Tal'mahe'Ra (True Black Hand)
The Tal'mahe'Ra were a fictional sect of vampires, composed of several clans and bloodlines, from the Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games. The sect was often confused with the Black Hand, which it claimed to have created.
Also called the True Black Hand, the sect was secretive and claimed to have infiltrators in all other factions. The extent of this power and infiltration was debatable, due to the very nature of the sect. Dedicated to bringing about Gehenna and the return of the Antediluvians, these vampires hoped to serve the ancients and gain positions as favoured servants.
Most of the Tal'mahe'Ra were destroyed at the start of the Sixth Maelstrom in the Shadowlands. The surviving members quietly blended into the sects they once infiltrated.
The Bloodlines unique to this sect were the Old Clan Tzimisce (who avoid the mainstream Clan use of Vicissitude), the True Brujah (who wish to avenge their Antedeluvian Ilyes, who was diablerized by her childe Troile, founder of the mainstream Brujah Clan) and the Nagaraja (a necromantic and cannibalistic cabal of Euthanatos Magi who turned themselves into vampires long before the Tremere). The sect also contained members from various other vampire consanguinities.
The Shadow Crusade of the Sect was a campaign against Vicissitude, which they believed to be a parasitic entity contracted by a Tzimisce Methusulah named Andeleon while in plane of reality known as the Deep Umbra. This came to a halt when their base of operations, the shadow realm answer to the classic Enoch, was destroyed. They chose that place not only for its historic value, but also because four creatures thought to be Antedeluvian vampires slept within it, known collectively as the Aralu. While their spirits were visible through Auspex, they were impossible to find. It is later realized that it was not Enoch, but the illusion created by at least one of the Torpid ancients to better mask his presence. The Shadow Crusade ended with the destruction of Enoch, and further White Wolf books revealed Vicissitude to be an active piece of the Tzimisce Antedeluvian. The true nature of the Aralu was never disclosed.
In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the player has a chance to pick up a fabled blade of the Tal'mahe'Ra in the Hallowbrook Hotel.
Read more about this topic: Masquerade Society
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