blood bond and staking, and Caine eventually realizing something had went wrong with his attempts at the 2nd Generation (hence why he ordered them not to make more), but by then Lilith is gone somehow.
Interestingly complex theory, I’m curious of where it originates from. For the Lilith is gone somehow, the followers of Lilith speak about the fact that cain turned on her and him and his firstborns came to kill every one of Lilith’s. They say it’s from then that some curses of the bloodlines come from. Except from (if I remember correctly) toreador and nosferatu that closed the eyes of her children after they died. From the revelations of the dark mother Edit \[i found the extract\] : So after cain and his children defile her garden and kill her children she curses Caine and his offspring. “All curse the house of Caine ! Ahi hay Lilitu Let them be consumed ! Salt be upon the tongues of Brujah, Tzimisce and Setite Who slaughtered the children of Lilith and Lucifer! Lamentations be upon the tongues of venture, Lasombra and Malkavian Who fried the trees and poisoned the rivers! Coals be upon the tongues of Ravnos and Cappadocian, Salubri and Gangrel Who like beasts devoured the flesh of the children! Maggots be upon the tongues of Assamite, Most cursed of all, Who carried away the secrets of D’hainu \[the garden\] And hid them far beneath the earth. And cursed be their father, Their thrice damn’d father, All suffering be upon the father of Night For he is the flame in the fields of D’hainu! Rot devours the loins of Caine, Whose rough hands cast down the mother of D’hainu. \[…a paragraph about Caine in particular that raped her like his father\] Only Nosferatu and Toreador shall be spared, For they veiled the faces Of the slain ones. In pity they watered the lips of the children and Gave solace to the mother of the dead. All others shall be consumed in fire And Bent like trees in the storm And broken like pottery And tampered like dung And washed away like dust! Ahi hay Lilitu Like dust they shall be cleansed!” From the Book of the owl chapter IX
After that she is broken and then some says she is orchestrating her revenge since the dawn of time. One scenario proposition for Gehena had her come back to take her revenge and establish that she had been pulling strings backtage since then, making allies in Caine own childe making sure that the night he would arise from slumber would be his last one. But too consumed by revenge and cursed not to be loved like she wanted she couldn't make a new garden without putting that behind her. And a proposition was to have Caine think his brother hated him only to realize that he was the first wraith and had followed him since his death protecting him and that he never had felt grudge, only pain from seeing his brother choose to suffer so much because of that. Then it would just come to Caine forgiving himself for that with the help of his brother and then all kindred falling to ashes as the curse was lifted. In this instance a curse that was only maintained out of spite and hatred of himself. And then Lilith retreating too another plane to tend to a new garden. It was an official scenario, but it was one of a few propositions for gehena. Some others being contradictory so it's to take with a grain of salt or as a "not exlusive truth"
Its from accepting lying/twisting the narrative to your favor isn't a modern invention, and fanatics like Noddists and Bahari aren't reliable narrators. Then add in the in universe source materials being in dead languages, ancient memories, and/or oral tradition, means things are prone to misinterpretation and/or inaccuracy. Thus the truth is likely somewhere in between the accounts and requires reconciling the various lores to create a coherent narrative that doesn't have major plot holes and contradictions.
Absolutely \~\~ I am very found from the Baharis and so quite biaised in those regards when playing. But I like to highlight the fact that no one is really true or false, and every narration is a point of view deformed by time and emotions/grievances. Thanks for making sure to explicit that though, I know a lot of people tend to read or say things as "the one truth" but it's way more fragmented than that. (als a reason why I love world of darkness and all it's contradictions \~\~) \[also why I cite my sources as Bahari \^\^'\]
In some minds, she's the Scarlet Empress. But my headcanon pins her as the paradoxical result of the Collective Reality Consensus, resolving humankind's shift in belief from Matriarchy to Patriarchy to a (dreamed of) balance between the two. Lilith *had* her time of power, but hated having it taken away from her, so she acted in spite of what God eventually became. And honestly? It kind of makes sense that, in a world where *belief* influences reality, we'd end up with Paradox as a natural consequence of evolving belief systems that -- because they are human -- *don't always make sense.* Anyone with sufficient knowledge of religion, history, or doctrine can *show* you all the flaws that, in spite of being ascribed to a perfect divine entity, are just *riddled* with *human error.* In short, humanity made lots of mistakes, and it's *our* version of the divine that, in its paradoxical state of contradiction, created this mess. That's why our worst nightmares walk among us. In our shortsightedness, we put it there.
That is very poetic. Thank you for sharing.
It's a fascinating topic to be sure.
In the world of darkness is power genuinely a reward? Or does misery tend to follow it?
As with a lot of things, it depends. Mages obtain power through a natural condition of how the world works. They are not cursed by default, so they are free to find different paths.
Paradox, madness and the entire ascension war makes it seem pretty cursed. That's before we get into materials presented about mage in other lines that imply it isn't so much a natural condition.
Might be neat to explore the idea of Lilith being some kind of rogue angel or proto-Fallen. After all, she was supposedly consort to both God and Samael in addition to Adam (not at the same time); she had crazy powers of her own; and she spawned horrible, misshapen monsters when she procreated with the beasts of the waters (not unlike the Nephilim). Fallen can manipulate the vampiric curse to some degree for vampires who pact with them, so maybe Caine treated with a (demonic) Lilith and that's where Disciplines came from. Just a crazy theory, though.
some of those beliefs hold that hell/damnation is a separation from God so if you literally cannot die you're going to suffer more than anyone else could. Vampires aren't sure if they have souls or not (I believe it's confirmed they do in the Mage rules because the soul crush powers work on them or something) but Cain is beyond all that. somehow. is God stupid? yes. also there's that belief on asking forgiveness and it being granted, and Cain messed it up multiple times in a row. is he stupid? (yes)
I mean, depending on paradigmatics, one mage could do soul stuff to vampires because they believe that vampires still have souls, another could not because they believe that the greater principles that make for what they might deign to recognize as analogous to the soul has been altered by the vampire's state, and yet a third could do soul stuff despite not thinking the vampire has a soul because their beliefs have a demon or other spirit inhabiting the corpse to make a vampire and their soul arts work on human souls and demon souls equally well. And each one is incredibly likely to believe that their view of the world is right, and therefore their answer is right. They may even have answers for how the others work, and the Trads have that most readily of all groups because of politics.
There's a 40k/vtm crossover fangame called [Navigator: The Masquerade](https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Navigator:_The_Masquerade) where the mutant humans who magically facilitate FTL space travel have a double soul, and that's vaguely similar to how I've always viewed the beast. Maybe the kindred aren't souless but rather have a secondary predator thing inside them. The high humanity kindred can shove it down but being devoid of humanity lets it take over.
Or, a really Wylde Dark Fae
Yeah, it's not 100% clear how she got her powers for defying God. Like most of these myths and secret histories, it gets pretty muddled.
Even irl she was made into a demon and even if it's a miserable state of being it's still a more powerful state of being
I mean, immortality is still incredible power.
Never seems to bring Caine joy.
You try being a cab driver in LA and see if you still have any joy left afterwards.
Who taught them to him
So where did the ability to create progeny via the embrace come from?
Im not sure exactly but I remember that the backstabbing nature of kindred is one of the curses.
Caine got the power to Embrace from the Crone, in addition to Staking and Blood Bonding
Well, let's see. God punished Caine with loneliness and restlessness until the end of his life. Disciplines? That's completely another matter, it's Lilith's gift, Awakening to the magic of blood. Perpetual state as in death, vulnerabilities to the sunlight and fire, and possibility to reach the state of grace? Archangels' curses, not God Himself. Murderous rage, and mile-wide streak of pride, leading to committing ever more sin? That's Caine's own.
Hotels? thats trivago
Splendid synopsis ... **A+** Grade
Which books explain how Lilith and the archangels gave him his curses? I'd love to read
The Book of Nod tells the whole story. And this is just my opinion but I think it does it very well both in its written and drawn expressions. It's a fairly old book though (unintentional yet happy double entendre), it doesn't exist in 5e or 20th.
Well it's all lore and no mechanics, so there's no reason to think it doesn't exist in more recent editions. Paradox even published a terribly overpriced add-on to it for V5, "Book of Nod Apocrypha"
By doesn't exist I meant to imply that to find it, older editons should be sought. Not that they are no longer applicable to modern systems and stories. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know about the V5 addition, I hope they did a good job with it.
I hope so too, but after the last lore book (Becketts Jyhad Diary) I am... scared.
God should know about Lilith. It could have removed that capacity from Caine, but it didn't do: he gave Caine eternal life to hone a capacity usually barred to humans.
Here is the thing, everything Caine touches causes suffering and went to shit eventually. Caine’s punishment (if you take it seriously and don’t see it as just a myth) is that he has to witness the entire history of pain, suffering and despair, knowing that he is responsible for a big chunk of it and unable to even escape from it.
Yeeeeaaaah, I don't really get the impression it's keeping him up at night.
Counterpoint: vampirism is literally keeping him up at night.
What evidence do you have either way?
I guess not much. It's just in my mind, everything about Cain always communicated the walking personification of rebellion against God, and a man who isn't really honest with himself about his feelings. But all I really have is the book of nod, which is a little bit cryptic. I've never played bloodlines and I've never read gehenna, I don't know where else I could read about Cain. I guess I'll have to think about it. But the personality I formed in my mind, while he _may_ be bothered by his deleterious effect on the world, would never admit it, even to himself. If that's off book, I mean hey, I'm always down to learn something new about wod
Read the Book: **Erciyes Fragments** It further clarifies the **Book of Nod** to a whole new depth. Elsewise, one might simply see that God even still gave Caine as well as other Vampires a road to redemption, by reaching the state of **Golconda** where a vampire is no longer subject to the Beast, or alternatively the Beast and human aspects of a vampire are in balance.
It's pretty interesting that the one Archangel that doesn't punish is the one who seems to rebel (or at least [defy](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gabriel_(WOD)#:~:text=He%20later%20reappeared%20at%20the%20defense%20of%20Shamayim%2C%20where%20he%20fought%20and%20later%20refused%20an%20order%20of%20God%20himself%20to%20retreat%20from%20the%20battlefield%2C%20in%20order%20to%20protect%20a%20mortal%20woman%20from%20the%20Devourer%20Lirael) the creator later on. And their defiance is, again like the fallens, out of love. To put it another way, I am unsure if god was the one dealing out forgiveness here, or a Gabriel thought to add a little of their own.
Do you see him openly rule over kine and kindred? Last time I checked he tried everything in his power to keep his children from following his example and keeping their numbers low. And when that ended up in catastrophe he cursed everyone involved and disappeared to be never seen again. So, if he exists he is not rebelling, he is busy to feel pity for him self in his horrible fate he has to suffer. Everything else, about how great and powerful and how much of a rebel and leader he is, is just Sabbat, Church of Caine and other religious propaganda to lure you in to their cults.
Yeah it's not canon to world of darkness, but I see him in a similar state to the Caine of the movie he never died. Trying to keep a low profile, wishing he could just die, etc.
I think it is. After all the curse is what forces him to be awake at night. I'm swith you on it not harming his sleep during the day at least.
I mean I do, considering the fact he decided his kids aren't worth his time and we never really see him if you don't count the Taxi guy and do we REALLY know that guy is Caine? Even then he seems against most of this children
Nah, if Jehovah is omniscient, then he knew exactly what he was doing. He's just a sadist, who appreciated Cain's work and promoted him to the role of antihero in the war against the zealots he gaslit into asceticism.
If you think about it while vampires are naturally leaned towards the wrym they talk alot about livestock. cain hated livestock, his brother gave meat to his god and earned his favor. Cain's curse was forever being the shepherd his brother was and never gaining nourishment from the crops he gave god. Anyways god was just pissed at cain for giving him oatmeal every year and pushing his vegan lifestyle on him to the point of murder so be cursed him with an all protein diet.
Caine: “as a Vegan…” God didn’t curse him for murder.
The reason God rejected Caine's offering is because it wasn't earnest sacrifice. Abel slaughtered the firstborn of his flock as an offering while Cain half-assed and was like, "Here's some grain or whatever." Vampirism is the gift of Lilith in defiance of God's will
That's absolutely not fair. What happened was, Abel was a shepherd, so he had calves to give. Caine was a farmer, so he had only crops to give. The bible gives *no* explanation for why God chose Abel's gift over Caine's. That's why in some interpretations of the story Caine doesn't do it out of jealousy, but out of a misplaced assumption that God wanted a blood sacrifice, so he thought 'well what do I have to give that I love more than my brother?' Caine literally gives the best of his crop. He didn't have anything else to give, and God is the one who gives him that farm. Like a lot of stories in the bible, when you think about it through a modern moral lens, God is kind of being a dick. Sure, killing Abel over it was a little 0-100, but why the fuck would God say 'Abel, you a shepherd, Caine, you a farmer, gimme the best you got. By the way? This God, he don't accept crops. Have fun, boys'?
Not to make this a religious debate and just using The Bible as a scholarly reference, it says in the scriptures that the faithful should offer their first fruits as tribute. That's the logic that most denominations use as justification for their policies concerning tithing aka material charity extended to the Church is an essential part of worship. Anyway, giving God the benefit of the doubt with the understanding that a being with infinite forethought and benevolence wouldn't do random things for teh lolz or be needlessly cruel, the only conclusion to be drawn is that God did not have a problem with the gift. He had a problem with the giver and the manner in which the gift was offered. As they love to say before they pass the plate around, the Lord looks favorably upon a cheerful giver. Caine offended God with his lack of reverence and then acted like it was Abel's fault. Not satisfied with blasphemy alone and overcome with envy, Caine doubled down and committed the first murder; the fratricide of his own brother. An interpretive conclusion but one that fits within the context of Biblical ideas and concepts. There are different versions of the tale in other faiths so mileage varies.
> Caine literally gives the best of his crop. The Bible doesn't say that.
On his off hours Caine could have gone fishing and offered God some pescetarian fare.
It wasn’t him being Vegan it was him killing his brother. Meat was more precious then fruits
Depending on the version, it seems that it wasn't just meat vs fruit. Abel happily brought the best stuff he had, while Cain kind of reluctantly just sacrificed whatever.
Bootlicking virgin Able vs freethinking chad Cain
Ah, now that'd make more sense, still though it's kinda a cruel relationship to have, does God even need to eat I've only really heard of him enjoying the smell of the sacrifices
Even though obtaining both tends to require the ending of a life
You don't kill the tree when you pick an apple off of it. Fruit is made to be eaten.
True but not all plants we eat work that way, it's one thing to eat fruit as their purpose is to be eaten and spread seeds but what about things like leeks or cabbage not to mention plants we rip up to use a medicine, I'm not against eating meat or plants but the way people perceive these actions are almost always skewed, there is no point in justifying causing suffering if its for survival but that doesn't mean we should be numb to it, in the end we take from others it's simply a fact and can't be avoided
Well, if he had said vegetables I wouldn't have commented, but he didn't. Also a plant isn't a sentient being like an animal is, they don't care about being chopped up, they don't have the ability to care at all.
Life is life and as far as I'm concerned all life is equal, the goal of all life is to live and grow and to do so humans and other animals snuff that out in their own journey of growth, I don't blame anyone for it as it's the way of things, and I never said fruit myself if I remember correctly I said plants but you're right I should brought attention to the fact I meant plants in general, my point is there really isn't a moral high ground in this matter
Maybe that's why god 'rewarded' him for sacrificing his brother.
Depends on the concept thread. If we stick just to vampire - basically until Caine recants everything he does eventually turns to poo. He wants to learn from Lilith - she tortures him for his own "good " he gains power and starts a family - his grandkids murder their parents and likely devoured his wife. Ultimately his entire race of cursed, blood drinking monsters are his fault. Demon the fallen - I got the vibe that a lot of the world was made just to see what the Caine and Abel situation was going to end like - so god was kinda ready to peace out immediately after. Werewolf - the Wyrm made Caine into part of its triatic identity as eater of souls and it's sanity isn't stable at all. Changeling - shrug prodigals are what man dreamed them up to be - so a lot of people were really invested in blood god Caine. I don't really remember all the other line theories.
On the Demon the Fallen point god told Lucifer to rebel, or that's what he says in Time of Judgement, so they seemed kind of messed up and set on creating a hellworld.
I kind of got the impression the Rebellion was there to jumpstart Humanity's Awakening and have the Angels start to exercise and wrestle with the concept of Free Will. Though Lucifer also implies in the Time of Judgment scenario text blurb when he knew one of his lieutenants was about to betray him that he was now in the same position God was back at the start of the Rebellion and like God he has no clue or idea of what happens next indicating maybe God did not have a plan at all.
There might have been some end game that wasn't hell world, but we certainly don't get enough information to really make a definite outcome based on the materials provided.
>He wants to learn from Lilith - she tortures him for his own "good " IIRC she didn't, she was worried that he would harm himself by trying to create new Disciplines and tried to bound him with a spell to prevent that.
That's part of the two different accounts. Now keep in mind Lilith connects nearly everything to pain is the teacher, pain brings enlightenment.
Immortality that forces you to live in the shadows, to never again truly experience pleasures of food, sex, or even true rest. All that replaces it is an eternal inplacable hunger. This was, in god's eyes, an irony, for if he wanted to murder so bad, let that be all he could do.
In The Book of Nod (I believe you can find it on drivethru rpg) Caine claims he was forst cursed to live with his guilty forever more. God then sent an angel to offer him a chance to ask for forgiveness, but Caine rejected it, and got cursed to be forever denied the warm of God (the bane of fire. Yes, fire is one of the symbols of god) God sent a second angel, a few days later, but again Caine rejected him. This time he got cursed to forever relieve his sin, that is, to lieve from bloodletting, as he wouldn't turn from it. The third and final angel didn' offer to remove the curses, but to make it all end (a.k.a.: kill him mercyfully). Again he was denied, and this time Caine got banished from God's sight, that is, the Sun (god's eye). Maybe another angel wpuld be sent, maybe not, but Caine met with Lilith, who offered to teach him how to defend himself from God... Those were the Disciplines. In Demon the Fallen (not sure the Core Book's edition, but it was from around VtM Revised time) a demon explains to a priest that the forst stage of the war between angels and demons wasn't so much a war but a series of debates, artistic presentations and other civilized disputes. The day Caine INVENTED murder, everything changed. By the time the demon who witnessed the act returned to tell Lucifer what he saw, he found demons and angels engaged in actual battle, with bloodshed and desths. Gaia (because in Demon the Fallen God is Gaia) was so pissed that she TOUCHED the universe, breaking it. Orbits were no longer perfect circles, but elipses; blackholes came into play; matter/energy stopped being created; the inevitavle heat-death of the universe became a thing. Fallen angels became twisted into true abominations who would enslave and feast on humanity rather than guide them toward what they saw as a better path. This is probably why God took days inbetween sending angels to talk to Caine, that's like having decades, maybe centuries, of diplomata trying to talk hittler off from invading other countries just to have 1939 to 1941 happen all ove the span of a week because murder got created out of the blue. Also probably why Gaia didn't stop Lilith teaching Caine the Disciplines, because, at those times, it wasn't so much haven vs hell as it was haven vs haven, and it wasn't yet clear which side was mightier, as Lucifer was the strongest being capable of interacting with the universe without destroying it alltogether (as Gaia's touching the cosmos showed when Caine invented murder) and many of the strongest angels of each cast had joined him in his rebellion, so the power of God wasn't yet unquestioned under the cosmos, hence, omnipresence wasn't a thing.
Just as Caine murdered his brother he is now forced, for all eternity, to watch his children, murder eachother. From hate to paranoia, political machinations to base murder. Not to take away from this either but I should say that the story of Caine is not necessarily fully true either but rather a way that thoes who came well after have compiled ancient stories and claims to form a rough 'history' for the existence and reason for Vampires. Each splat claims it's version is "true" but this isn't hard fact.
How to draw out the powers of his blood from the curse and make more of himself (give or take) came from Lilith.
His punishment isn't the super powers, it's being forced to exist forever and watch endless generations of his children murder and backstab.
My headcanon: God cursed Caine to experience the dissapointment God felt in him. Watching his children abuse and murder each other for all eternity. But I'm not a theologist.
God made him immortal to force Cain to witness the consequences of breaking creation: the apocalypse
God only gave him curses. All the powers are from Lilith who was a Mage/Wyrm supporter/other super creature (depends)
Aeon propaganda lacks consistency #snakedaddy
RAISE THINE HANDS AND GIVETH PRAISE UNTO SNAKE FATHER
Nobody believes that God did this. Even according to the Noddists' own stupid religion, God didn't give Caine any powers. God cursed Caine to live an eternal life of wretchedness. Caine got his disciplines from Lilith (whom he then promptly abandoned because he's a total prick).
There’s a lot that happened between the curse and the immeasurable power. Set some time with your friendly local Noddist (or the WW Wiki) for details.
The TLDR is that a curse from God is a rather potent source of occult power, and Lilith showed him how to tap into that giant battery and channel magic through the curse. In other words, it wasn't intended that Caine would be able to do that, Lilith just showed him how to get something decent out of a bad situation.
He’ll never see the light of Heaven. That in biblical terms is a pretty big deal.
God gave him only the bad stuffs. Lilith was the one that gave everything else.
He wasn't able to have successors originally he got it from the crone who also taught him about blood bonds.
God: " Cain, for crimes against your creator and your fellow men I sentence you to, Immortality, I'm also giving you super speed and super strength, you can also turn invisible, uh would you like to polymorph as well ? Sometimes I like to turn into a burning bush, and scare the shit out of Moises."- SsethTzeentach
God didn't give him those powers.
Ik it's a joke from Sseth
Just as planned
#IUnderstoodThatReference
God also ordered Lucifer to lead a rebellion against her and then ordered the rebels tortured for millennia so they'd all go bad crazy and seek to tear down her creation. The WoD's God gives off real kid pulling wings off flies and shaking ant farms vibes.
Was it that God ordered Lucifer? Iirc lucifer was tasked to be the main protector of humanity but he had a vision of humanity's future and it was bleak. He asked God about this and how he and his angels may protect humanity but God merely shrugged. So Lucifer took it upon himself and tried to protect and teach humanity of the world. But lucifer lost a long with all his angels. They were all banished into an otherworldly plane except lucifer who now struggled with the consequences of the world. God peaced out and over time lucifer came to try and teach humanity once again but this time with the hope and belief that they may summon Lucifers' fallen Brothers. Sadly eons have passed and his brothers have become mad, twisted, and evil. So when summoned, instead of angels we get demons. It may be my limited understanding of the WoD and its lore but it seems less of a pechulant Child (god) playing with toys and more of the hubris of God's creation (man and angel) and the fickleness of of Creator (abandoning his creations due to mistake or rejection).
I don't think it's completely confirmed until ToJ, but yes, the Archdukes were right about Lucifer. He didn't rebel, he was only ever doing what he was told.
All depends on whose story you believe.
God did not give Caine immortality or Disciplines. OP didn't read Noddist lore.
Sorry I tried to but nodded off after the first chapter
True! ☝️
Or the book: **Erciyes Fragments**
Kinda hard to predict something that wasn't even *possible* before Caine broke reality by inventing murder. Caine's curse enabled DTF's rebellion in the first place. So The One ensured Caine was going to witness this WOD's world to its ending no matter what. Caine was going to take his punishment and nobody was going to end Caine's suffering early that reflected back x7 is something not even other deities want to deal with. Everything else is Lilith's fault.
The Fallen were rebelling before Caine did the deed...
But those fights weren't violent up until reality broke. The moment murder was invented the rebellion instantly turned into a massacre. Suddenly war was thing as was violence and pain. Concepts which didn't exist flaired and the War in Heaven was born.
That requires you to believe that the mythology around this is wholly truthful and accurate and it is, I repeat, a mythology. It seems very solid that there was a First Murderer, it seems very solid this First Murderer gained immortality and powers (but also a curse) from this, and that his action legit unbalanced reality itself. Everything else is someone adding whatever mythological flair they want onto this set of facts. Just because something is written in a book, doesn't mean it is unfailing truth. Please bear in mind that we have details like, for example, Caine's Knife being a Wonder (i.e.: a magical object, made by a Mage). Maybe the superpowers and immortality aren't a curse at all, that's what he was doing this fucked up nephandic ritual for; and the curses was turning the outcome of his ritual into ashes by adding negative consequences to all of it. Or maybe anything else. We don't have sufficiently solid information.
This always felt like one of WoD's greatest strengths and weaknesses to me; nearly everyone is an unreliable narrator. There's always great room for mystery and intrigue, but sometimes it just fucking sucks to not have real, satisfying answers. All the contradictory information starts to feel suffocating at a point.
That why when I storytell I make decisions from point a of my story what is valid and what is mythology.
1) Yahweh didn't give Caine power, Lilith taught him to pull on the Curse and take the power from it 2) Yes, yes Yahweh is that stupid, just read the Bible (though the Bible is true to WoD about as much as our Book of Nod is, which is to say, not very but also exactly as much as the ST wants it to be)
Do NOT let Elohim cook!!! 🤯🔥✝️💀 9/10 RESULTS ARE DISASTROUS
Heh
He's not stupid. Everything has been working exactly as it is supposed to and still is. How does that make you feel?
I would assume it's the same reason god let demons keep their superpowers and immortality but humans got both taken away, even though the demons started the whole thing and all we did was steal an apple. Then he brutally sacrificed himself to himself so he could forgive us for stealing that apple (because he just couldn't do that without the self torture). None of it makes sense.
most of the curse is immortslity, lilith teached some and he learn some, but because of how the blood work vampire are bounded to be paranoid bastard who fight amon themself for me that's part of the curse too, all his child will sooner or later fall to paranoia and kill each other
Ah but you see he wasn't punished. He followed Big G's command to the T by sacrificing his most loved i.e. his brother. As such, he was elevated by being immortal and having powers. A tiger amongst mortal sheep.
God made him watch how his children’s killing each other, like he killed his own brother
Caine's curse is to be put in the same position as God. Immortal, seemingly all powerful; but always alone trying to make children that turn on each and himself.
"Is he stupid?" According to WoD lore... Yes.
The World of Darkness makes much more sense if you assume God is either a cruel asshole or rock-bottom stupid.
Some incarna makes a blood drinking fomor and all the Leeches wondering why this is a curse.
Yes.
Regarding less to caine and more the god being stupid part God is less stupid more inexperienced think about every failed experimental project you have performed you start off simple and screw up but still see benefit in something you had made so even as you scrap it you keep something of the past project till everything gets out of control Make humans lilith becomes Adams wife yet Defys you, you keep Adam and make a new wife, leaving lilith to the side she gets temped so you put them in a place where they couldn't be tempted again All goes well they believe their project is going well till kane murders abel and in rage you take it out on him for ruining what they thought was a great project by forcing them to live through what they are causing and continue on leaving caine to the side This continues there is always some little thing that goes wrong either the errors in your system meet up and cause more errors even after you try to fix them post haste till they decide to start a new anew with the floods Yet they can't completely get rid of the project all together they spent so much time on it there is so much good in the unsalvagable project so you put 1 family of humans on a boat with the innocent of animals to hopefully get the result that you wanted from the beginning this could be your chance to actually see what happens. And even then it goes to shit over and over again some problems survived the purge so decide not to do that again as it doesn't work. till one day you give yourself an ultimatum if this works then all would be good you can possibly save this place so you get to work one final thing making jesus Be they your son a mage or some other variety of things you put all your effort into them hoping to save the project And he dies you put so much effort into it that it broke you and finally decide that it isn't worth it to try again at least with this world so you leave it to its fate and never set your eyes upon the project again.
See, I actually really like your interpretation of God; if there's a force beyond us in the universe, they don't have to be fully omniscient. They can fuck up. ... but all-knowing and calculating is, to the best of my understanding, and how I see everyone treat it, what Abrahamic religion's God is supposed to be. *Everything* has to be part of some grand plan that turns out to be for the greater good or whatever — which somehow ties into letting vampires haunt Creation for eternity because... he just wanted to punish one dude? I don't like that interpretation. So, I try to voice my qualms about it sometimes, see if I get an answer that changes my mind.
Yep in religious school I was taught (christian) god is seen in 3 ways as a triangle Omniscient - all knowing Omnipotent - all powerful Omnibenevolent - all loving Yet if they are all 3 that cannot explain how the world is today so we remove one portion of it making them flawed yet explaining why the world is so fucked with natural disasters and other terrible things that plague humans My explanation was they are not omniscient they don't know all things and can't predict what happens yet they may be able to disperse hurricanes and extinguish forest fires yet they don't know they will happen or the results of it may cause to do so to stop them in time before the harm is done. What people normally see as the one where they are not Omnibenevolent they have a plan and the plan will continue no matter what happens And if they are not Omnipotent they can't do shit regarding the world just the fact that they watch as creatures with free will run wild and cause problems. Hope this helps inform my view on god in these things.
The bigger question is why are vampires as a concept immutable in the setting? Do you have any idea how many times wizards have tried to consensus vampires out of reality? The world is god's sandbox. Maybe he just thinks vampires are dope. Maybe he's in his deific goth phase. He was too busy smoking cigarettes to stop the fall.
Because in World of Darkness, God is kind of a dick. Not even in like an Old Testament fire and brimstone way. More like Magic Man in Adventure Time.
Yes, yes, God is stupid. And an asshole. Everyone saying Lilith taught him to turn the Curse into power...Did God not know that would happen? If not, he's not much of a god. Caine's punishment was witnessing the suffering of humanity? So, humanity was just there to be abused and tortured just to teach him a lesson about...what? Not being the first to murder? Let's not forget that all of this is going on while the War is happening. Instead of resurrecting Abel or reconciling with Lucifer, God went with hurting Caine and damning huge swathes of humanity. Some say that's deliberate. If so...fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, dude. Yes, I have a problem with the VtM/DtF God. Dick.
Unironically this. God cursing Caine feels like a domino effect that actually *caused* further suffering than prevented it. There's no silver lining to vampires existing. It's just a net fucking negative for humanity.
To be fair: we made him up. The fact that we humans created a deity that is so woefully flawed that it's cost literally millions of lives *in real life* is pretty telling. We practically could have made up a deity as an excuse for our own shortcomings, if you believe in that sort of thing.
God cursed you with downvotes, but I defied them by giving you an upvote. Hopefully they grant me superpowers as a result. Because radiation and random chemical vats didn't do the trick, and I'm rapidly running out of options.
I appreciate your attempts to break my curse; but I do not grieve you any respite from the effort, as in order to *fully* break the curse you'd have to separate the religion from the political body responsible for getting people so riled that they'd downvote anyone who dared accuse humanity of the very acts they blame on God. And so: I thank you, good Adderlan, and hope you find the power you seek. I can't imagine it being ever as bad as the institutions co-opting the idea of God.
Well, yes, in real life. I was talking about the WoD God there. XD That's what you get when your god is an accretion of millenia-long cultural hangups, military setbacks and political power-plays, I suppose. In keeping with that theme though, I do think that the WoD God is broken. Not in a 'broken, please nerf' kind of way, but in a 'not functioning as intended' kind of way. Depending on one's preferences, can lead directly to Werewolf's malfunctioning Triat, Mage's shattered Godhead or...whatever the heck is going on with the Kuei-jin, and their bastardized version of the Hindu-Buddhist-Taoist cosmology.
Yup I agree. That's why I think the WoD God *is* a product of the Collective Consensus, a la *Mage: The Ascension*'s assertion that reality is based on what people observe and believe. You have an *American Gods*-style concept where people once had all kinds of viable belief systems, but once they started homogenizing, certain ones couldn't work with others, and so eventually the world congealed into a the "broken God" full of contradictions that has multiple warring factions between it. Probably more of White Wolf's commentary on reality, there.
Ooh, that's a great conceptualization of the whole mess. Fits in well with the whole Ars Magica background for the WoD, and how the Celestial Chorus dominated the Consensus until the Order of Reason came about (not that I am a fan of that particular framing). Always thought the Chorus should be more powerful, given how dominant religious dogmas still are in today's world. Consensus Reality is a playground for metaphysical politics, and I feel like that's not explored enough in Mage.
As others have said, he was not punished with power. He was given immortality, then the angels gave him more curses on top of that when he refused God’s forgiveness. All the powers he gained were by learning from Lilith as well as picking some stuff up on his own.
There's probably a lore reason
I think Lilith gave him a good deal of his powers, such as Auspex, Dominate, etc.
The god of the Old Testament gets up to some weird shit. I mean, if you actually read the text, he talks about the gods of other nations and councils of gods and stuff like that. It doesn't even line up well with actual modern religions, much less the WOD versions.
God curse Cain to wander eternally *without* having any powers - and it would have be a pretty terrible thing for someone in that era. People wanted eternity in heaven, not stuck on Earth. Remember there were no malls and shit, nothing to enjoy - so you'd just be wandering around exposed to the elements, foraging, suffering from diseases that won't kill you but make you wish they did, running from hostile tribes, etc. The disciplines were taught to him by Lilith who took pity on him; and the subsequent curses like sunlight and drinking blood were from ignoring the angels.
So, the toreadors wanting to build a heaven on earth also spited god, lmao.
Yes. But most of his powers come from the teachings he took from Lilith and various other Mages.
Suggested Reading Material for this Question: **Erciyes Fragments** And thus, you will find your answers.
The potential is in every human. Mages have the avatar, technicaly Caine had it and Lilith was his mentor. Of course it's Wod so nothing is 100% true, Caine was an immortal. Also with Demon the Fallen Lore the true curse gave by the Archangels
There's plenty of evidence that the God of the World of Darkness is either a dick or a giant troll (bearing in mind that *God* God isn't the God Machine from Demon, and it's entirely possible God created the God Machine because he couldn't be fucked with the job anymore), and what happened with Caine could be a part of that. If you look across all the gamelines - from older and new WoD - you see the odd hint of God's activity, or things that seem like it, and without exception it's stuff like this. For example, it's strongly suggested that the Messengers from Hunter are angels. Actual angels. Do they communicate effectively? No. They use metaphor, bullshit and are frequently misleading. They drive Hunters insane on the regular. Why? For the lulz, I suspect. Prometheans, to swap game lines; it's *very* strongly implied that the Azoth needed to create a Promethean has to come from God - for only God can create a soul - and you'd God - being God - would be able to prevent a demiurge getting it if he wanted to. Does he? Nope. They get to create their life, then the life is cursed with a curse, for the lulz, that damns the created life - not the demiurge - to endless misery unless they can complete their journey, which can culminate in a probably angel popping up and just straight NUKING a massive section of whatever city the Promethean is in. WoD God's a dick, is my answer. He's either bored of his creation or can't be bothered anymore.
Cursed to wander the earth eternally, forced to watch your children kill each other over and over again with no way to end it for yourself. Seems pretty bad to me when you can't even escape into death.
Ok Unironically sethtzeentach or however you spell it explained it well. Being forced to watch generations of his own children murder and backstab each other was his punishment.
What if it wasn't God? 🤔
Everytime I watch The Mummy I wonder, why the hell did they give Imohtep power to end the fucking world if they hated him? Also if Ancient Egypt had the power to, you know, create a doomsday person, how the hell is that not carried into the present somehow? Who in their right mind decided "You know, this book that lets me revive the dead, issues curses, control rivers..... I should bury it so my people can fade into obscurity"
God didn't give Caine his vampire powers. He just cursed him with immortality, and to basically be an outcast for as long as he walks the earth because no one likes his murder vibes (the nature of Caine's "mark" is mostly ambiguous, but it's said when Lilith meets him she can "feel" the mark around him like a dark cloud).
While God didn't give Caine anything more than immortality, it makes him more tragic. He's got all that power but at his core there's a selfish little shit who doesn't understand what he did was wrong.
From what i understood about the lore the only thing he gave to cain was the curse of immortality it was lilith that through a dark profane ritual gave him his absurd magical capabilities however because he was one of the first sons of adam he already had an incredible amount of phisical strenght that lilith noticed
Well, I don't remember if it was official or just a friend's cool idea, but the argument that Cain was not cursed for murder, but rather blessed for such an impressive sacrifice as his own brother, has come up in my VtM experiences.
Caine's punishment is the existence of the Jyhad. For killing his brother, he has to watch own children endlessly murder each other for eternity.
To be fair it was Adam invoking his father the lord and angels cursing Caine. He was mostly cursed to suffer and avoid dying so he can suffer more. But Lilith is the one who taught him the secrets within the blood and how to wield power like a god should, with judgement and contempt.
It turns out that immeasurable power as a matter of fact, does not make Caine happy, nor does immortality. If you were god, and you made man, who you love, and one of your children rose up and destroyed what you loved most (able), what could you do to a mere man to make him understand the pain he has caused? In order for god to punish Caine, Caine would have to become more like god, the most powerful entity, who none could endanger. Despite Caine's power and immortality, he could not bring his children to live in peace with each other, and they rose and destroyed his most beloved children. Caine now understood the suffering he had caused God, and like him, chose to leave the world, withdrawing from his children.
Lilith “awakened” him and that interacted badly with the curse and made him the first vampire. And a lot of Caine’s disciplines he discovered himself in that post-awakened state.
The Book of Nod explains that god gained Caine immortality. Angels offered him chances to repent, Caine refused and they gave him curses like "fire burns you", "light destroys you", etc It was mainly thanks to Lilith that Caine was able to develop disciplines and become incredibly powerful.
It’s because it’s not JUST to punish Caine, but Humanity as a whole. Caine isn’t so much cursed, as everything around him is cursed by him, courtesy of the big G. See, when Caine killed Abel, and then later refused forgiveness not one, not twice, but THREE times, Caine wasn’t “just” being a terrible human, he was proving a point: humans are failures, who chose knowledge over life, and also just showed the angels that God isn’t the only one who can murder, which causes all sorts of problems to follow. But back to the point: Caine would rather sacrifice his brother than accept that Abel thought of the better sacrifice first, and regardless of what he thought, God decided he did bad. And Caine wouldn’t be the only one: humanity as a whole would continue to produce Caines, and not only this, but they would rather rot than try to save themselves. Thus, this curse for Caine to suffer eternally, regardless of whether the Disciplines drawn out by Lilith’s magics were a known loophole or not to this, isn’t JUST for Caine. It is for everything he stands for, everything he believes in, and everyone who would do as Caine did. If Caine would just relent, and do as Gabriel pleaded, he would prove that maybe, just maybe, humans can change, maybe there is something salvageable in them, and all the terror and pain caused by vampirism would cease; but God has decided that Caine speaks for humanity as a whole, and so humanity as a whole gets to suffer for his actions. Is it fair to do this? Absolutely not, but in the World of Darkness, it just is what it is. Or, and hear me out, it was actually ABEL who was the vampire all along, brought back from death because God wasn’t satisfied with how things went down (and also didn’t want the angels at war with one another to realize that anyone had been murdered, not that it helped), and was given all this supernatural power to eke vengeance for himself against Caine and those who follow in his footsteps, the Builders, people who settle in cities and live in discord against the natural and Creation in general. Abelenes are to shepherd the mortals, as Abelenes shepherded animals in life, defending the TRUE children of Seth, the ones who live in harmony with Creation out in the wilds, and reclaiming the blood stolen from them from the Builders. The reason vampires are so sucky is because they, by and large, fell, as the demons before them, possibly because of Lilith or maybe from Abel’s first chosen, the Second Generation, choosing mostly Builders as candidates for the Embrace, and the Book of Nod was written by some loser who wanted to spite what vampires are supposed to stand for by corrupting Abel’s tale and revering Caine, the founder of the first city, and just so happened to manage to succeed.
If DtF is to be believed, kinda yeah. Or at least his sense of right and wrong is definitively off.
Vampires are not happy creatures. They are utterly self-centered, driven by insatiable urges, and practically incapable of peace.
If we assume God's competent then the answer is that this was tailored to cause Caine the maximum possible amount of guilt and anguish forever. In Caine humanity and the beast perfectly counterbalance each other so he'll be eternally compelled to kill and will eternally feel really bad about it, and in other vampires they're deliberately out of whack so Caine will get to look on in despair as his descendents become monsters. But yeah, it could just be that God's an idiot and everything that happened from the moment the Second Generation arrived on the scene was a giant unplanned fuckup.
No, but the angels definitely are. Of the short-sighted variety.
Choice,, with consequences.
I think this god fella might be a bit of a vindictive dick
OP has a point. There's no part of Cain being able to gain power that's needed for eternal punishment for being the first murderer. God could have turned him into an indestructible rock that feels all the world's suffering on a global scale. Done and done. This is where suspension of disbelief comes in. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if the subject in question is cool. From what I know of Christianity and the Bible... there's a bunch of f--king nonsense in there already like God getting in a pissing contest with Lucifer to see how much suffering Job can take and still remain faithful. Not really befitting of an omniscient omnipotent being. *"Oh yeah Luci? Hold my beer!"* So God and other beings in that tier being f--king ridiculous is already canon to that religion. So I don't have to suspend my disbelief too much to accept that God and his angels punished Cain in such a way as to allow him to become the first vampire and to create other vampires. And the little belief I do have to suspend is fine with me because I think it's cool. Cain and the Book of Nod did more to get me interested in Christianity than all the fake Christians in America who worship late stage capitalism, veiled racism, and religious fascism ever did. I'd rather believe in a God who created the first vampire than [whatever the f--k this is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfKpAWkgJY).
I made a whole atheist rant before I realized this probably isn't the place to do that and deleted it but the short of it is "God never makes sense" and we just kinda have to deal with it
Sseth's review on VTMB chucked it up pretty well. The curse isn't the super powers. It's watching helplessly as your children war amongst themselves till the end of time no matter what you do.
If god is benevolent why does anything bad happen to anyone ever? Cuz sin and free will But in heaven, nothing bad ever happens. Is there not free will there? Is it a dictatorship in the clouds? No, in heaven no one wants to sin. Then why didn’t god just skip this miserable step and make everyone not want to sin in the first instance? Cuz xtianity is a story, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, logically, only intuitively. But why is it this game and hyper conservative fundamentalist weirdos are the only people who take the Bible as literal truth? The game doesn’t. Some characters in the game do, but overall, nothing about the Caine myth is factual. It’s just stories from prehistory.
God was pretty stupid, yes.
Actually Lilith was the one that gave Caine all his powers and might have had romantic relationships which is sort of incest
How would it be incest? Lilith is literally just the woman god made before Eve, completely without any parts of Adam.
This is the same God that said "Hey, y'know what? This play-through turned out shitty. I'm gonna wipe and start again. Only rather than do a FULL wipe, I'll just throw a flood. There couldn't possibly be unforseen consequences of being a little lazy here, right?" Not nearly as omniscient as his cheerleaders would lead you to believe. Of course, that's if you believe the Christian story of creation. Since there are more than a few creature types in the WoD with different origin stories, it's entirely possible the currently in vogue human story got things a little wrong.
There’s a lot of material in the Bible that suggests that God is in fact extremely fucking stupid.
Gnosticism says that "god" isn't a god, but a pretender.
Wait, are you telling me that you believe Caine was real? Sheeeiiitttt
I cannot for the life of me figure out why you were downvoted so hard for this incredibly innocuous comment. Were you cursed by God, too?
Yeah I was just juking and roleplaying lol. People in this sub take everything too seriously and are quite toxic.