So on the last episode, Manart asked what I think the tipping point was that dictated needing to end the classic World of Darkness and reboot the setting.  Basically, what bloodline/addition was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back?

It was the Salubri antitribu.

The Salubri were Saulot’s clan, who became a bloodline after Tremere diablerised Saulot.  They were one of the first-introduced bloodlines, with an established practice of pursuing Golconda and a canonical population of 7 – all eighth generation, all whom reach Golconda and then groomed a successor to Embrace – successors that subsequently diablerised their sires to maintain the population number and the eighth generation rule.

Because of their crime against Saulot, the Tremere conducted a campaign to demonise the Salubri – who were healers of wounds mental, physical and spiritual – as soul-stealers and diablerists (the Salubri discipline, Obeah, could in fact “steal” souls, though largely for the purpose of healing damage to them).  They were ultimately successful, which is why there are so few Salubri: almost all other vampires see them as the gravest of criminals, particularly those in the Camarilla.  Their practice of diablerie didn’t really help matters (though it should be noted that the bloodline could literally only diablerise the willing – in fact, they could only feed from the willing.  Should they ever take blood by force, the blood would wound them rather than feed them.)

The Salubri antitribu were introduced in the revised edition that came out in 1998. The story (first introduced in a Dark Age suppliment the year before) was that there had always been two branches of Salubri – the healers and the warriors.  The healers became the Salubri bloodline, hunted to near extinction.  The warriors joined forces with the Sabbat, spurred especially by their opposition of the Camarilla and the hated Tremere.  While always posited as extremely rare, there were nevertheless supposedly dozens or hundreds of Salubri antitribu. making them technically the true clan and the previously introduced bloodline the ones opposing the norms and turning a clan of gentle, persecuted healers into a clan of hateful, sadistic killers (for the warrior’s weakness was the reverse of the healers; they could only feed by force).

The introduction of the Salubri antitribu is perhaps the most ridiculous thing in the entire run of the classic World of Darkness – even more ridiculous than the Dirty Secrets of the True Black Hand, a book so bad most of its ideas were eventually retconned out of the setting entirely.