Cult of Rassilon the Vampire
The cult of Rassilon the Vampire (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"]) was one of the hundreds of minor committees on Gallifrey whose members dedicated their lives to studying the life and works of Rassilon.
Nature[[edit] | [edit source]]
As the Fifth Doctor explained, these "monkish covens" had many different views on Rassilon as a figure, seeing him as anything from a saint to a "cosmic traffic warden"; (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"]) as the name implied the cult of Rassilon the Vampire believed him to have become a vampire following the War against the Great Vampire, (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"]) thus accounting for the legend that Rassilon had achieved true, bodily immortality. (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]) While outside sources lent credibility to the idea that Rassilon and his contemporaries had injected themselves with Yssgaroth biodata, possibly to grant themselves the power of regeneration, (PROSE: Interference - Book One [+]Loading...["Interference - Book One (novel)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) the cult went further and believed that Rassilon had allowed himself to be bitten by the King Vampire; (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"]) as such, they were fully on-board with the Great Vampires' side of the conflict. (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"])
The cult kept vampire]shrines in the ducts and service ways where none of the workers went. One of their books was made out of human flesh and a literal spine. Their prophecies foretold the coming of a "Vampire Messiah", as accomplished when Yarven, one of the vampires sired by the King Vampire on a planet in E-Space, returned to N-Space. (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"])
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
By the time of the Doctor's early life, the cult was a small group, ts beliefs kept alive by tiny bands of heretics in the Capitol. His old schoolmate Ruath, who cultivated an increasing interest in vampires and the ROO texts over the course of her first incarnation, eventually fell in with the cult after finding a record of Rassilon's transformation into a vampire in one of the ancient texts. There, she learned of the prophecies concerning Yarven, and, stepping into the role of the "Prydonian Lady" prophesied to help him, began to work to bring it about. (PROSE: Ghost Opera [+]Loading...["Ghost Opera (novel)"])
A little while after the Second Omega Crisis, a member of the cult got his hands on a genuine sample of vampire DNA and infected himself, becoming a true vampire. He wasted no time in going on a killing spree, killing and draining another member of the cult and leaving his corpse hanging from the gantries above the Panopticon. Called to Gallifrey by Cardinal Hemal to help with the investigation, the Fifth Doctor recognised the wrist tattoos of a member of the monkish covens on the dead man, and quickly located one of the cult's hidden alcoves, where he found them in the process of sacrificing another member of the cult in a blood ritual. The cultists were browbeaten into explaining the situation to him, truthfully reporting that they didn't know where their rogue member had gone.
Returning to his TARDIS, the Doctor found that the vampire had taken refuge there and begun converting Tegan into a vampire. Taking control of the ship, he tried to fly it to 20th century London at night to begin a conquest of Earth, but Nyssa managed to alter the landing parametres by ten hours; thus, the vampire blithely opened the TARDIS doors to full sunlight, and was instantly reduced to ashes, which also cured Tegan. In the aftermath, Nyssa and the Doctor discussed the possibilities of more trouble coming from the legacy of the Great Vampires, with the Doctor being sceptical — unaware that a group of cultists were in the process of digging up a vampire from a graveyard somewhere on Earth. (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"])
Indeed, Ruath rescued Yarven from the grave in which he had been buried alive in Chicago. When her plan to give him the Fifth Doctor's blood failed, she gave him all her own. This triggered her second regeneration. Shortly after this, Yarven made her a vampire and she became his consort. She worked on a machine that would plunge Earth into a time freeze, creating an everlasting night. When she and the Doctor next met, she expressed anger that he had left Gallifrey, feeling she had been betrayed.
The Doctor made her believe he wanted to join her cause, letting her turn him into a vampire. Ruath planned to make him her consort once Yarven had sacrificed himself, but she was caught before this could happen. After Yarven and the other vampires were destroyed, she escaped and confronted the Doctor aboard his TARDIS. The Doctor admitted that he had purposefully left Ruath behind on Gallifrey. He believed she couldn't handle the life of a renegade, which until then was a decision he hadn't regretted. When Tegan intervened, Ruath tried to kill her but Nyssa opened the doors of the TARDIS, and Ruath was sucked out into the Time Vortex. The Doctor said that Ruath was most likely dead, (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"]) although enough of her survived to become part of the Horror, a gestalt abomination made up of all the sentient beings who had been set adrift through the Vortex across the aeons. (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"])
