Chantry of the Five Boroughs

The Chantry of the Five Boroughs is a collection of smaller Tremere chantries of New York City that answer to one central location.

Overview

The chief chantry is situated under Barnard College. It is the main "hub" to several satellite chantries within the city, like the Maupassant Room, the chantry at the Jewish Museum, the Annex at the Kenilworth, and a fifth other. Of all the chantries, the hub is perhaps the only one known to those outside the Tremere aside from the "social chantry" known as the Maupassant Room.

Barnard College

In the early nights there was only a single chantry of the five boroughs, hidden within the halls of the prestigious women's college affiliated with Columbia University. But when the chantry settled itself amid the chaotic Sabbat of the city, it grew slowly. The High Regent at the time, Lucien de Maupassant, decided that in order to keep from becoming too large and thus attracting the attention of the Black Hand, the chantry would branch out, opening subsidiary chantries that could support their members' studies without necessitating a visible amount of space. For the most part, the Barnard College chantry is the most concerned with administration. The Tremere at Barnard College most often serve as liaisons to Vienna and as a communications network between the satellites. Assemblies of Tremere often meet at this location for convocations, social events, statements of progress, and even to compare notes with less than trustworthy fellows on neutral ground. In modern nights, Barnard College is headed up by High Regent Aisling Sturbridge, functioning as a war chantry during the Sabbat occupation.

Maupassant Room

While Barnard College serves as the Tremere's internal center of communications, the Maupassant Room chantry is where the Tremere meet with Kindred from other clans. It is the smallest of all the chantries, having grown from the private quarters of the previous high regent in a 12th-floor office space. It is appointed richly, intended to show the power and value of clan Tremere. While it has only two resident Kindred, Regent Eugenio Estevez and his assistant, it is without a doubt one of the most active chantries in the city.

Annex at the Kenilworth

A 13-story apartment building in French Second Empire style, the Kenilworth is without a doubt the largest chantry of the New York network. The building itself has 42 "apartments", variously converted into sunproofed havens, libraries, lounges, laboratories and rooms in which to entertain those rare visitors who find themselves at this facility. The Kenilworth overlooks Central Park and the nearby Gryphon bookstore provides occasional rare books and esoteric tomes. The chantry's proximity to the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Historical Society also yields interesting artifacts from time to time, and the more socially graceful among the Kenilworth Tremere maintain contact with representatives of these organizations. The Regent of Kenilworth chantry is Lord Ephraim Wainwright. Traditional Hermetic sorcery is the focus of the Kenilworth chantry, and Wainwright tolerates no deviance from these lines. Wainwright and his lieutenants are oppressively suspicious of outside "visitors" to their repository of eldritch lore.

Jewish Museum

Located in a turn-of-the-century Gothic mansion built for financier Felix Warburg, renovated in 1933, the Jewish Museum is a focus for the Jewish Tremere of New York City, and the chantry adjoined to the museum studies numerology and Kabbalah. It is also the center of House Hashem, one of the many internal factions of the Tremere. The Jewish Museum chantry hosts an all-male membership, though not every member is Jewish.

The Fifth Chantry

New York's Fifth Chantry is left deliberately open. In game terms, the Storytellers are free to create a chantry that suits their chronicle.

Members

• Johnston Foley (Regent)
• Jacqueline (Apprentice)
• Aisling Sturbridge (High Regent)
• Quintus Sturbridge (Regent)

Version Differences

According to the events of Time of Judgment on November 24th, 2003, a mysterious fire swept through Barnard College, exposing the chantry to mortal attention. The occupants appear to have perished, as investigators merely discovered numerous piles of ash.

References

• VTM: New York by Night
• VTM: Clanbook: Tremere Revised, p. 97