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Giovanni (World of Darkness)
Encyclopedia
The Giovanni are a clan
of vampire
s, from White Wolf Game Studio
's Vampire: The Masquerade
book
s and role-playing game
s. In the newest version of White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem
role-playing game they are a bloodline of the Mekhet Clan called the San Giovanni (or Sangiovanni).
The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and the youngest clan of Caine, the Giovanni are both a clan and a family. They Embrace exclusively within their family (one of many things kept within the family), and are heavily focused on two goals: money and (necromantic) power. Unlike most vampires, the Giovanni are associated with neither the Camarilla
nor the Sabbat. Much of the Giovanni symbol
ism is Italian
, and the organization
was founded in Venice
(c.1000 AD). Their symbol is the Giovanni seal
.
The Giovanni Family is an enigma, standing outside Kindred politics, and is the only clan to have truly done so since its inception, The Giovanni have a reputation that causes most fellow Kindred to avoid them at all costs. The clan’s taste for the morbid is something that even the stuffy Ventrue
and the wild Brujah
can agree is not natural. They are the only clan that knows the joy of life, the dark twilight of unlife and the bitter ashes of true death.
Founded during the Dark Ages and coming to ascendance in the Renaissance
, the Family of Giovanni has since grown to include several other families. They are now stronger than they have ever been, while all around them disintegrate into dust. Still, suspicion of this clan has continued to the present day. By staying neutral in quaint battles, the Giovanni have had free rein to build their merchant empire. The clan's wealth is quite sizeable, but no one knows the exact purpose for which it employs this wealth. Few outsiders have ever taken part in the clan's necromantic rituals, so the purpose of these is likewise a mystery. Instead, suspicions and innuendoes have taken the places of facts and truths. Clan Giovanni is one of the more rigidly controlled clans and contact is constantly maintained between members of the clan.
When a Giovanni bites a living being, they deal more damage and pain than "normal". This makes it difficult to keep people alive after feeding from them. In the modern nights, the Giovanni tend to have clandestine deals with blood-banks and many feed from the newly dead to avoid this nasty inconvenience. This unique clan weakness (distinguishing itself from the old Cappadocian
clan) is believed to be the result of when Giovanni diablerized Lamia and the Lamia bloodline of clan Cappadocian.
. Originally embraced into the Cappadocian clan, on April 12, 1444 he rose up against his sire, and committed the act of diablerie
. His family hunted down the rest of the Cappadocian clan to extinction.
uous and practice necromancy
. Unlike the bite of other vampires in the World of Darkness (whose bites induce a stupefying pleasure), the bite of a Giovanni (the so-called "Giovanni Kiss") is extremely pain
ful. Many Giovanni prefer taking blood from blood-banks or corpses (instead of living human
s).
There are very few Kindred who operate outside the Giovanni family, due to the insular nature of the clan, and the family structure. While members of the Ventrue and Lasombra clans spend up to 10 years evaluating and testing potential embraces, and the Tremere have a rigid apprenticeship where ghouls serve as acolytes for many ranks, the Giovanni embrace strictly within Family lines. Candidates are bred into the Clan and taught from the time that they can speak that the Family is everything. The most promising members of the generation are ghouled. Only those who show enough promise as a ghoul are embraced.
Potential Giovanni have many opportunities to betray the Family long before they're even ghouled. Those who show signs of disloyalty are simply never embraced. Furthermore, even after the embrace, the traffic in wraiths and unwilling spirits is significant enough that should a Giovanni betray the Family, one of the wraiths they've been abusing would use the excuse to inform on them.
Premascine often have Giovanni clan disciplines, but the Cappadocian weakness. Additionally, some of the Giovanni families are Premascine (such as the Rosselini). Their name is Latin for "before the bite".
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
of vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s, from White Wolf Game Studio
White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
's Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game. Created by Mark Rein·Hagen, it was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampires in a modern gothic-punk world....
book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s and role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s. In the newest version of White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem
Vampire: The Requiem
Vampire: The Requiem is a role-playing game published by White Wolf, set in the World of Darkness, and the successor to the Vampire: The Masquerade line. It was first released in August 2004, together with a new core rule book for the World of Darkness...
role-playing game they are a bloodline of the Mekhet Clan called the San Giovanni (or Sangiovanni).
The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and the youngest clan of Caine, the Giovanni are both a clan and a family. They Embrace exclusively within their family (one of many things kept within the family), and are heavily focused on two goals: money and (necromantic) power. Unlike most vampires, the Giovanni are associated with neither the Camarilla
Camarilla
Camarilla may refer to:*Camarilla, an unofficial group of courtiers or favorites surrounding and influencing a king or ruler, specifically the two such groups prominent in German history....
nor the Sabbat. Much of the Giovanni symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism is Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and the organization
Organization
An organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...
was founded in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
(c.1000 AD). Their symbol is the Giovanni seal
Seal (device)
A seal can be a figure impressed in wax, clay, or some other medium, or embossed on paper, with the purpose of authenticating a document ; but the term can also mean the device for making such impressions, being essentially a mould with the mirror image of the design carved in sunken- relief or...
.
The Giovanni Family is an enigma, standing outside Kindred politics, and is the only clan to have truly done so since its inception, The Giovanni have a reputation that causes most fellow Kindred to avoid them at all costs. The clan’s taste for the morbid is something that even the stuffy Ventrue
Ventrue
The Ventrue are a clan of vampires, associated with the Camarilla, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, and books and role-playing games. Their symbol is a scepter....
and the wild Brujah
Brujah
The Brujah are a clan of vampires in White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness books and role-playing settings. Their name is derived from Bruja, the Spanish word for witch....
can agree is not natural. They are the only clan that knows the joy of life, the dark twilight of unlife and the bitter ashes of true death.
Founded during the Dark Ages and coming to ascendance in the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, the Family of Giovanni has since grown to include several other families. They are now stronger than they have ever been, while all around them disintegrate into dust. Still, suspicion of this clan has continued to the present day. By staying neutral in quaint battles, the Giovanni have had free rein to build their merchant empire. The clan's wealth is quite sizeable, but no one knows the exact purpose for which it employs this wealth. Few outsiders have ever taken part in the clan's necromantic rituals, so the purpose of these is likewise a mystery. Instead, suspicions and innuendoes have taken the places of facts and truths. Clan Giovanni is one of the more rigidly controlled clans and contact is constantly maintained between members of the clan.
When a Giovanni bites a living being, they deal more damage and pain than "normal". This makes it difficult to keep people alive after feeding from them. In the modern nights, the Giovanni tend to have clandestine deals with blood-banks and many feed from the newly dead to avoid this nasty inconvenience. This unique clan weakness (distinguishing itself from the old Cappadocian
Cappadocian (World of Darkness)
The Cappadocians are a clan of vampires from White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games Vampire: The Dark Ages and Vampire: The Masquerade....
clan) is believed to be the result of when Giovanni diablerized Lamia and the Lamia bloodline of clan Cappadocian.
Augustus Giovanni
Augustus Giovanni is the head of the Giovanni Family, a massive merchant family who made their mark on the world by being war profiteers from the CrusadesCrusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
. Originally embraced into the Cappadocian clan, on April 12, 1444 he rose up against his sire, and committed the act of diablerie
Diablerie
In the context of White Wolf Game Studio's vampire books and role-playing games from the World of Darkness, diablerie takes place when a vampire drinks not only all the blood of another vampire but also their soul, generally in order to increase their own powers...
. His family hunted down the rest of the Cappadocian clan to extinction.
Families
Most of the Giovanni are related to one another by birth in addition to their shared vampiric lineage; a number of their families are incestIncest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous and practice necromancy
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
. Unlike the bite of other vampires in the World of Darkness (whose bites induce a stupefying pleasure), the bite of a Giovanni (the so-called "Giovanni Kiss") is extremely pain
Pain
Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
ful. Many Giovanni prefer taking blood from blood-banks or corpses (instead of living human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s).
There are very few Kindred who operate outside the Giovanni family, due to the insular nature of the clan, and the family structure. While members of the Ventrue and Lasombra clans spend up to 10 years evaluating and testing potential embraces, and the Tremere have a rigid apprenticeship where ghouls serve as acolytes for many ranks, the Giovanni embrace strictly within Family lines. Candidates are bred into the Clan and taught from the time that they can speak that the Family is everything. The most promising members of the generation are ghouled. Only those who show enough promise as a ghoul are embraced.
Potential Giovanni have many opportunities to betray the Family long before they're even ghouled. Those who show signs of disloyalty are simply never embraced. Furthermore, even after the embrace, the traffic in wraiths and unwilling spirits is significant enough that should a Giovanni betray the Family, one of the wraiths they've been abusing would use the excuse to inform on them.
- Pisanob: Descendants of AztecAztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
and MayanMaya civilizationThe Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
priests from MesoamericaMesoamericaMesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
. Their power base lie in the badlands of Mexico and South America. - Hidalgo: Another branch of the family that originated within Mexico. Rumored to be wiped out by the Sabbat as contact with them has been broken.
- Rosselini: From a similar Roman decent as the Giovanni. Also accomplished necromancers who typically exert force even when force isn't necessary to control their wraithly servants. Considered near equal to the main family.
- Milliners: A family of bankers without par. The head of the Milliners has a longstanding hatred for the KennedysKennedy familyIn the United States, the phrase Kennedy family commonly refers to the family descending from the marriage of the Irish-Americans Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald that was prominent in American politics and government. Their political involvement has revolved around the...
. While not interested in necromancy, they excel at finance. The Milliners are a prime factor in Giovanni control of Boston. - della Passaglia: Another family of traders who were rumored to have been connected to the great Marco PoloMarco PoloMarco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
himself. They now serve as the Giovanni connection to Asian thanotology and their prime Asian mercantile business men. - Ghiberti: A branch of the family from AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and responsible for involving the Giovanni in the United States, West Africa, and West Indies trade triangle. Also responsible for inventing the Cenotaph path of necromancy. This path allows the necromancer control and even reassignment of a wraith's fetter. - Dunsirn: A ScottishScottish peopleThe Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
branch of the Giovanni. Savvy bankers with a nasty taste for cannibalismCannibalismCannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
. - Putanesca: Sicilian thugs with a temper that puts the Brujah to shame. Every clan has to have their guys to do the dirty work, and the Giovanni have the Putanesca.
- St John: Cabal of English MasonsFreemasonryFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. - Beryn: FlemishFlemish peopleThe Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
traders with inroads into Africa similar to the Ghiberti. - Rothstein: Jewish-American Kabbalists who seem to be centered in Las Vegas.
- Li Weng: Chinese geomancersGeomancyGeomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand...
based out of San Francisco's ChinatownChinatownA Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
.
Premascine
Technically a bloodline of Cappadocian Clan, the Premascine are Giovanni who were Embraced before the diablerie of Cappadocius. The Premascines are members of the Giovanni family, but are separated from the main clan by their old age, strong powers, and their choice of habitat; Premascines generally live in the canals underneath Venice. They live on the blood of the sea life and the occasional human they surface and drain. Under there they conduct bizarre and powerful necromantic experiments which they only occasionally inform the rest of the clan about. They are largely a footnote to Giovanni existence, although an inordinately powerful and foul-tempered one.Premascine often have Giovanni clan disciplines, but the Cappadocian weakness. Additionally, some of the Giovanni families are Premascine (such as the Rosselini). Their name is Latin for "before the bite".
Further reading
- Vampire: The MasqueradeVampire: The MasqueradeVampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game. Created by Mark Rein·Hagen, it was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampires in a modern gothic-punk world....
(3rd Edition) by Justin Achilli (White Wolf Game StudioWhite Wolf, Inc.White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
) (1998) - Clanbook: Giovanni by Justin Achilli (White Wolf Game Studio) (1997) ISBN 1565042182