LeviathanTempest:BetemDevotion

The School of Fog

(Bet’em's Devotion, The Questioning School)

[Picture: The Symbol of Bet’em's Devotion: A swirling sea, from which emerges numerous sea-serpent like forms, as if on an old map. This serves as a watermark]

[Picture: Central. View from behind and to the left - A black man with a shaved head stands in front of a high metallic table, wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts, no shoes. He rests his left arm on the table, palm up. A segment of flesh on the underside of the forearm is flayed open and held in place by surgical clamps. Blood stains the table around the arm, with crawling and writhing shapes, suggesting primitive, half-formed life, emerging from it. His other arm holds a scalpel, hovering over the flayed limb. The man's face is impassive. On either side of his head there is a curved line of white, shark-like eyes above the tips of his ears. The eyes glow slightly. A magnifying glass, pen, notebook, and camera all sit on the table, to the man's right side.]

The bloodline of the Tribe is heavy with mysteries and hidden lore that, if revealed, would alter much of mankind's conception of history and reality. The School of Fog is composed of those Leviathans that, knowing this, seek answers and truth within the Tribe itself. Probing their lineage and observing their fellows, they attempt to recreate the Tribe's society and birthrights from the hints provided by its current incarnation.

This interest in the Tribe leads the Questioning School to do just that - question. Their primary historical interest is with cultural relics of the Tribe itself, but also records - codes of morality, edicts, and legends. They seek, by analyzing these, to find the essence of the Tribe itself - some central truth that shapes a society that fulfills them and expresses their origins. More than this, the School actively places itself in contention with the other Schools, pushing members to codify their beliefs or defend their theories - the Devotees of Fog consider themselves the lens that turns on the Tribe.

The goal of all these questions and considerations is a sense of personal history and placement - the creation of a "divine lineage" that terminates in the Tribe, whose statutes can guide actions and whose exploits can be emulated. In a sense, the project is the creation of a true Tribe, one united in thought and deed as well as by blood. In the stability of an expressed and fulfilling history, the Devotee seeks Tranquility.

Membership

The School of Fog is often branded as a "scholarly" pursuit, and that charge bears some weight. Many of the minds that turn towards cataloguing of the Tribe's own culture are those that would have pursued similar lines in human life - anthropologists, cultural scholars, and psychologists. The study of the Tribe's blood and the secrets it contains, however, also lures the interest of minds involved in the natural sciences. Beyond this label, though, the Questioning School is also host to those whose perspectives perhaps naturally placed them as outsiders from society - the destitute and disenfranchised.

The driving force behind the School of Fog is an interest in origins and hidden drives - an urge to know the how and why of things. The Questioning School is made up of those that push, and seek, and pick at scabs - they're the sort of people that fling themselves at every question until they have an answer.

Transformation

The School of Fog's interest lies in the Tribe's origins and traits. As such, their transformations tend to echo the fertility and oddity of the line itself - growing additional limbs, eyes, or even whole heads, or taking on constantly-shifting, flexible forms. In particular the acknowledged trait of the School is additional, unblinking eyes and the adoption of shapes that conjure up the image of confusing and alien creatures, long-dead or never-were. The greatest mysteries of the fossil record and the darkest speculations of marine biologists take shape in the manifestations of Bet'em's Devoted.

Character Creation

Unusual in relationship to the other Devotions, Bet’em's Devotion focuses primarily on Finesse Attributes - they approach problems with dexterity and ingenuity rather than pure force. Social Attributes are the most favored, as the School of Fog is also the primary organizing body of the Tribe.

Fringe knowledge is the bastion of the Questioning School, and their ratings in Occult and Streetwise tend to be quite high - they are the quiet monitors of hidden corners and lost facts. Most have a strong set of Social Skills, however, in order to better deal with their fellows - different methods being needed for dealing with different Leviathans. Physical Skills, when taken, tend to focus on evasion and obfuscation.

Mental and Social Merits are quite prevalent, and Devotees of Fog are the most likely to have allies and contacts among their fellow Tribe members. Their Cults tend to be extensive but constantly fluctuating as old doctrines are considered, refuted, and revised - it takes a certain sort of mind to put faith in something that is ever changing, even if it claims to be ever improving.

Role

Questions are the strength of the Questioning School. They take contrary positions to their Cohort and push them to explain themselves - trying to cause them to think about themsleves and what they do. Beyond this, they are also lynchpins in Tribe society. Their knowledge of the bloodline provides them a certain encyclopedic awareness of facts about Leviathans, but by far their greatest contribution is the ability to guide and unite their fellows. A Devotee of Fog's dedication is the element necessary to try and prod the otherwise solitary Tribe into a functioning social unit.

The School of Fog could not, in some meaningful fashion, exist without Cohorts. The School's justification and primary grounds of exploration lie with the Tribe - it is only with them that the Devotee's searches are not grounded in his own thought, and it is only his fellows that can push him to truly question his own observations.

Vestiges

The Questioning School includes those that are at the forefront of the study of the nature and place of the Tribe in the universe. They push to unlock the divine nature of their bloodline and exhibit the role that they believe they are meant to hold.

The School of Fog grants a discount on purchasing Evolutions to Vestiges of Elements and Fecundity.

Traditions

Members of the School of Fog may select a free specialization for one of the following Skills: Occult, Stealth, and Streetwise.

Concepts

Avant garde poet or musician, poststructuralist lecturer, performance artist, information warfare specialist, human resources consultant, busker, genealogy buff

Quote

"There are things more clever and stronger things than us out there, but there's nobody who can take care of business like we can. In a week, I can gather ten people like you, as hard and as dedicated. Now tell me: who can stand against that?."

Stereotypes

• School of the Abyss: "What are you hiding from?"
• School of the Sun: "Haven't you heard? Buddha is not the Way!"
• School of Clay "Take your time. We'll always be here for you."
• School of the Reef: "You've got the strength, I have the vision."

• Typhons: "How lonely they must have been!"
• Hybrids: "What distant horrors do their bloodlines hint at?"
• Other Creatures: "Really? Tell me more."
• Mortals: "We're going to have to stand together to survive in their world."

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