The Adel Coven has existed for the past 200 years since the first ‘Adel’ was cursed. We say ‘Adel’ because the coven name itself has changed almost every ten years for the past 200. Adel is only the most recent installment of their name. It comes with new passports and other forged documents. A whole new identity to hide the fact that the Adels don't age, or age past their twenties, if they were born from an Adel and outside blood.
Hierarchy is a complicated thing within the Adel Coven. Most authority was given to the ancient Adels, the ones who have existed for the past 200 years. However, Lorenza's father began challenging that old authority. This paved the way for his daughter, Lorenza, to inherit leadership from her father at a young age. However, the family is still tight-knit, despite this shift in power. Lorenza and her father discuss most everything before Lorenza goes out into the world to execute the next plan to bring power and standing to the Adels.
The Adels has a few tenants they live by:
1. No killing humans. Sucking them out near-dry is fine, but to empty them and cause death is not allowed. The punishment is exile.
2. Using thralls is preferred. Instead of stalking the streets at night, recruiting thralls to the benefit of the family is preferred.
3. Obey leadership in the family. If this tenant is broken, the challenger must fight the authority in an official duel. If the challenger loses, they are exiled. If the challenger wins, it is a way for authority to shift to them.
4. Secrets of the family must be tattooed for posterity, like a wampum belt. Knowledge of tattoos is only given to close family members, and can separate the family into sects: those who know, and those who don't. To spill the secrets of the tattoos to an outsider is death by fire.
5. The existence of the Adel Coven must remain a secret. This is a loosely enforced tenant, as a few chosen outsiders have been made aware for the benefit of both parties. Twenty years ago, this tenant required the Adels to remain in the city sewers except to recruit for feed. Now? It is a bit more loose, especially with the new mansion purchased in the Southside a year ago.
It is typically the cousins or younger Adels that are tasked with going out to recruit useful thralls. Ones with either a large amount of residual pain (easy enough to find, given the state of the city), healthy blood, or tribute.
Thralls are given a secure life with all their needs met, with the exchange of their autonomy. They must ask for permission to step outside the house, engage with the world, work, or pursue relationships outside the house. Typically, most requests are granted; the Adels are not monsters.
Thralls often are encouraged to take part in ‘therapy sessions’, ‘group exercises’, and ‘blood letting sessions’. A therapy session is where a thrall sits down with a psychologist and a panel of Adels. The psychologist begins to unearth all the thrall’s pain, and the Adels feast. A group exercise is where more than one thrall gather in a group, witnesses but Adels, and inflict pain on each other, typically with knives or daggers, and the Adels feast. And, of course, blood letting sessions are usually one-on-one with an Adel and a thrall, where the thrall has their blood sucked. Adels take advantage of their thralls, knowing how addictive it is to have feelings numbed more effectively than novocaine, along with drops of serotonin and dopamine in the system.
It's true that Adels lived in the sewers and cut out homes in the concrete and dirt below the city for the past 200 years. It's also true that the lower class cousins and weaker members were sent as spies to hide in plain sight within the city, learning about particular power players and anyone who could pose a threat to their way of life. It's true that Adels would kill a thrall without a second thought if they ran or spilled the beans on the Adel's existence. It's also true that the Adels have felt more secure in themselves, and have moved to live on the surface since the last year.
Their goal is to gain more thralls, money, influence, and connections in the city. They are also concerned with anything that could threaten their way of existence. They are not opposed to forming relations with powerful, talented players in the city to see their vision progress.
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