Conclusion: Last Words?
Updated: 13 December 1998
Conclusion: Last Words?
Black Widows...
Most people know, or imagine easily the mythology of the Black Widow. In facts, one only needs to know a little zoology to understand the myth applied to the human being... or the Kindred. The Black Widow provokes revulsion and attraction in the same time. some kind of morbid fascination, not far from the fascination felt by the Blood Dolls, or Hollow Ones Magi. The dream of a Blood Doll would be to share the blood with a real vampire. If it happened one day, if someone very like the Vampire of legend came to dring the blood of the Blood Doll, she would probably be victim of a fascinating mix of emotions: Revulsion and Attraction. Attraction because her wildest fantasm would be happening to her... Revulsion because if she is right, she will die at the end of this ''act of love''... But of course, vampires don't exist: ''This vampire who drink my blood is only a very talented actor...''
The Black Widows provoke the same effects. someone seeing a Black Widow in all her beauty (and Darkness...) would without doubt be charmed by the presence of this creature of darkness, unable to love without murdering.
Her Disciplines only enhance this fact: Her beauty enhanced by the supernatural Presence would awe most mortals (and Kindred). Her ties with the Arachnids, represented by the Discipline Arachnea provoke an primal uneasiness enhanced by the fact that her Obfuscate Discipline enable her to go almost everywhere she want. This mix of apparently opposed powers will probably keep off most mortals, but the most supernatural inclined among, them, including the true supernatural creatures will to the contrary find fascination in this tragic creature.
Some among the Black Widow can even produce greater effects, as Nymphea enable them to reach physical beauty unknown among even most other vampires (or demons), and as the dark Furie Discipline awakens a diabolical soul that some devils would held in awe. This Discipline add a new dimension in the horror to Arachnea. It's a supernatural fear for an unkown and unrelenting enemy. It's the same terror felt by the criminals hunted by Eric, in The Crow.
The Black Widow is a terrible predator, and when her powers are revelated, she is the archangel and vengeance, incarnation of a fallen who won't be stopped by pity, or any other feeling, any moral or physical limit to make them pay...
The Black Widow isn't, unlike The Crow, a simple destructive accumulation of murders. The act of the Black Widow is an act of love. A twisted, dark love, which makes her to beyond what we imagine possible. It can be assimilated as a complete obliteration of all that the victim/lover cared for. An act who let him time enough to cry for his loses.
And then, when the victim lost all that he cared for, when nothing remains, perhaps not even the desire to live any longer, the Black Widow appear. The final destruction of the victim can be fast, or slow. Painless of painful, depending of his crimes. But it's more painful as the Black Widow probably became very close to him. The two had reached such a degree of intimacy that the victim will suffer even more.
And finishing her victim is, for the Black Widow, an Act of Love and hate in the same time, produced by her own twisted psychology: The Black Widow pay for her powers. She will realise that she can't be too close to anyone or this person will die, sometimes by the hand of the Black Widow herself.
This curse will remove any hope of love, because Love kills. In the same paradoxal way of thinking, killing becomes some form of love.
Always alone, and in the same time submerged by the attentions of others... Condemned to kill to love, and kill again, and again... Just to leave no time to love and so... Kill...
It's the Black Widow, Incarnation of Vengeance... and Evil...
Theme:
The Black Widow is victim of her own power. The Black Widow is a tragic heroine, condemned to see die those she loves. And she will learn that the death of the loved one is rarely a peaceful one... Which will probably lead most of them to kill her lovers to spare him an horrible death... Rare are the Clans and Bloodlines which wear their names so well.
It's a very strange psychology which develops itself then. They have not the right to love, unless those they would want to destroy, for the good of the people they can only love by the act of vengeance. It makes them avenge the weakests, and attack those who hurt them. They feed from the woe of those they consider as evil, because they can't feed from the happiness and affection of the others...
It's an ambiance very ''Crow-like'', where (in the original script) Eric Draven can't help the living without hurting himself by loosing part of his invulnerability. Black Widows are Archangels sowing death all around them.
The Theme is, then, a combination: Despair, denied love oppose to simulated love and vengeance. And most of all, always present, the Passion.
The Black Widows are Caitiff which have real power, but with power comes the price to pay for it, and more than one Black Widow wonders, in the darkest and coldest hours of the night, if the price isn't too high...
And, perhaps, when the sun appears in the horizon, if it would not be better to end it all... To end the pain...
The passion they feel make them, sometimes, react too much to some stimuli: The Beast of the Black Widows are not a simple brute. It's, like the Wraith's, the Shadow of their soul, and sometimes, it shares its power with her...
Aim of the Bloodline:
It is said the Jyhad is the War of the Antediluvians, using their own Childer as pawns. If this is such, then Caitiff are random cards in their game.
The more easily perceived view is that a Black Widow Bloodline would try to reach the 3rd Generation, and that the Clan targeted should be, naturally, the mysogynist assassins calling themselves Assamite. How ironic, wouldn't it be?
But if the Bloodline is born from the will of someone, then she must be powerful indeed, knowing both the secrets of Auspex and of Blood Magic.
No one know who is this ''Black Widow Queen''. Perhaps a Fourth Generation Kindred... But then her power would be great indeed as she would have been one of the first Caitiff creating a personnal Discipline... The other possibility is that the Queen Ananasa is behind the inspiration of the Bloodline. Their instinctive good relations with the Ananasi is a possible proof of that fact. The Black Widow believing this claim that the Queen of the Ananasi used the Wyrm minions (Vampires) against It, by creating the Black Widows. But when the Wyrm understood that, It corrupted the Bloodline Disciplines to make them pay their Treason. So it's the reason behind the apparent evil of the Black Widow, even if they fight for justice...
Another possible viewpoint would come form the Book of Nod and the Chronicles of the Dark Mother: Who, if not Lillith herself, could have this twisted idea of tortured women who kill even as they love?...
About the Dark Side:
� After years of gaming, I was starting to consider Frenzy and R�tschrek as boring as death: I had taken dispositions to remove the possibilities of my character's damaging or killing those she wanted to protect, so I have few risk of losing Humanity in Frenzy.
I wanted a new form of Frenzy, more cunning, more intelligent, and more Evil. The Dark Side was created as an opposition Good vs Evil: Two twin souls, opposite sides of the same coin. So the importance of the Balance (in game/philosophy terms) between Humanity and Evil of the Dark Side has yet to be discovered. I don't know if it still compatible with other Paths, so if you want to try it at your own risk...
But then I was offered a copy of Kindred of the East. While I thought it was somewhat too much powerful, their ideas about the Beast completed the ones I have and the ones given by Wraith: The Oblivion. You will recognize some of the P'o here... But not much: I tried a lot of rules to simulate it, but I have some tendancies to complicate everything in my tries to explain everything. It ended with me Role-Playing the Dark Widow, but never rolling any Dice. While it could be considered a good thing in a Storyteller Game, it could hardly be integrated in a Blood Line description.
Then I was working on other Bloodlines. The current one were the Childer of Set. I gave to the Bloodline of Hathor the Discipline of Neferys (Nefer means Beauty, in Ancient Egyptian). When I came back to the Black Widows, I had vague thoughts about Hathor being the mysterious Black Widow Queen... But I realised the Black Widow were unbalanced in their symbolism: I wanted three apexes on the triangle: Attraction, Revulsion and Supernatural Evil. And I hav ended with two Attractions Apexes, and no Supernatural Evil (unless you count the complex old Dark Widow rules).
I had been working on Maat when I thought about making the Dark Widow a ''Discipline'', some Kind of Anti-Maat, of Anti-Golconda. Inspired by the P'o of the Kindred of the East, the powers were easy to create.
Still, the truth is that if Neferys worked pretty well, and Arachnea was well-balanced, Sensualis was never a success, and still need a lot of work to define it exactly. And Furie is powerful and difficult to play and role-play. After much discussion with my friends, I've come to the conclusion that, while the Arachnea/Furie/Neferys combination worked pretty well, it would need for and more work to perfect.
For simplicity's sake, for its coherence with the Childer of Set Bloodlines, for all the players and Storytellers who believe Arachnea and the Black Widow weakness is enough, I decided the final combination of Disciplines: Arachnea, Obfuscate and Presence. Still, by buying Merits, adventurous players and Storyteller have the possibilty to use the two others Disciplines, at their own risk.
Thus, the Black Widow is complete, once more (and I hope, once for all!).
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