Tzimisce are familial creatures. Many spent their breathing years as scions of the revenant families, and Tzimisce tradition holds the creation and maintenance of a family in high regard. Tzimisce create childer for the same reasons that other Cainites do: on whims, as useful extensions of the sire, to satisfy eruptions of atavistic lust. Childer are organized into families, with the sire as the patriarch/matriarch on whom everything centers. To enforce this filial devotion, most childer are forced to take the Blood Oath. Using the ritual The Inmost Tug, certain powerful voivodes can even manipulate Blood Oaths, shaping them into desired emotions according to whim.
Competition among childer is understandably rife. Tzimisce neonates, all bound to the sire through the Blood Oath, struggle ceaselessly among themselves for the voivode’s favor. The Blood Oath has also led to one troublesome sociological phenomenon among the Fiends, one that currently cripples them in their war against the Tremere. Because Tzimisce childer are sworn to their sires, any slight or injury inflicted on the sire, no matter how deserved, pains the childer just as greatly as if they were mortal. The childer swear vengeance on the transgressor and his entire brood, and these feuds commonly continue even after one instigator or the other meets Final Death. And thus, the Old Country is wracked with ancient vendettas, as Fiends vie against each other based on an injustice one vampyr’s sire’s sire's sire is reputed to have inflicted on an enemy vampyr’s sire's sire's sire millennia ago.
The Rite of Release
Although Tzimisce are hierarchical creatures, they are proud creatures as well. A Fiend who serves her voivode for centuries in a military, scholarly or otherwise functional capacity may develop an uncomfortable measure of self-esteem. The wise voivode, recognizing this trait, uses it to her advantage.
Such worthy childer may, at the ruling voivode’s whim, be subjected to the Rite of Release. This ritual frees the childe from the voivode’s rule, allowing her to establish a fiefdom and childer of her own. Such an act serves three functions: It enables a voivode to establish a proxy fiefdom in a nearby realm, reduces competition for food and affection within her own fiefdom, and eliminates a potential impediment before resentment can gnaw away at the emotions engendered by the Oath.
The childe is called before the voivode, her accomplishments and character are praised, and she is asked if she would have her freedom. If, despite the pull of the Blood Oath, she answers affirmatively, the voivode pronounces a mystic blessing over her: “Then go, and may Moist Mother Earth mark the new dragon’s passage.” Naturally, a celebratory feast follows the climax of the ritual.
At this point, the childe may leave the company of the voivode and make her own way in the world. The Blood Oath is not broken, but the acquiescence of the voivode enables the childe to leave his side and establish her own domain. Generally, the childe is sent to establish a fiefdom in an area the voivode would like to see subjugated or pacified. In such a way does the wise Fiend establish a dynasty of loyal vassals guarding key positions, like a barbed spiderweb throughout the Old Country.
(LS pg54-44)
