| “ | We do not make ourselves vampires, and we are never as strong as our sires. Gratiano boasts of his strength, but if he could do what the founder did, he would, and he does not. There is always a sire to direct us, and a sire beyond him, and so back to Caine. There is no 'destiny' for you to choose but what your masters allow for you. | ” |
| — Montano | ||
Montano, born as Ontai, is the eldest childe of the Lasombra Antediluvian. A master of known and unknown Obtenebration powers, he stands among the ranks of the Lasombra antitribu.
Biography[]
| “ | Others called the eldest "Montano", and he accepted that name. It was not his, but he knew it referred to him and that sufficed. He had realized one evening several hundred years ago that he no longer remembered the name he was born with, or indeed anything very definite about his mortal life.
After the self-styled anarchs destroyed the founder’s material body, Montano had spent several winters wandering the northern ice and trying to reconstruct his own story. He’d found that he simply couldn't do it. Too much time had passed. Too many other people's memories, human and vampiric, had passed through his blood and soul. He could say with certainty merely, "This is what I am now, and I was such as would make me thus." |
” |
| — Clan Lasombra Trilogy 2: Shadows | ||
As a mortal, Ontai was a Maasai of east Africa. Embraced by the Lasombra Antediluvian more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ, he was the first childe to survive his sire's brutal attention. He came into the world on Mount Kilimanjaro in the midst of a vicious storm - a storm which killed his mother. The shaman of the nomadic Falcon tribe saw the survival of the infant as a powerful augury. He named the child Ontai, which meant Enduring, and took him as an apprentice shaman. The remarkable child showed exceptional insight into the world of animals and spirits. His great compassion and unquenchable thirst for knowledge pleased the shaman. During Ontai's sixth year, the skies cracked open and a great plague racked the tribe. An evil vampiric spirit followed, in the form of a pale, gray man who demanded the tribe's young as tribute. The devastated tribe fought back, and the shaman unleashed the power of the spirit world, but the stranger easily stood against them. He mocked the shaman as he flayed the flesh from his bones. The young Ontai solemnly swore on the skull of the murdered shaman that he would rid his tribe of the malign entity regardless of the cost.
The vampire, an ancient grandchilde of Caine, named [Lasombra], had walked the corners of the earth to find a perfect childe. After creating and destroying legions of disappointing offspring, he decided he could only make a worthy, loyal childe by raising it himself. Even though the Blood Bond enforced loyalty, Lasombra hated the thought that the young vampire might secretly plot against him in his innermost heart. He craved the faithfulness even beyond his final annihilation, so he crafted a thousand cruel games to test the loyalty of his offspring. He obliterated each one as soon as it failed to measure up to his impossible standards, and soon had killed them all.
The powerful Cainite devised a plan to gain a truly loyal son. He would find powerful people with strong bodies, great courage, and an abiding sense of honor, and terrorize them into making one. The Falcon tribe of the Masai people seemed perfect: healthy, victorious in battle, and determined to die rather than give up their honor. Lasombra set up a cruel behavioral experiment. He ravaged the Falcon tribe with plagues and spiritual despair, and told the people they would perish if they did not produce a child who would be eternally loyal to him. Once the tribe had offered a child to the vampire, he then selected Ontai, a shaman in training, to serve as the primary playmate to his "son." To build the child's gratitude and loyalty, Lasombra made sure the child had everything he wanted. To make the boy a natural leader, the tribe had to obey the boy at all times. Lasombra felt this would turn his "son" into a natural leader: accustomed to giving orders to men and being instantly obeyed. But the experiment collapsed in shambles. The ancient vampire had envisioned a powerful, determined son committed to his father's glory.
What he got was an arrogant, spoiled man-child, concerned only with his own pleasure. Raised in luxury, his son had no concept of achievement over adversity, and could not shrewdly jockey for position with others. Worst of all, his highest priority was not service his lord and "father," but indulging in petty whims. In anger, Lasombra destroyed his "son" and hurled the boy's remains into the tribal meeting place. He told the people he would destroy half of them as punishment and start the experiment again. Once he had a formula for producing the perfect offspring, the village would make him sons forever. The people of the Falcon tribe rose up and launched a great war against the pale spirit. During the bloody night, Lasombra slaughtered many of the warriors, but did not manage to wipe out half the village. He fled as the first rays of dawn touched the blood-drenched field, but vowed to return the following night and finish his butchery.
Lasombra rose from his earthen sanctum the next night and found a shock. Ontai (now a young man) sat over him, watching. The apprentice shaman had somehow traced the vampire to his hidden lair, and for some reason didn't attack the sleeping monster. Ontai immediately swore loyalty to the vampire, offering his life in eternal service, even beyond Lasombra's destruction. He did not bargain for his village's existence or state conditions, but gave himself freely. This immediately raised Lasombra's suspicions, but his curiosity overwhelmed him. He stole the life from the unresisting young man and replaced Ontai's blood with his own undead ichor. But he did not force a Blood Bond upon Ontai. He did not trust Ontai to be truly honorable and loyal, and wished to put him to the test. He took Ontai back to the village and commanded the young man to kill everyone within, starting with his dearest friends. Ontai began to do this without hesitation. In that moment, Lasombra realized that Ontai would keep his oath at all costs, even to the utter destruction of his people. And he would do it simply because he had given his word that he would. Yet because Ontai agreed without any coercion, Lasombra could not duplicate the experiment. The success relied entirely on Ontai's free will; The only factor Lasombra could not control.
The vampire stopped Ontai from killing the tribe, Blood Bound him, and left the Falcon tribe, never to return. All Ontai took with him was the skull of the fallen shaman, as a symbol of the undying promise he had made. The vampire was amazed and deeply disturbed by the turn of events. He had created a perfect childe of honor and loyalty, but had come no closer toward finding a formula to make such offspring. He could never force anyone to possess Ontai's honor or duplicate his sacrifice. Deep in his undead heart, Lasombra silently wondered; Did the childe outfox him? Did a mere boy trick the ancient Kindred into leaving the Falcon people in peace? But how could he? Lasombra might have let him destroy the tribe, yet the fact remained; Because he was willing to destroy his people, Ontai saved them all.
Together Montano and his Sire traveled the world before moving the Lasombra Clan from the Iberian Peninsula to Imperial Rome.
Montano assembled an elite legion of powerful warriors called the Victory Corps and led skirmishes and political maneuvers against other vampire clans, shaping the history of Europe. They were so successful that they received the reputation of being fearsome "night-dark troops", spreading a spy network into the far reaches of the Roman Empire.
As time wore on, [Lasombra] needed a fixed location to go into torpor. Sicily was the perfect place, far removed from Italy's wars and the Ventrue-dominated Holy Roman Empire. Montano and his sire built a great castle, not only for the Antediluvian's haven, but also as a central court to direct wars with the Germans.
During the early stages of First Anarch Revolt, Montano was sympathetic to the cause as many neonates were being eradicated by the Inquisition. However, when Anarch ideology began to creep into the Lasombra Clan, Montano and his soldiers were quick to crush it.[1] It was not until his "brother", Gratiano, betrayed the clan by joining the Anarchs that Montano developed a burning hatred for them. The betrayal ran deep when Gratiano aligned with Assamites to bring an Anarch raid right to the Castle of Shadows. The Lasombra Clan elders were killed and the survivors converted to the insurgency. Montano was the only one to escape, joining the newly founded Camarilla as one of the few Lasombra antitribu.
After the self-styled Anarchs destroyed [Lasombra]'s material body, Montano spent several winters wandering the northern ice, trying to reconstruct his own story. He had found that he simply could not do it. Too much time had passed. Too many other people's memories, human and vampiric, had passed through his blood and soul. He could only say with certainty, "this is what I am now, and I was such as would make me thus."[2]
Apart from his sire, Montano knows for a fact that his mastery of the Abyss is without peer, perhaps matched only by Boukephos. He tried to tutor several of his siblings in the dark arts, but there were always powers that only age could grant. It is said that he is the only one old and powerful enough to enter the Abyss without his body.
As far as his view on [Lasombra]'s supposed diablerie, he did not stick around to verify his sire's "death", and whatever memories he had of that fateful day, had been tampered with. Only an Antediluvian or a methuselah like himself could have done this, which may be one of the reasons why he suspects that [Lasombra] might have survived.
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