The Phoenix

Arising from the ashes of a Europe devastated by the Black Plague, the Phoenix was an Italian qabal that emerged in the 1300s. Scholars of Gothic Earth’s secret history often credit the Phoenix with sparking the larger cultural movement now known as the Renaissance. It is whispered among qabalist scholars that the Phoenix’s swift genesis began with the actions of a lord who had once served the Red Death, but betrayed his former master in the interests of saving humanity.

This qabal sought to unite the great minds of the era, including explorers, mystics, philosophers, scientists, and artists. Many believe that great men like Leonardo da Vinci, the architect Brunelleschi, and the painters Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Michelangelo were all members of the Phoenix at one time or another. Its well-traveled members ventured far from the qabal’s Mediterranean birthplace, eventually founding cells in places as distant as the Middle East and Asia. The sharing of knowledge between such disparate places and cultures re-acquainted these qabalists with knowledge about the Red Death that had been lost centuries before.

The end of the qabal is poorly understood today, but most evidence lays the blame for the Phoenix’s eventual downfall at the feet of the infamous Niccolo Machiavelli. Some theories say Machiavelli had fallen under the influence of the Red Death; others propose that those actions which spelled the qabal’s undoing were perpetrated by an inhuman creature who had disguised himself as the influential political genius. In any case, by the time colonialism began to spread the Red Death’s evil to new continents, the Phoenix was no longer an obstacle to the great Evil’s plans.