Tzimisce

The tzimisces is one of the 13 vampire clans in white wolf's storytelling game Vampire: The Masquerade.

The tzimisces is know for their body altering technique called vicissitude. Tzimisces with vicissitude can magicly alter their flesh, bone, hair and other parts of their or other bodies, even melt them all together into hideous forms. Some tzimisces have made body alteration into an art and a philosophy. Most tzimisces are transhumanists and darwinists, they simply want to reshape their body into perfection. The most common "path of life" for a tzimisce is called the "path of metamorphosis" - a replacement for their lost humanity. A tzimisce with this path of life only have one goal with her whole existance, to become so powerful that the whole world becomes part of herself. A sort of inverted nirvana.

Many elder tzimisce sooner or later becomes totaly lost in this cold and utterly inhuman way of thinking. They often "fleshcraft" themselves into another state of being. Often, they becom something alienated like a gigantic living organism made by living humans crated into one big thing.

According to the tzimisce legend, The Cathedral of Flesh was (and is) the most beutiful creation ever. The Cathedral of Flesh is just what it sounds like, a gigantic living being formed into a cathedral. The legends say that the high priest was part of the cathedral and that he spoke with its walls instead of showing himself in person (because he had no person to show, because he was the cathedral). The cathedral has moved several times since it was created and is now located under New York.