Omen War

The Omen War was a supernatural conflict waged by several of the Great Clans of vampires throughout Eastern Europe during the Dark Ages. Its story is told in White Wolf Publishing’s World of Darkness setting.

History
After the mage Tremere stole the secrets of immortality from Clan Tzimisce by capturing and experimenting upon several of their number, the Tzimisce attempted to annihilate him and his coterie, though not before Tremere had achieved immortality through becoming a vampire himself. On the verge of losing the war, Tremere’s acolytes captured yet more Kindred, this time not only from the Tzimisce, but also from Clans Gangrel and Nosferatu. They used these prisoners as the basis for a subservient warrior race known as Gargoyles, and employed them en masse to stabilise their position in the region. Needless to say, the victims’ parent Clans were none too happy about this turn of events, and so both Gangrel and Nosferatu joined the battle against the nascent Clan Tremere.

Things might have gone very differently for the Tremere had not their leader - Tremere himself - found and diablerized a vampire of the Third Generation, a Kindred named Saulot. This act gave the Tremere the strength they needed to consolidate themselves as a true Clan and, along with the development of the powerful Discipline Thaumaturgy, allowed them to hold their own against their enemies. Whilst the war raged on for many more years, ultimately the threat of the First Anarch Revolt and subsequent establishment of the Camarilla as a stabilising entity in vampire society caused the conflict to slowly peter out.

Aftermath
Although the Omen War has been officially over for centuries, many amongst the Tzimisce, Gangrel and Nosferatu harbour a deep-seated hatred of the Tremere. In addition, many of the Gargoyles created to be blindly submissive slaves have since developed consciousnesses of their own, and have gone on to foster a bloodline to themselves, being yet another enemy at the Tremere’s gates.