The Ravenblack Grimoire

Loyalty. The undead of this city like to use this word a great deal. However, what do they mean by loyalty? Usually, loyalty means unwavering allegiance to a person, state, cause, or organization. Without it, some would argue leaders would not make history and would have never achieved greatness because they needed the loyalty of their soldiers. Therefore, many assume that the soldier is loyal to his leader. Throughout my lifetime, I have maintained a loyalty and faithfulness to two generals and a partner-bound, unquestioningly. I had been promised riches and power beyond my wildest dreams, especially from my partner-bound and former general. Is this a sufficient reason to remain loyal to them? Of course not; material wealth is meaningless unless you have the intellectual capability to achieve, strive, succeed… and kill, pillage, and destroy when necessary.

What keeps me loyal? Simple, their loyalty to me.

It seems in this fair city, a leader’s loyalty to his or her clan members seems strong in certain halls and lacking in others (see “Prince” Capadocious). Yet, in this city, many feeble minded leaders are excellent at gaining loyalty, yet are incapable of demonstrating loyalty. What do I mean by this? If loyalty were simply unwavering allegiance, the issue would be simple. However, with loyalty you have a responsibility: To do what is best for your soldiers in addition to yourself. It is this duty that many loathsome leaders completely ignore.

How else can we explain leaders who send their troops to a mindless slaughter? Loyalty to your soldiers means a duty to provide the absolute best for them, to ensure meticulous and correct planning before you send them out to slaughter and be slaughtered. Unfortunately, some leaders in this city seem to think of their soldiers as nothing more than mindless cannon fodder to protect themselves and use them to achieve an ends to pathetic personal vendetta. Leadership means showing loyalty to your soldiers. Loyalty to your soldiers means protecting them as much as you would try to protect yourself.

Yet, this duty remains elusive, especially among the putrid pusillanimous cretins who try to wage war and face mass destruction. However, this begs the question: Why do these leaders even have followers? Loyalty is one thing, exhibiting intelligence is another and you do not ever enter into the service of those who are incompetent. In this city, this practice is all to common and loyalty is used as an excuse to perpetuate an idiotic-insanity: That the situation will get better. More often than not, these gutless and dense leaders and their followers never grow and never achieve. Recent, events in this history have proven this true. Three clans have fallen, two having had the same leaders over time… having achieved nothing but slaughtering their own armies instead of others.

It’s pathetic really… and unfortunate that we should expect these results instead of something greater. Opportunities to learn and grow remain, yet these same vampires have not learned anything. They just carry blind-grudges and recruit the weak-minded to follow them to the slaughter. Perhaps that is enough of an explanation as to why some leaders ignore their duty… and why they will never be anything more than useless and pitiful.