The Memorial held for Father Vincent was truly a beautiful occasion.

So many people from the last 30 years of Vampyre Community (VC) history came together to celebrate the life and memory of Father Vincent. The amount of living history that mingled together in that room was insane. The cords of decades of connections and reconnections between people were palpable. The energy was heavy and bittersweet, but the joy in the  celebration of his life was a clear extension of the love Father Vincent  bestowed upon his community.

However, what stirred underneath it all, beyond the surface of these celebrations, are the schemes and plots that stir for what people perceive as power. It’s not being talked about as much on the surface level, but the concern for what the hungry and ambitious are going to attempt to do now that things have shifted is certainly there.

What you may or may not know about the Vampyre Community is that there are pseudo-royal dynamics implemented all over the place. Vampire Courts have Kings, Queens, Princes & Princesses, Dukes, Viscounts, etc. They take it relatively seriously sometimes. Some factions embrace it, others shun it with extreme fervor. It’s up to the individual how much they want to tolerate, let alone embrace, when it comes to royal dynamics or any other such hierarchical systems. This is something I learned after being slingshot directly into the VC and its royal shit show. Which is fine, it’s cool… that experience is what molded me into what I am today so it’s all good… but that’s not the point. We’re talking about the royals, anywho…

The reality of the VC from the 90s on is that a lot of Vampyres found each other through Vampire: the Masquerade(V:tM) Live Action Role Play (Larp) games. They adopted LARP mechanics, behaviors, and lore into their real world identity and spirituality. They adopted clans like astrology signs  (no really, look in the Gotham Archives) by matching with the one your personality was closest to. You can see the constant cyclical influence of V:tM on the community through the 90s up until today. There are several clans, even ones photoed above, that are named and modeled off of V:tM clans. So, anyone who claims roleplay has “never had anything to do with it” is unfortunately very incorrect.

Now, just because there is roleplay influence, doesn’t mean the community was completely roleplay back then. Quite the contrary. Many Vampyre Club nights had enforcers that would kick people out who were clearly roleplaying at events. Trust me, I’ve heard the stories. But there is an extreme amount of influence that V:tM had on the sociological and hierarchical structures that much of the VC employs.

Due to the enigmatic cyclical influence of reality vs. media vs. larp in the early 90s, the lines between reality and fantasy were very blurred in their own ways back then. Not in the ways that the internet have blurred the lines now, but the community then was much more immersive. You had to know people to find the right club nights, you had to have an understanding of what you were getting yourself into, you had to be willing to submerge yourself completely in these systems that were created and built within a mock feudal world that still exist today. Being that the Gotham Halo is the birthplace of this style of community, these systems are still valued there. Not everyone utilizes these types of systems anymore, but some do… and Gotham definitely still does.

Father Vincent was and still is known as the True King of Gotham. He was regarded as the King of the Gotham Halo, and treated as such by Gotham’s community. His passing was so devastating to the Gotham community because of this fact. Father Vincent was an orchestrating force for his community and had been since the early 90s.

In Gotham, his bloodline with House Orion and Sabretooth Omega are considered “royal bloodlines.” His original children from House Orion and Sabretooth Omega bestow this royal bloodline down to their children. To which I am a part of through my Sire, Lord Stephen O’Mallie. I’ve always known I was considered third generation in that bloodline, but to stand in a room and grasp what that looks like even knowing this isn’t even all of the people who are part of this family… it was eye opening. Having this moment to stand with all of these people who I’m connected to through the blood, especially with my Sire, my close siblings, friends, etc… it was a beautiful moment that I will cherish forever.

The problem now though is that with Father Vincent gone, and his successors just getting their footing… what happens now? There are Princes, and Leaders who are shifting upwards, some who are staying the same, and a lot of opportunistic smaller fish are trying to make waves. There stands to be some posturing in the future, some dick riding of the new leaders, and a potential energy shift throughout Gotham. I’m curious to see if this energy has a ripple effect throughout the entire community. Only time will tell at this point.  We’ll just have to wait and see.