The Black Hand are a fictional sect of vampires, composed of several clans and bloodlines, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games. The name comes from their symbol, an inverted black hand print. The sect is often confused with the Sabbat itself and another mysterious sect, the Tal'mahe'Ra.
In essence, the Black Hand is a sect within a sect, made up of the most dedicated and capable Sabbat members. Part paramilitary, part religion, part survivalist militia, these vampires wholeheartedly believe that Gehenna is coming. They do all they can to prepare for the rise of the Antediluvians.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or hand:
“A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever,
A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping,
A sword beneath his mother’s heart— yet never
Woman bewept her babe as this is weeping.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
That dust I am and shall to dust return.
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fixed on this day? Why do I overlive?
Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! how glad would lay me down
As in my mother’s lap!”
—John Milton (1608–1674)