The Anarch Movement

The Anarchs are not a Sect in the organized sense — they are a movement, a tendency, a perpetual state of rebellion against Kindred gerontocracy. They reject Camarilla hierarchy, reject the Sabbat’s violent theology, and insist that vampires should be able to exist without owing their unlives to Elders who claim dominion by virtue of age.

History

The First Anarch Revolt (1394–1493): The original Anarch Revolt was triggered by Elders who regularly diablerized their own childer to maintain power. Younger Kindred, led largely by Brujah, began killing their own Sires in response. The Revolt ended with the Convention of Thorns, which established the Camarilla and absorbed many Anarch demands — in exchange for the Anarchs agreeing to Camarilla law.

The Second Anarch Revolt (1940s–present): Renewed in the American West, most famously resulting in the Anarch Free States of California. The Brujah and other dissident clans carved out domains where no Prince holds authority. This is the movement as it exists in most modern chronicles.

The Anarch Free States

The Free States are the Anarch movement’s most concrete achievement: California (particularly Los Angeles) as an Anarch domain without Camarilla Princes or Elders in control. The Free States are not idyllic — they are chaotic, violent, and frequently exploited by strong individuals who simply replace old hierarchy with new. But they represent a proof of concept.

Baron: The Anarch equivalent of a Prince, but the title is deliberately downgraded. A Baron holds territory through force and respect, not inherited law. Barons can be removed.

Philosophy

Anarch ideology spans a wide range:

Idealists: Genuinely believe in a more egalitarian Kindred society. Some hold political philosophies (socialism, anarchism) carried over from mortal life. These Anarchs are often disappointed by the gap between ideals and Anarch reality.

Pragmatists: Don’t particularly care about ideology; just want to operate without owing boons to Elders and being under a Prince’s thumb. These are the majority.

Nihilists: Use the Anarch banner as cover for being answerable to no one. These are the Anarchs who give the movement its reputation for violence and instability.

Status in the Camarilla

The Camarilla tolerates Anarchs within its cities — barely. A Kindred who identifies as Anarch is not Blood Hunted on sight, but they receive no automatic protection, their boons are viewed with suspicion, and Elders treat them as troublemakers to be managed.

Anarchs who want to operate in Camarilla domains typically navigate a tightrope: participating enough to be useful, resisting enough to maintain their identity, not pushing far enough to become liabilities.

The Brujah Connection

The Anarch movement is predominantly Brujah in composition and flavor. This is not coincidence — the Brujah have the most direct historical grievance (Carthage), the temperamental disposition toward rebellion, and the street-level networks that make Anarch infrastructure functional. Non-Brujah Anarchs sometimes find themselves in a movement that feels like a Brujah franchise.

The Brujah elder/neonate split applies here too: many elder Brujah have accommodated the Camarilla, having learned over centuries that open rebellion is expensive. The Anarch fire tends to burn hottest in those recently Embraced.

Domain Types

Anarch domains do not follow a single model. The ten most common structures:

Status Perfectus

The founding charter of the California Free States. Domains that sign it declare:

1. Independence — free from allegiance to any other creature or organization
2. Self-rule — no Prince, Primogen, or ruler except those freely chosen
3. Solidarity — home offered to all Kindred of any generation or clan willing to dwell in peace
4. Obligation — pledge to assist oppressed Kindred in their struggle for freedom
5. Masquerade — responsibility to protect and defend the Masquerade
6. Recognition — acknowledge the Status Perfectus as binding on all signatories

Domains signing the Status Perfectus typically ban nonconsensual blood bonds. Discovery of forced bonding is grounds for swift, communal response.

Anarch Prestation

The Anarch alternative to the elder system of boons and debts:

• Immediate exchange preferred — Debts completed on the spot feel like honest bargains, not obligation traps.
• Money accepted — Accepting actual currency removes the mystified power dynamic of the elder boon economy.
• Consensual bonds — First-stage partial bonds between willing participants are not forbidden and are sometimes used to solemnize close alliances or partnerships.
• Vaulderie — The ritual method for breaking existing bonds. All participants add blood to a shared chalice and drink in turn. Destroys single-target bonds but creates weak Vinculi between participants. Required in many domains before accepting former Camarilla members. See Ghouls & Blood Bonds for full mechanics.

Progeny in Anarch Domains

Siring is not unilateral. Common governance models:

• Mass vote or elected committee — Domain approves or denies each Embrace request.
• Frankpledge compact — Groups of 6–13 Kindred are formally bound together. Each is answerable for the others. Embracing requires two-thirds agreement within the compact; if a member commits a crime, the whole compact is responsible for bringing them in or faces collective punishment.

New arrivals in most Anarch domains receive courtesy hospitality — freedom to feed at manageable levels — and are formally processed before any action is taken against them. Serious crimes go through an adversarial hearing before a neutral judge before Final Death can be pronounced.

Domain Governance Roles

Baron — Supreme ruler, elected or self-appointed. Holds territory through force and respect. Can be removed; has no institutional backing. A good Baron acts as facilitator of libertas rather than tyrant.

Chancellor — Executive of a parliamentary democracy, typically chosen by the prevailing faction. Similar to a mortal prime minister.

Reeve — Head of law enforcement. In democratic Anarch domains, powers are far less summary than a Camarilla Sheriff — must seek warrants and permits for searches, seizures, and arrests.

Sweeper — Kindred tasked with scouring the domain for new arrivals and reporting to leadership. Often regarded with suspicion.

Legate — Agent of a powerful Anarch domain (especially California cities) sent to allied domains as liaison, spy, and strongarm. Also called the Cheka.

Molotov — A traveling agent provocateur hired by some Anarch domains to harass neighboring Camarilla or Sabbat domains into negotiations while denying involvement.

Old Volunteer — A term of respect for one who distinguished himself in a revolt or war with other sects. In martial domains may form a separate voting body.

Warlord — Top military strategist. Some domains separate wartime leadership (Warlord) from peacetime leadership (called the “old man/old woman” or “red chief/white chief” in imitation of Cherokee governance).

La Libertad — A domain’s anniversary celebration. In California, typically held on Cinco de Mayo; in other places it corresponds to the date of the local revolution. Includes swearing-in of new citizens and rewards for brave deeds.

Compact / Frankpledge System

Many Anarch domains use a compact (also called frankpledge, cumann, circle, posse, krew) as their primary unit of civil organization. Six to thirteen Kindred are formally bound together, collectively answerable for each other’s actions.

• A member who commits a crime brings collective responsibility: the entire compact must bring the member in or faces punishment.
• Embracing a new Kindred typically requires two-thirds agreement within the compact.
• New arrivals may be assigned to compacts with open slots.
• The system creates mutual obligation and peer pressure across gang, clan, and age lines.

Anarch Backgrounds

Anarch Information Exchange

A global informal network allowing Anarchs to tap intelligence about specific vampires, local secrets, domain politics, and sect movements. Each dot grants one question per session. Storyteller determines quality and availability of information.

Types of available information:

• General data on a Kindred: contact information, generation estimate, known clan, lineage, reputation, political affiliations
• Brief knowledge on a topic: “What is Thaumaturgy?” “What does a black crescent moon mean?”
• Sect political events: “What’s happening with the Movement in Naples?” “Who has the Prince of Chicago placed under blood hunt?”

Rare or sensitive information may require a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll to negotiate, or spending 2 of the session’s uses.

Anarch Status

Reputation within the local Anarch community. Reflects memorable deeds and general popularity. May be rolled in conjunction with Social Traits.

Armory

A functional armory with maintenance capability. Scope varies by regional laws — consult Storyteller.

Players may pool Armory points as a shared Background. Maintaining the Armory without other Backgrounds (certain Influences or military Allies) risks official scrutiny.

Anarch Combination Disciplines

Combination Disciplines reflect the Anarch tradition of cooperative learning and sharing supernatural techniques. Most require having tasted the blood of those you extend benefits to.

Call Upon the Blood (Animalism •••, Auspex •••) — XP cost: 18. Spend 1 BP; roll Perception + Animal Ken. Sense the approximate number of Kindred and ghouls in the immediate area by feeling for the Beast in nearby creatures. Range: 1 success = room, 2 = house, 3 = ballroom, 4 = city block, 5 = entire estate. Aware Kindred/ghouls may feel their Beast react. Botch: caster frenzies.

The Humberside Panic (Celerity •, Thaumaturgy •) — XP cost: 6. Spend 1 BP (plus 1 BP per coterie member benefiting). For one turn, each designated member within sight may use the caster’s Celerity rating as if they possessed it themselves. Caster may extend this each subsequent turn at 1 BP per character per turn. Caster must have tasted the vitae of each recipient. Caster must pay all Celerity blood costs. Recipients must be vampires (not mortals, ghouls, or other supernaturals).

Internet Famous (Presence ••••, Thaumaturgy ••••) — XP cost: 30. Spend 1 BP + 1 WP; roll Charisma + Computer (diff 8). Summon all followers on the caster’s social media accounts simultaneously, as if each had been personally targeted with Summon. Mortals likely unaware of the supernatural compulsion. Individual recognizing the power may spend 1 WP to resist. Followers not currently online still feel the Summon via the sympathetic link established by following the account.

Quickshift (Protean ••••, Vicissitude ••) — XP cost: 21. When suffering any hostile action (attack, Discipline, ambush), spend 4 BP to instantly transform into the shape of a beast — no action cost for the next turn. Alternatively, spend 4 BP at the start of a scene to pre-load the effect; it triggers free for the rest of the scene (unspent blood points lost if unused).

Remote Access Buffer (Thaumaturgy •••••, special) — XP cost: 30. Over the course of a scene, encode a single use of a Discipline power into a digital file (email, text, private message) for a proxy to invoke. Proxy uses their own Traits for any activation rolls. File self-destructs after single use. Can create buffers for: Auspex, Chimerstry, Dementation, Dominate, Obfuscate, or Presence. Cost: normal activation cost + 1 BP per level of the power squared (stored). Only Kindred may serve as proxies.

Retain the Quick Blood (Celerity •••, Quietus ••• or Protean •••) — XP cost: 15. Blood spent on Celerity returns to the blood pool at 1 BP per hour. Blood cannot be returned above blood pool maximum — excess is lost.

Slenderman (Auspex •••, Obfuscate ••) — XP cost: 15. When aware of being photographed, reflexively spend 1 BP. The caster appears only as a nondescript humanoid silhouette in the image. For ongoing recording (webcam, video), spend 1 BP on the turn recording begins; continue paying 1 BP per turn to maintain the effect — unpaid turns reveal the caster’s identity.

Smiling Jack’s Trick (Dominate •••, Obfuscate •••) — XP cost: 18. Contested roll: caster’s Manipulation + Performance (diff = subject’s Intelligence + 5, max 10) vs. subject’s Wits + Subterfuge (diff 7). If caster wins, target transposes caster’s identity with another Kindred in line of sight — mistaking one for the other — for 1 hour minus 10 minutes × the subject’s Intelligence. Dominate-based: only works on equal or lower Generation targets.

Stonesight (Auspex •, Visceratika •) — XP cost: 3. Spend 1 BP. See through a 3-foot × 3-foot area of stone up to 3 feet deep for one scene, as if it were glass. The stone appears transparent from the caster’s side only — what’s on the other side cannot see the caster through it.

Suck It Up (Animalism •, Protean ••) — XP cost: 9. Touch a pool of spilled blood; draw it directly into the blood pool up to the caster’s maximum. Completely cleans the surface if the caster chooses. Does not require mouth contact.

Tenebrous Veil (Obfuscate •, Obtenebration •) — XP cost: 6. No roll required. As long as at least one square foot of shadow is present, the caster can bend it around her body and remain effectively unseen as long as she stays motionless. Combines the principles of Obtenebration and Obfuscate; simple but highly effective.

Anarch Elder Disciplines

Signature powers of Anarch elders — older in style than the tech-inflected combination disciplines, drawing on the brutal nights of the early Movement.

Alabastard (Fortitude ●●●●● ●) — Spend 1 BP. For the rest of the scene, the vampire ignores all wound penalties and movement penalties from damage suffered. The Storyteller may impose logical situational penalties for extreme injuries (bisection).

Oathbreaker (Vicissitude ●●●●● ●●●) — Spend 1 BP + 1 WP. Each BP of caster’s blood is imbued with the power to suborn a blood bond. The imbued blood retains this property for one night. A vampire who consumes it immediately ceases to feel the blood bond. This freedom lasts one month and one night. At the end of that period, caster may spend 1 WP to replace the suborned bond with an illusory bond to herself (lasts 1 night), or spend 10 WP in a single scene to sustain the illusory bond for 1 year and a night. If the caster does not renew at the renewal point, the original bond returns and the false one ceases immediately.

Scourging the Instinct (Presence ●●●●● ●●) — Roll Charisma + Leadership (diff 7). Those who hear the caster’s revolutionary speech allow their Beasts to rise and go into “Instinct mode” regardless of their actual Virtues (see V20 p.314–315). Number affected by success: 1 / 2 / 6 / 20 / everyone in immediate vicinity (auditorium, gathered mob). Dangerous — few modern Anarchs use it.

Tireless Tread (Celerity ●●●●● ●) — Spend 1 BP per night. Tread at 50 miles per hour. Minimum travel required: 8 hours (minimum 400 miles) or the power fails entirely. Creates no traceable paper trail — no tickets, plates, or records. If the vampire tarries excessively, the traveler’s rhythm breaks and the power fails.

Turnabout (Protean ●●●●● ●●) — Spend 2 BP. On the turn after melding into the ground, the vampire emerges behind or to either side of her enemies (caster’s choice). May also move up to 50 feet in any direction while underground in the single turn spent under the surface. Primary difference from Earth Meld: rapid emergence from a different position in the same turn.

Vengeance of the Martyr’s Legacy (Presence ●●●●● or ●●●●● ●●)

• Impulse variant (Presence 6): Spend 1 WP. All of the caster’s descendants make a Self-Control roll (diff 8) wherever they are — including those in day sleep.
• Mandate variant (Presence 7): Spend 1 WP. All of the caster’s descendants enter frenzy without a roll (may briefly subvert frenzy with Willpower as normal). Worldwide and unlimited in range.

Key Figures

Jeremy MacNeil — Brujah elder, the closest thing the Movement has to a founding father. MacNeil organized the Second Anarch Revolt in California in the 1940s and drove the last Camarilla Princes out of Los Angeles. His politics are Carthaginian in the most literal sense: he genuinely believes what Brujah believe about what Carthage was, and he has spent centuries trying to rebuild something like it. MacNeil is not a warlord by temperament — he is a philosopher who became a general because someone had to. His name carries weight across the Free States not because he demands respect but because the Free States would not exist without him. He holds no formal title and prefers it that way.

Smiling Jack — Brujah elder, pirate, folk hero, and career irritant to the Camarilla. Jack has been causing problems for Princes and Archons since the colonial period and shows no sign of stopping. He specializes in operations that are deniable, embarrassing, and expensive — the kind that leave Elders looking incompetent without giving them a clean target to Blood Hunt. He loves chaos the way other Kindred love gold: not for what it buys, but for itself. He has no territory, no title, and no fixed base of operations, which makes him essentially impossible to neutralize. Anarchs tell stories about him the way mortals tell stories about outlaws. Many of those stories are true. Some are not. Jack does not correct either kind.

Nines Rodriguez — Brujah, Baron of Los Angeles, the face of street-level Anarch politics in the modern nights. Rodriguez is not an idealist and does not pretend to be — he is a pragmatist who holds territory because someone competent needs to hold it. He came up through gang culture in East LA and carries that sensibility into his politics: respect is earned, loyalty is reciprocal, and anyone who mistakes pragmatism for weakness is going to find out differently. He lacks MacNeil’s philosophical depth and doesn’t claim to have it. What he has is credibility with the kind of Anarchs who would never sit still for a speech about Carthage, and that makes him indispensable.

Salvador Garcia — Brujah elder, the Movement’s general. Garcia organized the military defense of the Free States and has spent decades keeping California from being overrun by Sabbat incursions from the south. He thinks in terms of lines, logistics, and force ratios. His politics are Anarch but his methods are military, and the combination makes him difficult to categorize — too organized for the nihilists, too martial for the idealists. He respects MacNeil, tolerates Nines, and has a cold professional relationship with most of the rest. The Free States survive in part because Garcia treats their defense as a professional obligation rather than an ideological project.

Don Sebastian — Lasombra Baron of Los Angeles, which is a useful reminder that the Anarch Movement is not simply a Brujah operation. Sebastian is old money — or what passes for it among vampires — with a courtly manner that sits oddly against the Anarch context. He holds his territory through a combination of political sophistication and controlled violence, neither of which he apologizes for. His presence in the Free States represents a recurring Anarch tension: the movement attracts Kindred who want freedom from Camarilla hierarchy, and some of those Kindred bring their own hierarchies with them. Sebastian is not ideologically Anarch. He is pragmatically Anarch, which in his case amounts to the same thing.

Clans in the Movement

The Anarch Movement is not a clan. Any Kindred can be Anarch. In practice, some clans are heavily represented and others are nearly absent.

The clans least represented in the Movement are Tremere (who have their own hierarchy and rarely abandon it) and Ventrue (whose entire identity is invested in the system the Anarchs oppose). Individual exceptions exist.

Territories

The Anarch Movement has no unified map. The following are the most significant concentrations as of the modern nights.

California Free States — The Movement’s flagship achievement. Los Angeles is the center, governed by a loose coalition of Barons with MacNeil as a background presence and Nines Rodriguez as the most visible active figure. San Francisco is more complicated: the city has a history of Camarilla presence and the balance of power shifts. The coastal Free States represent the most organized Anarch governance in North America, which is not saying much — they are fractious, internally violent, and under constant pressure from Sabbat incursions from Mexico. The Free States look more stable from the outside than they are from within.

Chicago — Chicago is a Camarilla city under Prince Lodin’s control, but it contains a significant Anarch fifth column operating below the Prince’s tolerance threshold. These Anarchs are not strong enough to challenge the Camarilla directly and know it. They exist as a pressure release valve — feeding on territory the Elders don’t want to manage, keeping certain neighborhoods quiet, occasionally being used by Elders who want something done without fingerprints. The arrangement suits neither side but persists because dismantling it costs more than maintaining it.

Detroit — Contested. The Camarilla has struggled to maintain control of Detroit, and Sabbat pressure from the east keeps the situation unstable. Anarchs operate in the gaps, controlling industrial and suburban territories that neither major sect has fully absorbed. Detroit Anarch domains tend toward the anocratic end of the spectrum — multiple factions in ongoing low-level conflict rather than any unified governance.

The Midwest — Scattered pockets throughout Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and the upper plains. These domains are typically small, isolated, and vulnerable. Frontier territory in most cases, with the attendant lack of organization. Midwest Anarchs tend to be pragmatists by necessity rather than idealists by choice.

Europe — The Movement exists in Europe but is weaker than in North America. European Kindred society is older and more calcified; Camarilla control is deeper and more interwoven with mortal institutions. There are Anarch enclaves in several cities — notably in parts of Spain, Portugal, and Eastern Europe where Camarilla authority has historically been thinner — but nothing comparable to the California Free States. European Anarchs are more likely to operate as fifth columns within Camarilla domains than to hold independent territory.

The “Free States” designation is less stable than it sounds. A Free State is only as free as its defenders can keep it tonight.

Territory holdings reflect Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (White Wolf/Onyx Path, 2018; V5 metaplot era, approximately mid-2010s). The Movement’s footprint in 1990 — the chronicle’s in-game date — differs: the California Free States are more recently won and less settled; Chicago’s fifth column operates under Lodin’s stronger pre-fall Princedom; eastern Sabbat pressure is not yet as acute.

Relations with Other Sects

Camarilla

The Camarilla’s official position is that the Anarchs are a tolerated internal faction — troublemakers, but not enemies in the way the Sabbat is enemies. In practice, Camarilla cities maintain a grudging accommodation with Anarchs who operate within them. Elders prefer co-optation to Blood Hunt: a Blood Hunt creates martyrs, wastes resources, and doesn’t address the underlying conditions that produce Anarchs. Better to give them enough territory to feel free while keeping them dependent on Camarilla infrastructure.

Anarchs inside Camarilla cities function as unofficial fifth columns — present enough to be useful, nominally compliant, and always aware that their tolerance is provisional. They handle tasks the Elders don’t want attributed to them and maintain neighborhoods that aren’t worth Elder investment. The relationship is transactional and neither side pretends otherwise. When an Anarch pushes too far, the Camarilla responds with force. When the Camarilla needs something done quietly, it calls the Anarchs.

Sabbat

The Camarilla and many Anarchs themselves perpetuate the confusion between Anarch and Sabbat, but they are not the same thing. Anarchs rejected Camarilla hierarchy; the Sabbat rejected the entire premise of Kindred society as humans understand it. Anarchs do not, as a rule, want to be Cainite fanatics conducting mass Embraces and dedicating their unlives to waking Antediluvians. Most Anarchs are too invested in mortal life — its culture, its pleasures, its politics — to follow the Sabbat path.

The border between “Anarch” and “Sabbat” is sometimes purely geographic. Anarch domains in areas under Sabbat pressure have been converted by raid and attrition, their populations absorbed or destroyed. Individual Anarchs have defected to the Sabbat when their domains fell. The Sabbat is aware of this and actively recruits from Anarch populations, targeting the nihilist wing with considerable success. The Anarch Movement has no coherent response to Sabbat raids beyond local defense.

Independent Clans

Relations with the Independent clans are transactional. The Independents are not interested in Anarch ideology and the Anarchs have no particular grievance with the Independents — the relationship defaults to business.

Assamites will work for Anarch Barons as enforcers and assassins; Anarch domains that can pay the clan’s rates get capable, professional muscle without political entanglement. Setites exploit Anarch chaos reliably — free domains with loose social control are ideal environments for establishing vice networks, and Setite missionaries find the nihilist and pragmatist wings of the Movement receptive to their particular offerings. Ravnos are naturally suited to Anarch domain structures: their independence and mobility fit frontier territories and fifth column operations, and their disregard for property claims aligns with Anarch communal feeding principles, at least in theory.

None of these relationships involve trust or solidarity. They involve mutual utility, which is more durable.