Yorak was a methuselah and High Priest of Clan Tzimisce. One of the childer of the Tzimisce Antediluvian, Yorak tended the fleshcrafted Cathedral of Flesh for centuries until his demented creation devoured him.
Biography[]
Yorak was one of the first childer of the Eldest, and was the first (and possibly only) one of these childer to have been native to the region that is now known as Transylvania. Despite contests to the territory from Shadow Lord Lupines, the Eldest gradually came to favor its havens in this region. This territorial connection waxed as the Eldest honed the art of koldunism and used it to commune with the demon Kupala that dwelt beneath the Carpathians. When the Eldest vanished in the time of tumult that followed the Deluge, Yorak was the only childe of the Eldest to remain in Transylvania. Over the years that followed, he fostered a bond with Kupala and with the land that bound it.
During the Second Baali War, the Salubri Warrior Samiel led a force of his clanmates into Transylvania. Whether by design or by accident, the Salubri war party slaughtered not the Baali but the Tzimisce, seemingly mistaking their Szlachta ghouls for demons. In the end, Samiel arrived at the haven of the Eldest and struck him dead, although the Eldest fatally struck Samiel with its death-throes. However, the Eldest survived through its descendants through the power of Vicissitude, and was physically birthed by another of its childer, the Dracon. The Dracon left the Eldest in Yorak's custody, where both sire and childe were psychically mentored by Kupala; this fostered an even greater understanding of koldunism in the clan.
As the Eldest secretly recuperated in torpor, Yorak assumed the mantle of Voivode among Voivodes of Clan Tzimisce. Yorak, a devoted koldun and Metamorphosist, sought to further the clan's understanding of the transcendent state of Azhi Dahaka. He began the construction of the Cathedral of Flesh soon after, a task that took centuries and was never truly finished due to the living nature of the structure. This time period may have seen the evolution of the first revenant families under his watch. As the Roman Empire expanded, Yorak defended his clan's traditional territory by forging pacts with itinerant Gangrel, Brujah, and others who could be used as reliable or pliable obstacles against the encroaching Roman Ventrue, Toreador, and Lasombra.
In the end, Yorak's transcendent tendencies and visionary ambitions proved to be his undoing. In the 15th century, the Wallachian prince Vlad Țepeș – Dracula – came to the attention of the Tzimisce and other Transylvanian Cainites, and mystics both within the clan and without spoke of Dracula's unmatched influence over the future of undead society. Yorak summoned Dracula to the Cathedral of Flesh, where he offered the warlord the Embrace. However, the Cathedral chose this moment to turn on its master – possibly thanks to the direct influence of Kupala itself – and committed diablerie on its keeper. Dracula fled from the site with the assistance of an opportunistic coterie, and became determined to meet the Embrace only under his own terms. The liberated Cathedral of Flesh simply vanished, having become an avatar for Kupala or, perhaps, a tool of the Baali.
Yorak's mastery of the flesh-crafting arts is almost without peer. It is said that he can appear as anything or anyone at a moment's notice, from a fly on the wall to a colossal monstrosity plucked from the deepest, darkest terrors of the racial memories of humanity. However, when treating with visitors or aspirants to the Cult of Metamorphosis he often chooses to appear as a feeble, wizened, wicked old man.
Trivia[]
Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised described Yorak as a female by the time of its Embrace.[1]
References[]
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 33