The dead scientist who experiments on humans, werewolves, and fairies in a sterile white laboratory. The occult archaeologist who rifles through the tombs of the terrifying beasts of old. The chillingly plausible preacher who leads his disciples into self-mutilation and surgical alteration. The robed cultists whose rituals depend on the sacrifice of angels. These are the Ordo Dracul. They are the Order of the Dragon, the children of Dracula himself. They adopt mystical names, play at arcane ceremonies, forge underground fighting rings, start cults, explore places they should not go. The Ordo Dracul knows more about the hidden world than perhaps any other group of vampires. If they do not always share the things they’ve learned with each other, they still have a source of knowledge and experience that ensures the other covenants keep them around. Like the Lancea et Sanctum, the self-styled Dragons seek knowledge through seeking out artifacts and text. But while the Sanctified seem to collect it to keep it or destroy it, the Dragons, instructed by their cold leaders, whom they call the Kogaions, collect it to learn about it and make use of it, no matter how dangerous it might be. It has to have a purpose. Nothing the Ordo Dracul learns is without a use. Everything works towards tightly defined goals: the betterment of the vampire condition, the amassing of an individual’s supernatural power, and the defeat of God. Like the Sanctified, the vampires of the Ordo Dracul teach their neonates that God ordained that they be vampires; but in their eyes, this makes God an enemy. They spit in the face of God’s injustice. God is senile, they say. God is mad. God must be torn down from his throne. They would fight angels themselves to weaken God’s hold on the Damned. The goal is life, but not simple human life: the life of an immortal, unleashed by the curse of mortality and the curse of undeath alike. The spiritual disciplines taught by the Order, the Coils, don’t quite get a vampire there, but it’s a start. And a start on the road to transcendence is enough. ---- The Ordo Dracul isn't the most numerous of the covenants but it's extremely well-placed at the High Prince's table and it boasts a larger-than-average share of elder Dragons in its membership. Like the Circle of the Crone, the Dragons are well aware of the mystical undercurrents within the city. They track the ley lines on maps and pinpoint the Nests they can locate. They see the Circle and the werewolves warring over a piece of land. They don't interfere. They watch. They record their notes. They add it to their knowledge. Paradi City is a godless place and the Ordo Dracul drinks deeply of its blood. A monument to hubris? To sin? No, a modern day Tower of Babel or Sodom that the Almighty hasn't been able to topple. The city is a machine unto itself, as if with a life and will of its own, and it reaches ever outwards and ever upwards. The Dragons will change as the city changes and they'll become something else entirely as Paradi transcends its own limits. The Ordo doesn't deal with politics, which left the other covenants unprepared when they sided with Tobias Van Dorn two decades ago. It drove a wedge between the First and Second Estates that exists to this day and replaced the Sanctified as the mystical advisors to the High Prince. Athiee is a powerful, elder Dragon but even he answers to his superiors within the covenant. Why did the Ordo choose to get involved in such a way? They're not in the habit of explaining it to outsiders. Dragons are instructed to observe the actions of the Others and the other covenants. They're not to interfere unless needed but to report anything of note to their superiors. Live specimens are always welcome and there have been a few dissections of these new shapeshifters, with some very interesting knowledge gleaned. The wizards are also monitored and sometimes contacted. The Ordo as a whole is building to something in tandem with the city and their chrysalis approaches ever nearer.