Clan Ravnos (rahv-nohs)
"Besides, how else is a girl like me going to get a danger rush? I've always said 'You're never more alive--then when you're about to die!" ... So I don't always say it, but when I do, I mean it."The thrill-seeking wandering Clan, the Ravnos have had a messy history of misinformation and prejudice that has led to a lot of misconceptions, ones that they haven't cared to clear up, because who even asks, and who wants to know? After a tragedy, however, few remain to clear up the truth, but that's not stopping the energetic clan of survivors and explorers from setting their own path each and every night. To help them on their way each night, the Ravnos have picked up the following Disciplines:-- Uncanny X-Men 312, Scott Lobdell
- Animalism - when you're all alone in the great wilderness, or a big city, and you need some companionship, it's always good to have a trustworthy beastie by your side. Doesn't hurt if you can also use them for surveillance or information gathering to a degree otherwise impossible for you, especially if you need to hit the bricks and soon.
- Obfuscate - For when you can't hit the bricks fast enough for them to start falling, the Ravnos know how to stay hidden and stay quiet. They used to also use this talent in bending perceptions to create illusions, a Discipline unique to them known as Chimerstry. But, following the Week of Nightmares, this has turned from a Discipline all its own to merely a facet of their powers of Obfuscation, mixed with the lure of:
- Presence - Sometimes you do want to be seen, especially if you're about to do something grand and thrilling. But, it's not bad to keep a tool on the proverbial belt that will turn away all mortal and unprepared eyes, and make the few hangers-on fiercely loyal, not giving up your secrets or your location.
Structure
Clan Ravnos has no inherent structure, with it barely existing among sire and childe. Before the turn of the century, and the disaster it brought, there were rumors of some hierarchy among the clan in India, but given that most if not all of them were decimated in the Week of Nightmares, it is unknown if any are left to maintain or care about that structure.
However, in certain pockets the world over, a handful of Ravnos are making their own systems of information trade and community. These are loose, informal modes of organization, but that fits the clan cursed to wander all the same. The South Sound region has a couple of these, with common pathways leading other wanderers up towards Canada or out east along the highways.
Culture
Not much is known about common Ravnos culture, as the clan has historically been looked down on, had much assumed about them, and also weren't keen on sharing either. But one thing that's been evident from the earliest days was their sense of clan solidarity. An insult on one Ravnos was an insult to any and every in the area, and they'd make sure to even the score.
Historically, Clan Ravnos has been equated and tied in with the Romani people, as both the clan and the people group followed similar roads: beginning in India before moving westward. While there are no inherent ties between the clan and the people group, they've often traveled in the same circles, and there have been many interactions between the two. Those who know how to travel and survive often rely on one another, after all. Of course, prevelant racism towards the Romani and the derision towards Clan Ravnos led to many assumptions among Kindred, such as the idea that Ravnos only sired within the Romani, or that they had a supernatural compulsion to commit crime. In reality, Clan Ravnos, much like Clan Gangrel, finds survivors worthy of being sired, along with the resourceful and thrill-seeking, the latter being what their clan compulsion leads them to: a burning desire to either go out in a blaze of glory or succeed with the highest odds imaginable.
In Washington overall, Clan Ravnos has found quite a space to wander. While not every member of the Clan is beholden to the same Curse, the inability to stay in one place for too long at risk of personal health, the sense of Clan solidarity has created a network of Ravnos throughout not just the South Sound, but the whole state. You'll find those who create safehouses and key locations both within cities and the wilderness outside them, titled Urbanists and Outriders respectively, as well as the Journeymen who plot out the right travel routes, aided by the Spotters who keep their ears to the ground about any dangers along the way.
Public Agenda
Clan Ravnos is not interested with the public eye, save for spitting in the ones that would judge and impede them. To a fault, they live for themselves. Their lives, their paths, their goals, their thrills, and their deaths. The only exception is for others in their own clan, and that's just being neighborly.
History
The true history of the Ravnos is painted by secrets, prejudice, and a distinct lack of survivors following the clans near annihilation. Stories outside the Clan told of a thief and traitor among the antedilluvians in their supposed biblically-leaning origins. Within the clan there are stories of a man revived for a nobler cause that inevitably fell to the corruption that all Kindred are prey to. But, no matter what the truth might be, no one is around or keen on telling it.
What is known is by the time of greater Kindred communities in the Western World, Clan Ravnos were accounted for and assumed to be closely tied to the Romani, an assumption that would take quite some time to untangle. While they've been around for eons, as long as any other Kindred clan as far as it can be told, Clan Ravnos hasn't been a big name in many societies or social movements. When the time came for the Camarilla, Sabbat, and Anarchs to form, they stayed independent, not largely welcome anywhere nor largely seeking anywhere but their own company out. As new lands were discovered, and innovation kept coming up with more thrilling pass times, the Ravnos found more and more niches to explore and trailblaze.
Come the victorian era and through the 1900's as a whole, anarchism and mysticism were common pulls of the Ravnos as well, but being generally free-wheeling, counterculture, and constantly taking stabs at tradition were their hat, aside from what the courts would assume of them. This would hang true of Tacoma's local population as well, although more Ravnos came into the area as the years came by, as Washington provided many places for someone to go missing, and the rough terrain added the cheat of elevation to the distance required by their curse.
But then, the world over, the Week of Nightmares happened. No one who lives knows exactly what happened, but during the last few years of the millenia, hell broke loose for many corners of the supernatural world. For the Ravnos, one week in June, many of the Clan faced sudden immolation, an immediate combustion. Those who did not were driven to maddness, feasting on each other and falling to pieces mentally as the beast autocannibalized their sanity. Perhaps due to number, perhaps due to the rumored founder of the clan in India awakening, but 99.5% of Ravnos in India met their final death during that week, with only 10% surviving elsewhere. Numbers have been replenishing in the two decades that've followed, but nowhere near the same.
Washington, and the South Sound region overall, went relatively unscathed. Ravnos of higher generations were largely spared the curse, although they felt physical and psychic agony the whole week. But they did not light like a funeral pyre nor did they seek to devour each other. A few of their elders and sires did, but most of who existed in Tacoma and Seattle were childer finding their way, not having the know-how, resources, or necessity to find other, richer areas to wander and thrill-seek.
Demography and Population
It was commonly assumed, either out of misinformation or prejudice, that Clan Ravnos only sired within the Romani people if they weren't part of the more organized population in India. While many of Clan Ravnos in Europe travelled along similar routes, bringing them in touch of the people for many purposes, that's not a hard rule by any means, and there are scores of Ravnos who've never knowingly met a Romani.
The real most common demographic among the Ravnos is youth. Not childhood or prebusecents, but the reckless young adults, the college students who think they're untouchable, the students from the school of hard knocks who've made it work at a young age, they are the thrill seeking survivors the clan is drawn to more.
Territories
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ravnos aren't commonly picks for local court positions. Even if one had earned the trust the likes of the Ventrue and Toreador are loathe to give them, it's hard to manage a territory when your body will ignite if you sleep too close two nights in a row. But, some cities have Ravnos Primogens, and they have their own points of notoriety within their communities.
In Tacoma there are two notable membesr of Clan Ravnos socially, and that is the relatively young Mỹ Giraud and the flashy Tanvi Patil. Both are Overseers, Mỹ watches over the downtown stretch of Business Row, where block by block of office buildings lie, with enough drive and guile to put many Ventrue to shame. Tanvi, meanwhile, oversees the immediate area around the Tacoma Mall, and has made a reputation for themself as a street-level celebrity of sorts for their flashy endorsements of the local businesses.
Founding Date
Unknown
Type
Geopolitical, Clan
Alternative Names
Rogues, Daredevils, The Haunted
Demonym
Ravnos
Related Species
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