Most Kindred know of the shameful origins of the Giovanni clan, but few know the whole story. The fact that the Giovanni were originally a necromantic family is common knowledge, but what few kindred realize is that the Giovanni were an ancestral chantry of the Necromancer subtradition of the Euthanatos. Then a spirit came to Augustus whispering of the powers of the Dead. The spirit was actually the Ba and Ka of an immensely powerful Mummy.

The mummy strove to master the Necromancy skill, and he did so at the cost of his sanity. Mighty Horus feared for the Egyptian people, for the former Pharaoh had the power to grant his every insane wish. In a mighty magical duel, Horus used level five Hekau to cause the world to forget the mummy's name. Unfortunately, the mummy's Ba and Ka were untouched by Horus' spell. The mummy could no longer recreate its body, but it had a plan. By whispering in the ear of a self proclaimed "prophet of the destroyer" it caused the creation of the necronomicron. It obviously has a sense of humor for the Necronomicron translates to "The Book of the Voices of the Dead." Thus the Necromancers were born. Later, Cappodacius sought to improve his knowledge of death through his get. It was ready. As Hela did to the Helsdottir, It substituted its own avatar for the fragment of Cain passed on from sire to Child. Not satisfied with the power of a Methuselah, It caused Augustus to diablerize Cappodacius, creating the Giovanni clan. It still seeks revenge on all who "wronged It," such as the mummies, setites, and Children of Osiris. Therefore it caused the Giovanni to create a Ghoul family.

Revenants, Dhampir and Supernatural Connections

The Giovanni ghoul family has the same disciplines as the kindred Giovanni- potence, dominate, and Thaumaturgy (Necromancy, according to one optional rule, Necromancy, Dark Thaumaturgy, and Daimoinon are all simply paths of Thaumaturgy. If you like that rule consider any kindred with one of those disciplines as having Thaumaturgy, replacing blood Thaumaturgy with the appropriate discipline as the innate path learned. If you do not like that rule, just give the Giovanni ghouls necromancy). Their family weakness is justlike the Marijava's, they can be blood bound with but one drink of a vampire's blood. Drinking the blood of multiple vampires will give the Giovanni a vinculum score. Preferred paths are the Scorched heart, Lilith, Death and the Soul, and Power and Inner Voice. When Embraced, the Giovanni ghoul retains its current disciplines and can learn more as normal. The family weakness is canceled but any blood bond or Vinculum remains score even after undeath. The Giovanni clan purposefully gave the ghouls that weakness, as a measure of assuring further generations of loyal clan members. Unfortunately, this also makes the Giovanni more susceptible to infernal infiltration than most clans.

What is more, the Giovanni have secretly perfected the art of creating tame Dhampir. Dhampir naturally retain their access to the other enhancement disciplines (Celerity, Potence, and Fortitude) and detect kindred. Giovanni Dhampir are usually used as bodyguards until they prove themselves worthy of the Embrace.

The Giovanni also increase their family size by godparenthood, adoption, and marriage. This is usually used to cement old ties to the Glass Walkers and Necromancer mages. The Giovanni ghouls have also interbred with the Rafiasto, Ducheski, Obertosa, and Marijava families. Unknown to all but a handful, the Giovanni clan weakness is not just a reflection of their preoccupation with death. In actuality, It is feeding off the Giovanni's victims! Eventually, It will have enough power to reform Itself as an Ascended combining the powers of Necromantic magick, mummies, and the Giovanni vampires. God help us all...

Augustus Giovanni entered the Embrace over 900 years ago in the decaying Cappadocian temple at Erciyes, under the watchful eyes of the Anitdeluvian, his lackey Japheth and some bitch called Constancia. Augustus took the blood against the wishes of these petty yes-men, who tried to shoot down the whole thing from the start. In fact, some suspect that it was a curse whispered by Japheth that gave our Kiss its deadly effect, and not the blood of that whore Lamia.

To make a long story short, Augustus diablerized Cappadocius and upset the Founders (go figure). In taking up a crusade against the Lamia, a bloodline of Cappadocian watchdogs, Augustus aquired their ability to bestow a blood-based, agonizing Kiss of Death, which has been passed on to almost all Giovanni brought into the Embrace.

During the Renaissance, Augustus dug up some old Cappadocian literature related to the defunct Death Clan's ascension into Heaven and immersed himself in it. After studying for a few years, he decided that the Cappadocians had been entirely wrong -- you couldn't bring Earth to Heaven, but you could certainly drag it into Hell.

The way Augustus interpreted the writings, the ancient writings could teach him to peel back the Shroud, the layer of disbelief that separates our world from the land of the dead. Once this is accomplished, those who hold dominion over the ghosts who wander the dead world (guess who?) will be masters of it.

Augustus, unlike Cappadocius, never forced any of the Clan to undertake in this quest. The way it is viewed in the Giovanni is tht the more success the Clan and Family garner, the closer we are to achieving any objective we wish.

The problem with Augustus' plan is this: rending the Shroud will require a great deal of spiritual energy. One hundred million souls, in fact, will be required to perform the ritual successfully.

Naturally, the majority of non-Family Kindred didn't take too kindly to Augustus' plans, so we merely withdrew and took care of our own business. In 1528, Claudius Giovanni signed a formal agreement which guaranteed Giovanni nonintervention in all Kindred affairs. Luckily, this document contained a clause (pushed through by Rafael de Corazon) that stated that Venice would be visited by council of elders every 13 years from each of the other Clans signing the pact. If you can't figure out the ramifications of high-level Camarilla doing executive decision-making on our turf, you must be one of them...

Necromancy Discoveries and the Death of Claudius

During the 17th century, some Giovanni studies turned up references to a book called Khazar's Diary, which supposedly had substantiating information on invoking the Endless Night. Augustus knew that there was a copy in the library at the Cappadocian mountain temple of Erciyes. He sent Claudius after it.

Despite a rigorous search, Claudius and his people could not find the book. Frustrated, Claudius ordered the temple burned after thay had salvaged everything they could.

Around this time, a wandering monk/vampire called the Capuchin, who had some ties to the Church, made a deal with Augustus: In exchange for access to all the forbidden texts in the Vatican library, the Capuchin would receive instruction in the Discipline of Necromancy. The great discovery that came from this deal was that many of the old texts Augustus got from the Vatican had their authors bound to them as wraiths. They shared their knowledge of Black Magic with Augustus, which enabled the Clan to make some great leaps in Necormancy. Of course, a lot of what we heard was useless or even false, but the advances we made we quite beneficial to Augustus' cause.

One night, the Capuchin came with an excerpt of Japheth Cappadocius' journal relating to the Embrace of Augustus. Apparently there had been a bit of Cappadocius' blood left over. Japheth and Constancia kept that blood and sealed it in a jar with beeswax and left it in the Erciyes temple.

Augustus was none too pleased about Claudius' having burned the temple to the ground with Cappadocius' blood in it. Augustus had always sworn that, the night he diablerized Cappadocius, a little bit of his soul got away. If there had ever been an opportunity to finish the job, that bottle of blood would have been it. Needless to say, Claudius didn't make it through the night. Legend has it that Augustus didn't drink Claudius' soul, instead giving it to the Capuchin. Coming into the Modern Age

While Augustus was occupying himself with ghosts and mythical blood, the rest of the Family was building the Clan into a progressive legion of industrialists and upper-middel class traders speculating on the growing global economy of the 19th century. We realized we were doing this for ourselves, not as puppets, and we had the choice between the spirituality of the Endless Night and the temporal bliss of infinite cash.

As time progressed, the world moved into a state of global economy. By slowly exerting more and more influence in the global market, we put ourselves in the position we needed (and still need) to be in. We were creating dependencies on our own ventures; Giovanni presence becomes vital in key locations, and the more we have, the more powerful we become.

The end result of this is that we are approaching the ability to destroy the global economy. This would produce chaos. With chaos comes violence. With violence comes death. If we can arrange for things to all happen at once, we should be able to easily exceed the hundred million mark. And that's when we'll really come into our own.