Brujah
Whispers from a Ruined City: Carthago Delenda Est
"Carthage must be destroyed."
-Marcus Porcius Cato,
the Elder, to the Roman Senate.
this is haunting me
haunting
leaving my insides out
I
saw this city before.
it was a knife flashing bright in the sun
in
full glory
my memory excising the shadows on the knife blade
until it
burned brighter.
I can't forget the way things ought to be.
and
this is the hand with the knife
only it changes into a trowel and I have to
build my Carthage up again
stone by stone
and I feel a dam breaking
inside of me.
like the dam that broke when I saw my home in flames.
it
was never like that
the materials I have to work with
are flawed
imitations of dark slate
and the city which I am building
never stood
until it fell.
that it has fallen means more than the fact
that it
never existed.
and these are the hands with the glassy fingernails
a
pair of broken doves
fluttering in an aviary of torn wings
building
things
from blood and white feathers on an altar of hope
for children
who break their gifts.
I still do not understand.
I am still
an idealist
building a stone city from five
wooden planks and rivets of cold
iron
and I can articulate my thoughts
so that no one understands either
my voice
or my hands
when I scream.
the doves weave patterns
in the air
and I see my city radiant before me, dazzling
in its second
prime.
and I don't realize that the doves are bleeding.
Carthago
delenda est.
Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 156 B.C. In the World of Darkness, it was a Brujah
city where Kindred and humans lived in peace and harmony, creating great works of art and
literature, winning great battles. So the Brujah say, those who have heard of the story of
Carthage, or were present when it fell. This is the reason for their hatred of the Ventrue, who
led the assault on Carthage from Rome.
Carthage was never like that. The Carthaginians worshipped Baal, a god of war; there are documented accounts of infant sacrifice. Carthage was a place like any other in the ancient world, cruel and harsh. What the Brujah describe is an utopia in the Greek sense of the word: no place. Carthage has become an ideal that is different for every Brujah, and the realization of Carthage each individual Brujah envisions is different, and often contradictory to that of other Brujah. Still, the
Brujah fight on for their ideals even more than they fight for physical things, and more harshly.
The Brujah are the most emotional of the vampire clans, and remain the closest to humanity.
They feel. They cannot suppress their emotions.
They fight a doomed struggle to recreate a perfection that never was. They grow up to become what they most despise. They can destroy everything they've wrought over the years in a single fit of uncontrollable rage and passion. Brujah.
And they don't even know. Tragic.
This page hosted by 
. Get your own
Free Home Page here.