A bedtime
story 
Adam and
Eve beget two sons: Caine and Abel (I'm sure you already heard this
but bear with me.) Caine was the firstborn, and his birthright was about
toiling the fields, crops..the whole life of the farmer. Abel was the
second born, and his dharma - that means duty in the short of it - was
to tame the beasts and use them as food. So that's what they did, until
a time came that they had to make a sacrifice to their God. Now Jehovah,
that's the God here, and the Christians would have you believe it is
the one and only God, but seriously, there are many gods of many religions,
all ancient and powerful and with a goodly amount of wrath poured in
there - but I digress.
So, back
to the sacrifice. Caine layed a bunch of fruit on the alter, supposedly
it was all good fruit, probably strawberries and kiwis and pineapples,
not crappy fruit like apples - cuz we all know about the apple. Abel,
he laid a lamb out on the alter, and slit its throat, it bleated as
its blood poured out on the alter. And that bastard, Jehovah, he's like
"Abel, you're the man. I like your offering." And then he
turned his back on Caine and Caine's offering, basically saying "you
suck".
So Caine
was all put out by this, the guy did try. And he asked his brother,
whom he did love and respect as any brother should, why God liked his
sacrifice. And Abel went all Yoda on him and said that God thinks you
suck because tilling the earth was to be a punishment to their father
(that would be Adam, with the whole apple thing) and the things you
offered were just a sign of man's sin. It was lame. Furthermore, he
told Caine that you have to give God something that is not born of the
earth, and its blood would be pleasing to him.
So Caine
thought about that for a bit, and then he offered to God something that
was not born of this earth, his most precious possession, he offered
up his own brother.
But that's
really just the beginning of this story. Caine killed Abel...everyone
knows that part.
Now, Caine's
probably thinking he did a good thing - sorry bastard, but God was not
pleased at all. In fact, you could say he was downright pissed about
it. He exiled Caine...to wander the lands of Nod. Nod was then the bleak
lands outside the garden of Eden. Hence, Caine became known as the Wander.
He wandered for a long time.
Now, step
back a second, and imagine how Caine must have felt. Not once, but twice,
God had rejected him. Then he had to wander in this horrible land, and
maybe rightfully so, the guy was a little bitter. So, in all this wandering
and bitterness, he got angry at Jehovah. Decided that the God didn't
deserve his respect or his offerings. And oddly enough, during his wanderings,
he came across another being who had also been rejected by God. Her
name was Lilith.
The story
gets a little choppy here, but know that Lilith has her own following,
her own church, even her own acolytes in this day and age. I can make
a long story short....Lilith was Adam's first wife, created as his equal.
But she was a sassy lass really, and wouldn't bend to Adam or God's
will (apparently, there's some story that she refused to lay with adam
on her back, in a subserviant position). So God also sent her out of
Eden, and replaced her with a more tractable Eve. The King James Bible
leaves all that out, by the way. Mainly, cuz if you look at all the
facts, this God Jehovah was a right bastard. But Lilith, still the saucy
wench that she ever was, had been wandering even longer than Caine,
and she had some mad skills, which she taught to Caine...and Caine slowly
grew into his power, and became quite the ninja of that world, with
extra speed, strength, sight...all that and a bag of chips. And he declared
that he did not care if others looked upon him as if her were a God
- for he would never refuse their gifts or ever cast them out. (Harhar,
you'll see later this pledge did not last for all that long.)
Eventually,
God must have noticed that his little outcast had grown up, and for
whatever reason - for who really knows the will of a God, he decided
to give Caine another chance. So he sent an Angel down to ask Caine
to repent and to bow and scrape and all that. Caine refused. So the
Angel got all butthurt about it and levied a curse on Caine, basically
it said that Caine would always be afraid of flames, would never know
the warmth or light of a fire.
A second
Angel then came to Caine, and it was basically the same story. Repent,
kneel, bow, scrape. And Caine is like fuck that. Though there is a good
quote, you will hear this now and then, Caine said "Surely it is
better to rule in the darkness, than to humble myself falsely in the
light". And...its interesting to note, that there's a favorite
quote of the Devil..aka lucifer that is similar: better to reign in
hell than serve in heaven. And of course, he gets a second curse, this
one was about how he would always walk in darkness and the light of
the sun would burn him.
You'd
think he'd have figured some things out by now, but no...a third angel
came a calling. And yes, a third curse. This one made Caine undying
and unchanging (essentially immortal). You'd think that would be a cool
thing, but curses are wily like that. It also meant he would forever
be separate from the living, and he would drink blood. And that he'll
live in torment, and all that he cherished would die horrible deaths,
and there would be war, and he would be very very lonely. There was
probably more stuff than that, but its all I remember. Just all around
badness- you get the idea.
It is
here, at this third curse, that Vampire, also known as Kindred, also
known as Cainites came to be.