Aralu

The Aralu are four mysterious beings whose crypts can be found in the ghost city of Enoch, deep within the Tempest. Sleeping eternally beneath the shadow city, these creatures are known only by the words carved into their tombs: Nergal, Ninmug, Loz, and Al-Marhi.

Overview[]

The Aralu are the objects of religious veneration by the Tal'Mahe'Ra (the True Black Hand), who choose to believe that they are Antediluvians in torpor. However, even the Rawi of the Tal'Mahe'Ra (their historians) do not know who truly sleeps within those tombs; they could wake the sleepers and ask, but they are not that foolish. Perhaps these creatures are mummies; they may be Antediluvians, or even the sires of the Third Generation; or they may be ancient mages who have unlocked the secrets of immortality. Whatever they are, their presence radiates power.

Aralu Aura[]

The power of the Aralu permeates Enoch, affecting every creature that resides there. This is a source of vast and unexplained energy, resisting all attempts to quantify or control it. A small faction of liches have spent countless centuries attempting to understand this aura and utilize it for the Tal'Mahe'Ra, with little success. The auras of the Aralu twist magic unpredictably, empowering it with strange side-effects and exaggerated results. However, ritual magic is not as unstable, and both ritual casting and alchemical concoctions have their potency significantly increased when created within the aura of the Aralu.

Still, vampires who haunt the tombs for too long find themselves hungry, their blood sapped from them without their knowledge. Magic, too, is drained, even when not being used, and more than one vampire studying the tombs became afflicted with a permanently unhinged mind. To keep vampires from being affected, the Rafastio revenant family was long ago given the task of tending to the cleanliness and protection of those areas beneath the city. The tombs have not proven dangerous to them, and the Rafastio's traditional knowledge of magic makes them effective caretakers.

Identities of the Aralu[]

Nobody has ever seen the Aralu in the flesh, despite the fact that the Tal'Mahe'Ra believes that it is doing their will. Their names are not known by the general members of the sect (except perhaps to the Del'Roh and a few selected individuals), and there is even doubt as to the actual number – some have suggested that there may be more or less than four.

According to rumor in the sect, the outer chambers of the Aralu's crypts have many names inscribed on the walls and seals, but only a few names are commonly used by Hand members: Nergal, Ninmug, Loz, and Al-Marhi. Elder members of the Tal'Mahe'Ra commonly believe that Nergal is [Ventrue], Ninmug is [Nosferatu], and Loz is [Toreador], but there is little evidence of this. Speculation around the identity of the fourth Aralu is even more outrageous, with some members of the Hand claiming that it is a member of the Second Generation, or even Caine himself. The Aralu come to members of the Black Hand in dreams. Loz comes in nightmares as a warrior whose face is never seen. Ninmug provides prophesies which sometimes write themselves in blood in the books within Brujah's library in Enoch. Nergal is seen as a beautiful woman who tells her followers what they must do to save the world from destruction. The Del'Roh is said to receive visions from Nergal each day.

The Bahari believe that the Aralu are the torpid bodies of Malkav, Arikel, and Nahema, with the fourth unnamed, but being speculated to be either Saulot or Ennoia. Some scholars believe that three of them are the Baali founders, Moloch, Nergal, and the Unnamed, with the fourth being either Ashur, their sire, or a fourth Baali founder, the Slave Boy. Other scholars speculate that what is contained within the tombs are not even Cainites, but Nephilim from the time before the Deluge that has taken to manipulate Caine's get for its own agenda.

The mummy Inauhaten, who first revealed the city's existence to the Black Hand, claimed that the names written on the chambers of the Aralu included "Loz, Arikel, Al-Marhi, Nergal, Ventru".

After the Sixth Great Maelstrom[]

After the Sixth Great Maelstrom it is believed that the Aralu were wiped out with the destruction of Enoch; their fate, like their origin, is unknown. However, it should be noted that a researcher named Ambrogino Giovanni, while peering into the Underworld, witnessed the eruption of the Sixth Great Maelstrom. At that time, he saw glowing angelic figures rise and survey their surroundings, as if taking stock of creation, and then simply vanish.^[1]

It has been suggested that the Aralu, or at least the three figures who rose from the Tempest, are in fact the Messengers from Hunter: The Reckoning.

References[]

• VTM: Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, p. 21-22, 35, 94, 120
• VTM/cMET: Laws of the Night: Storytellers Guide, p. 99-100, 108
• VTM: Rites of the Blood, p. 102-103
• VTM: The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal'Mahe'Ra, p. 129-133