Path of Typhon
Although the Camarilla does not revile the Setites as much as it does the Sabbat, this is largely because the Setites take a less active stance against the goals of the Camarilla. The Camarilla is too busy worrying about the blood-crazed berserkers of the Black Hand to notice the snakes softly hissing in the shadows. This ignorance is a terrible mistake, and one that may well reap a bitter harvest in the nights to come.
Certainly no Setites are more sinister than those who follow the shadowy Path of Typhon. The tenets of the Path of Typhon are anathema to all that most mortals, and many Kindred, hold dear. To those on this Path, corruption, pain, lies and sin are things to be cherished and spread throughout existence. Misery is not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. As far as the followers of Typhon are concerned, everyone is missing the point. Most systems of belief espouse rigid control over one's bestial nature in order to overcome and purge oneself of the world's horrors.
The Typhonites instead espouse the opposite: a complete immersion in one's weaknesses and an active embrace of the world's misery. Only through such can evil be understood, and only through understanding can it truly be purged - or assimilated. The world is not some pristine, sanitized Raphaelite heaven, the Typhonites argue, but a filthy cesspool of agony, struggle and turmoil. True happiness - fleeting as it is - is only gained through succumbing to one's carnal desires. One had best understand and accept whereone is before attempting to move on to some vaguely conceived afterlife.Of all the Paths, the Path of Typhon is the most like a religion (as opposed to a philosophy). Its practitioners are rumored to worship various entities - perhaps personifications of various sins, perhaps otherwise - through blood libations and sacrifice. Through such worship, the Typhonites believe, mystic understanding may be gleaned. In order to achieve enlightenment, the followers of this Path continually seek to spread war, plague, poverty, filth, stagnation and fear through the world. Through the creation and study of such phenomena, the Typhonites hope to discover the truths about, and behind, earthly existence.
The followers of the Path first practice their tenets upon others. As they advance in mystic understanding, however, they even begin to practice their principles upon themselves; self-flagellation, self-mutilation and other masochistic depredations are commonplace among the enlightened. Only through a complete mortification of their flesh may they transcend their earthly limitations and dead flesh is difficult indeed to mortify.
There are rumors that those Setites who progress to the highest (lowest?) levels of the Path of Typhon become so riddled with external and internal foulness that they divorce themselves from any connection to the natural world whatsoever. Such transcendents devolve into quasiorganic embodiments of corruption. These stinking, bloated masses are housed in the depths of the most secret Setite temples. There they perpetually rot, and wail blasphemies in the dark.
Ethics
· The ideals of purity and spiritual progress espoused by the mortals are lies designed to keep one from one's destiny.
· Only in corruption - by succumbing to all that is considered impure, vile and weak - may true enlightenment be found. In weakness lies the greatest strength of all.
· Decay is inevitable; struggle against such is futile.
· Force others to see themselves as they are, and to accept what they see.· Mortals are suitable subjects for physiological and psychological experimentation to advance the arts of depravity and deformity. Practice such experiments whenever possible.
· Golconda is the ultimate truth, and thus the ultimate lie. Corrupt its practitioners over all others. If this cannot be accomplished, destroy them by the most horrific methods imaginable.
History
This is one of the oldest of the Paths, and is believed to have been developed by Set himself. If this is true, the implications are frightening; what could inspire an Antediluvian, himself a virtual god, to formulate a code of belief and worship? The Path, and its followers, have long inspired revulsion and terror among Kindred and kine alike. Even the mortals, who have never fully comprehended the nature of the Path or its followers, have for millennia whispered dark tales of demonic cults.
Hierarchy of Sins
10 - Attempting to maintain any sense of self-control, purity or worth
9 - Refusing to succumb to one's own weaknesses (this includes attempting to avoid frenzy or Rotschreck)
8 - Failing to destroy a vampire in Golconda
7 - Destroying a foe expediently and mercifully rather than "poetically"
6 - Failing to undermine the current social order in favor of the Setites
5 - Failing to replace faith with cynicism and despair
4 - Failing to exploit another's weaknesses
3 - Allowing one's feelings for a mortal to override the need to corrupt said mortal
2 - Refusing to corrupt a vampire for the Setites
1 - Not attempting to awaken Set at the earliest opportunity