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To know the history, the very foundations of the Clan that is now known as Dark Reign is a story perhaps better told by its Sovereign, Sybilla. For the story of the Clan that is now Dark Reign, is older than the line that it currently calls home, Blackburn. In truth, the Helcaraxe Blackburn line was born in the Clan that is now Dark Reign. . .
The founder of the Clan that became Dark Reign was Queen Melinke (melinke), and it was named Blood Roses when it was founded. The bloodline that gave birth to the Clan was the Harbingers of Blood, whose Arch is ZoeBlue Braveheart. It was within the Clan of Blood Roses that the House Domus Gladium Velato was created, with the Princeps being Lazar Blackburn, the founder and Sage of the Helcaraxe Blackburn Bloodline in modern times. I feel as though I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Lazar Blackburn gave Sybilla her first (and only) DJing job in SL, at his club, Dark Side of the Moon. Sybilla was welcome among Lazar Blackburn’s family and group, despite having been on the opposite side of things in later times.
Time passed and Queen Mel felt that the time for her as a Sovereign was coming to a close and she wished to pass on her Clan to someone who would value the Clan and take it on into the future. Around this time, in 2013, Queen Mel met Sybilla, the Princeps of the Kingdom of Jerusalem House in the Raven Claw bloodline. The two became as close as sisters, and when Queen Mel decided to step away from the throne, she asked Sybilla to leave her Clan and become her Ambassador in Blood Roses. Once Sybilla was named the Ambassador to the Blood Roses Clan, Queen Mel abdicated her throne, and Sybilla of Jerusalem was now the Sovereign of the Clan, and the name changed to Dark Reign. There was a great commotion in the Clan at the time of the change in Sovereign, as the officers that had already been in place, took offense that an outsider was brought in to be the new Sovereign and they had not been given consideration or warning of what was about to take place in the changing of the Sovereign. As a result, those members left the Clan. The first Ambassador that was named for Dark Reign under Sybilla was Jonas Ogden, then titled as a Duke. There were three Houses in Dark Reign in the beginning, Blood Roses House led by Princeps Melinke, the Kingdom of Jerusalem led by Princeps Sybilla Silverweb, and the Scroll Bearers of Ahten led by Jonas Ogden. Dark Reign was now a part of the Raven Claw Bloodline.
In the year of our Source, 2014, in April, Raven Claw Bloodline declared war against the Bloodline Bastion. It was said, among Raven Claw, that Bastion intentionally provoked the Arch of Raven Claw, then Lledge Eames, into declaring war, by attacking the members of the line, and targeting the Princeps and Sovereigns of Raven Claw. The Arch of Bastion was Rade Plasma, and there was a Raven Claw member who proudly spoke of her friendship with the Bastion Arch, and it was thought, within Raven Claw, that this person was giving Rade Plasma information from within Raven Claw councils, so good was the knowledge about Raven Claw that Arch Rade Plasma held. Among the battles that were fought in the war, one included then Sovereign Lazar Blackburn, the Sovereign of the Gladium Velato Clan, and some of his members and colleagues, against Sovereign Sybilla of Dark Reign, and some of her members. It was during this war that the first Guard of the Sovereign was named, Wolfe Deckard, to protect Sybilla as she travelled through the world, as she’d been attacked. The war lasted longer than many thought it would, though now I couldn’t tell you how long it was. Months, at the least.
After the war ended, and the Bloodline that had been Bastion was dissolved, one of the Houses that had been traitor to Raven Claw was allowed admittance back to the line. The House was headed by Brian Lafferty, who had been embraced in the Kingdom of Jerusalem House, before falling out with his sire and his Princeps, and took his followers and left the Raven Claw bloodline for more . . . accommodating connections in the Bastion Bloodline. While a part of Bastion, the Princeps admitted openly to betraying the Arch of Raven Claw, Lledge Eames as well as the patron Diabolic of Raven Claw, Oberon Eames. The members of Dark Reign watched in horror as traitors were admitted back to the line, seemingly with open arms.
It was at this time that the concept of a clan being able to disagree with it’s Arch was introduced to the populace of Progeny. The status was called Renegade, and it was thought to allow for political discourse, a means of disagreeing with one’s Arch and not being outcasted. Dark Reign cried out to its sovereign, at the admittance of admitted traitors to the line, unhappy and angry with the action. Dark Reign called for its Sovereign, Sybilla, to pull the Clan into Renegade status, feeling that it could not stay where admitted traitors were welcomed as friends and family. The calls of her people were strong, and she agreed with them, feeling that traitors would only betray again, and so she went to the Castle on Progeny grounds and pulled her people out of the Raven Claw bloodline. Her own sire, Arch Lledge Eames, argued with his daughter over the actions that she’d taken, hoping to convince her that her Clan should remain in the line, but to no avail, Dark Reign would not be convinced. Thus Dark Reign was the first to claim Renegade status.
Some months passed, and Dark Reign was welcomed into the Harbingers of Blood line, under Arch ZoeBlue Braveheart. It was during 2015 that the Sovereign of Dark Reign so offended the Source, her own grandsire, that she was slain, and upon hearing that their sovereign had met the final death, all but one of her followers went to the final death after her, out of loyalty and love for their Sovereign. However, as the saying goes, what is dead may never die. . .
The next three years saw the quiet, small mourning of the Sovereign of Dark Reign, and the Clan was passed to Demmi Demonnix, and the name changed to Demonnix. Arch ZoeBlue offered to have Sybilla of Jerusalem resurrected through ritual. Arch Lledge Eames offered the ritual as well, and so for three years there were those who sought the resurrection of Sybilla of Dark Reign, without success. Whispers to the crypt of the long-dusted Queen fell on her spirit, and the whispers turned to quiet pleas, to allow the ritual of resurrection to give form to the ashes that were all that remained of the Sovereign. One solemn night, as a member of the Raven Claw line prayed, petitioned, and pleaded with the spirit of the Queen, the permission for the ritual to be attempted would be given, and now Aperion Oberon Eames himself performed the rite on behalf of the Source. Winds inside the crypt blew as the ritual progressed, and the ashes of the Sovereign slowly shaped into the raven haired, moonlit skin of Sybilla of Dark Reign. Ravenously hungry, she fed herself to gorged, and swiftly set about the rituals to bring back her loyal followers. Once resurrected, the sovereignty of the Clan Dark Reign was granted back to her, and the Queen quickly went back to Renegade status.
From the shadows Dark Reign existed, under the radar, as modern man would say, to the rest of the kindred of Progeny. Sybilla of Dark Reign would occasionally cross paths with others who were pleased to see her returned to the life of the undead. It was on one of these travels that she spoke with the then Arch of the Helcaraxe Blackburn line, Lazar Helcaraxe Blackburn. Through a series of talks, Arch Lazar invited Sybilla to join his line, to be protected as one of his own children. More than once, Sybilla declined politely, as she’d been raised to believe that Helcaraxe Blackburn were little else but murderers of their own kind, the bad boys, and her people believed the same. But Arch Lazar is a persistent man. He wanted Dark Reign as part of the Helcaraxe Blackburn line, and he wanted to show Arch Lledge Eames that he’d adopted his own daughter for himself. Sybilla of Dark Reign relented, and the Clan became part of the Helcaraxe Blackburn line in October of 2018. January of 2019 saw the ascension of Lucian Helcaraxe Blackburn as the Arch of Blackburn, and he approached Sybilla of Dark Reign, to meet her as one of the leaders of the clans in the line. Dark Reign expressed its desire to remain in the shadows, left alone to feed and conduct its business without causing a scene. Arch Lucian assented to her request, and invited her and the Clan to various events to get to know the rest of the line.
It was through these events that the Clan began to see that Blackburn were not what they’d always been led to believe. Here was a family, sure there were fighters, but not all were fighters. Dark Reign was accepted, as Lazar Blackburn adopted Sybilla as his own daughter and Arch Lucian took to treating Sybilla as his little sister. Late 2019 and early 2020 saw Dark Reign come out of the shadows that hid them well beneath anyone’s notice, and a little more active member in the Blackburn line, attending line meetings and even hosting a party for the beginning of summer, within the Blackburn line. At the time of this writing, Dark Reign has grown with a few new members, and is a little less in the shadows than it had been since the revival of the Sovereign and Clan, from the ashes. The officers of Dark Reign are Sybilla of Jerusalem as the Sovereign, Wolfe Deckard, Princeps of House Dire Wolf as the Ambassador, and Autumn Moonshadow as the Proxy.
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