The clan of vampires know as the Tremere have a interesting and dubious history that dates back to the middle ages, shortly before the Renaissance and the Technocracy's ubiquitous rise to power.
The history of the clan begins 900 years ago with the man known only as Tremere. Tremere was a member of the Order of Hermes, and a mage of great insight and power. With power, however, comes lust for greater power, and Tremere's lust was insatiable. He hungered not only for power in magic, but also power over mortals. To this end he founded a chantry deep in the Carpathian mountains of Romania, in the area known as Transylvania. Here, Tremere found dominion over the peasantry, and systematically raped the land of anything magickal, be it Tass, children with the Potential, or sources of knowledge. Tremere's power grew, and soon he desired all of the country at his feet for him to rule.
Tremere's conquest did not go unopposed. There were other beings in the Carpathians that did not approve of his rise to power, and thus he and his chantry were attacked many times by the vampires of Clan Tzimisce, natives of the area, and by the Garou tribe known as the Shadow Lords. Both resented Tremere's intrusion into their domain, and both made plans to crush him. Tremere was wily, however, and learned of this, and through the use of his apprentices and his amassed arcane lore, he was able to manipulate the Shadow Lords into attacking the Tzimisce, an easy feat considering that Garou and Kindred have been enemies since the creation of their races.
With his enemies busy annihilating each other, Tremere was free to do as he wished, and for many years he did just that. However, he soon noticed that the manipulation of magick was becoming more difficult as time passed, the result of the Technocracy's stratification of reality through science over "superstition" as the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment approached. He soon discovered that with the Technocracy's strangle-hold on the reigns of power, mages would be unable to practice their Art and would once again be mere mortals.
After studying the matter, Tremere realized that unless something was done quickly, the age of magick would soon be at an end. However, Tremere was a self-serving man and thought not of ending the Technocracy's plan, but rather of insuring the continued existence of power for himself and his followers. During his many years of study, Tremere had discovered a fundamental difference between vampires and humans: humans are living beings, and as such Quintessence flows through their Pattern in a steady stream from the Pool of Prime. Vampires, on the other hand, are dead and so behave as objects: Quintessence no longer flows through them, but rather collects inside them, accumulating as Tass inside their potent vitae.
This was a discovery of tremendous proportions for Tremere: vampires, as objects, did not suffer the increasing effects of Paradox which were occurring with increasing regularity that he and other mages did. Immunity to Paradox, coupled with the continual flow of Quintessence into vampiric vitae, plus the promise of immortality, was a temptation too great for him to resist. Gathering his apprentices and acolytes about him, Tremere cast a powerful ritual using captured Tzimisce vampires as raw material. From these victims, Tremere and his followers stole vampiric immortality, becoming a wholly artifical vampiric bloodline.
Tremere was heady with his power. Here was certain victory against not only the Technomancers, but death itself! It was much later, though, that he learned the price he had paid for his eternal existence. For by becoming a vampire, Tremere willingly altered the flow of Quintessence through his body, and it is that flow that allows the true manipulation of magick to take place. He had gained immortality, but had lost that which he had sought to protect: the continued practice of his Art.
Bitter and angry, Tremere began a genocidal war against his now-Kindred, seeking both to destroy them in retribution and to seize their power for his own. He learned of Diablerie, the stealing of the power in the blood through vampiric cannibalism. He discovered the resting place of Saulot, the Antidiluvian founder of the Salubri, a clan of gentle vampiric healers. There, he drank Saulot's blood, and became of the Third Generation himself. The Tremere bloodline had become a clan.
This act shocked the vampiric community, and they declared war upon Tremere and his ilk. Chief among his foes was a group known apocryphally as the Inconnu, of which Saulot was a member. Clan Tremere suffered heavy losses, and they could not increase their numbers to make up for their dead. For some unknown reason, almost all those chosen to be embraced by the Tremere died, the unlife-giving properties of vampiric vitae falling upon cold, lifeless lips.
It was then that the great weakness of the Tremere line was discovered. As an artificial clan created through magick, they needed magick to sustain their unlives. No ordinary mortal would survive the embrace -- only those who had the potential to become mages in their own right could gain from the gift. This is why the Tremere of today are so selective in whom they choose to gift with unlife.
Faced with dwindling numbers against ever-increasing odds, Tremere re-created his experiment. Using several captured vampires, including those of clans Gangrel and Nosferatu, Tremere synthesized another bloodline of vampires known as the Gargoyles. Created as a servitor race, they existed but to serve the Tremere, and the Tremere weakness had been bred out of them. They were commanded to go forth and multiply, and they did so, bolstering the strength of the Tremere. It was their might that allowed the Tremere to survive their first great conflict.
And thus it remains today. Nothing more need be said, save this: even with the blood of mages running in their withered veins, despite the fact that they choose for their dark gift only those who, if not for their intervention could have become powerful mages, the clan of Tremere is still highly unstable. As abominable as vampires are, they are at least a natural abomination, having existed alongside humantiy since its inception. The Tremere have not even this meager blessing. Their artifical bloodline requires constant reinforcement. They gather each Halloween in their chantry house in Vienna, the entire clan coming together as one. There, they utilize what little magic is left in their blood to recast the great ritual that created their founder. This ensures their continued existence for yet another year.
