True Black Hand
From the White Wolf Wiki, the most complete White Wolf reference
The True Black Hand is a concept developed in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, a sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade developed during the Second Edition of the game.
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[edit] Summary
The Tal'Mahe'Ra, (also known as the True Black Hand or more archaicly Manus Nigrum), is a cult inside the Sabbat's Black Hand sub-sect that supposedly provides order and structure to the outer cult. The Tal'Mahe'Ra is a society of vampires dedicated to supporting the Antediluvians in their crusade to destroy other vampires. The Tal'Mahe'Ra is an ancient organization formed by an unlikely alliance between proto-Euthanatos mages and several vampire clans (notably Assamite).
The Tal'Mahe'Ra is a super-conspiracy and alegedly the oldest sect of vampires still active. In addition, the Tal'Mahe'Ra membership includes several bloodlines who are more or less exclusive to it. The Tal'Mahe'Ra also employs several ghoul families and specifically trains kidnapped children to become vampires.
The Tal'Mahe'Ra's seat of power is located in the fortress-city of Enoch in the Underworld (members of the sect have means to regularly pass between the underworld and the living world). The leader of the True Black Hand, the Del'Roh, lives exclusively in the Underworld.
The True Black Hand is concerned with two major events: the first is the eventual return of the Antediluvians and the coming age when Vampiric taint will be eliminated from the earth.
[edit] Aralu
Enoch was reportedly home to four Antediluvians in torpor. Their exact identities were not known, but they were collectively called the Aralu. The names listed on three of the crypts were Nergal, Ninmug, and Loz; the fourth was unknown (later named Al-Mahri in the Gehenna supplement).
[edit] Bloodlines
The following bloodlines were rare, and almost to a man belonged to the Manus Nigrum. Their numbers and organization were greatly diminished following the destruction of Enoch.
[edit] Eventual Fate
The True Black Hand was eliminated during the events in Ends of Empire when they were the subject of a nuclear attack by Stygia and a second nuke launched in the heart of the Labyrinth. Enoch was annihilated as were the vast majority of the leadership. Some of the Nagaraja found refuge among the Green Courts, and the True Brujah have run to the Followers of Set for shelter.
[edit] Revisions
The True Black Hand was created in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand one of the major books to come out of Andrew Greenberg's editorial era at WW. It is one of the most controversial supplements for the line because it contains an enormous amount of "spoiler" information that massively revises the entire Vampire theme and mood. It has a reputation as the apotheosis of the Vampions concept: Vampires as superheroes in some kind of dimension-spanning alien-invaders game.
While the bulk of Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand nominally canon, as the events discussing Ends of Empire indicate, the Tal'Mahe'Ra was exterminated without mercy. The Vampire Storytellers Handbook details the remnants of the True Black Hand in some detail and establishes that they were almost entirely wrong about everything. The True Brujah have continued to appear in Vampire supplements, but everything else is either ignored or supplanted (such as the Old Clan Tzimisce being a somewhat different bloodline of the clan, and Vicissitude being an integral part of Tzimisce culture from the start).
