“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
 - Friedrich Nietzsche

Known Antagonists:

Fierce religious warriors pledged to keep their lands safe from the taint of the 'Leeches' of Seattle these beasts crave the destruction of all Kindred in a holy war that has already claimed the unlives of many vampires near Seattle. Surely no sane vampire wants to face hordes of angry Lupines who can appear and disappear at will and have speed and regenerative powers to rival Elders of their Clans - and they tend to travel in packs.Will they stay in the wilderness has they have for so long, or are they tired of vampire interlopers defiling the city with their bloodlust and petty rivalries? Time, and the blood of those foolish enough to venture beyond the fragile borders of the Emerald Domain will tell.

The Holy Church has long since maintained within it's darkest cloisters a secret sect of men and women devoted to hunting down and destroying any creatures that could be construed as a stain upon the world. Vampires are at the top of their list. In the last several years, the Kindred of the Emerald Domain have at it's fringes gained the notice of the Church's holy enforcers, and though the Inquisition has not acted on it's information, it is clear that they know something is going on in the shadowed alleys of the Emerald City, and it intends to find out what. Woe be to the first Kindred they find, and to the last.

The mysterious watchers have long since been rumored to have made it their edict to watch the events that befell Kindred in the Modern nights from afar, but now rumors of Inconnu, or their agents taking a more direct interest in the Emerald Domain have begun to surface. Those in the know have good reason to fear there involvement, for few things draw out the watchers like forbidden knowledge and the ancient crypt dust scent of artifacts best left buried. And of cours it is said that when the enigmatic Inconnu choose to move as one, it can only mean one thing: Gehenna is about to be loosed upon the world.

The ever-expanding Bamboo Courts have in the past revealed themselves to the Kin-jin of Seattle. Bringing with them their own alien conflicts and unknown perspectives, the Cathayans have already shown that they are a force to be reckoned with, and that they intend to be taken seriously.

Will the Scarlet War erupt here as it has throughout the west coast cities to the south in Los Angeles and the suffering San Francisco? Were the genteel ghost-people from the Far East truly defeated by the barbarian Cainites, or are they merely biding their time for a full-scale invasion of the Emerald domain, in hopes of turning it into Jade for another brutal Mandarin?

As knowledge about the elusive creatures no longer entrenched in the International District is traded and sold between those few with information about them, most Kindred with experience wonder if it will do them any good when the ebon tide of the eastern invaders finally returns.

One thing is for certain however, if there are Cathayans are still here, after their last bloody conflict with the Camarilla they are keeping their movements quiet... for now.

Following their prey across the oceans to the west comes a new breed of threat to the vampire's existance, the Shih demon hunter.

Considering all unnatural creatures to be demons loosed from the 1000 hells, they boast frightening and terrible powers, capable of laying low even the most powerful supernatural creatures, as well as masterful training in a centuries old martial art created specifically to destroy supernatural creatures.

The Shih's contact with the Kin-jin has been limited, but the Emerald domain has certainly felt their presence in the past.

Will these strange hutners and their quests for justice and vengeance for the deaths of their Cathayan prey bring them to the Emerald Domain once again, or will they turn their attentions fully to the demons of America, and cull the vampire courts with the same intractable determination with which they destoyed their Cathayan counterparts?  Perhaps they already have.

The Sword of Caine is alive and well on the fringes of the Emerald Domain, slowly building up it's forces. Contact with the Sabbat has been interesting in the domain of late, bereft of the run-of-the-mill raiding parties and the waves of attacks that seemed so common throughout Seattle's history.

Lately the Sabbat have been somewhat docile however, perhaps biding their time.

In times past the Sabbat besieging the Emerald Domain have used daring and unique tactics to overthrow the Camarilla leadership here in the city. Once they went so far as to have sent an Emmisary from their Sect to Seattle to initiate talks of peace. Talks which barely remained civil on many occasions.

The Sabbat have recently attempted to destroy the former Prince of the Emerald Domain, Isaac Goldwin, after having Sacked the Domain of Baltimore and murdered his Sire. Some say it was this defeat that cause Isaac to abdicate the Princedom of Seattle to the current Prince, the enigmatic Malkavian Prince Rabane.

What was it? Old Clan Giovanni? A restless corpse or a vengeful ghost? Darkness itself? Perhaps even a messenger from Death...

One thing is for certain. It existed. And if it existed, though many who knew of it have long since perished, others like it may slumber still - or worse, they may have already awakened. 

There are far more rumors about the Ancients than there are truths. Some say they dwells in vast catacombs beneath Seattle, that they are called Samedi, Cappadocians, that they are honored elders to be reasoned with, that they are monsters capable of spreading undeath by touch.

They say the Ancients hunger for the dead.

Armed with the cold weaponry of scientific method they tracked, tranked and experimented on Kindred and Lupine alike.

Using previously unknown methods of tranquilizing the undead, their organization had access to resources and information that poses a dire threat to the entirety of the Masquerade.

Now in the possession of data and blood from the very Kindred that they hunt, they have become an even greater threat, driven by an unknown organization whose thirst for knowledge and power are enough to rival any Kindred's.

They posed another threat to the Emerald Domain as well, one that is even less well understood by it's hapless denizens - that of thier ancient society's exposure to the ferocious beasts that call themselves Garou.

What is the source of their formidable technology? What is their interest in the Kindred? Are they truely gone from the Emerald Domain as suspected or have the 'Reality Deviants' called Kindred simply been filed for later investigation. Only time will tell.

There are more than just rumors now. The threat was real. Brought to the earth by the powerless who traded their souls for a taste of unholy power, the Demon betrayed it's masters and roamed loose in the domain, swallowing the tentative hope of mortals and extinguishing it's enemies in an unholy war against the Kindred that stood nearly helpless against it.

But there were rules to the games the Infernals played, and it too had Secret Masters to please. As wicked lines of hellfire dissected the reeling Domain a pattern emerged in the violent flashes and strange visions set before the moon-mad, the ghost-talkers and the hell-blinded oracles. The signs were just barely enough to forstall the newly secured Emerald Domain fram tumbling down like a deck of cards. But the 10 Curses of the Devil's Deck brought by each card tore sanity from the tenuous grip of the only creatures capable of standing between the Demon and it's wicked task. Creatures both wretched and powerful, exalted and evil, holy and in servitude to darkness - The Kindred of the Emerald Domain.

It knew their thoughts.

It knew their weaknesses

It knew their desires.

The oracles fortold, one Tarot card at a time, the very end of all the city's Kindred clung to and held dear. Without the uniting of the rightious and the meek, warring, disperate clans, and vicious enemies, the very gates of hell may have opened beneath the City of Emeralds, casting Kindred and Kine alike in the blood red glow of hellish nightmare.

M  a  d  n  e  s  s   begots madness.

Visions begot   i  l  l  u  s  i  o  n  s.

The end is near - and this was only the first.