E M E R A L D C I T Y C H R O N I C L E S
S E C T S : A N A R C H S
anarch: A rebel among the Kindred, one with no respect for the elders. Most fledglings are automatically assumed to be anarchs by the elders, and are despised as products of the 20th century.
Anarchs are vampires who reject the status quo of vampire society. They especially resent the privileged status held by elders within the Camarilla and other vampire sects; when the eldest hold the most power in a society of immortals, the lot of neonates is not a happy one. The Anarchs themselves are not a sect, per se; in most areas, they are simply a faction on the fringes of the dominant Camarilla hierarchy. However, a loosely-organized Anarch Movement has emerged over the course of the past century, and has begun to establish its own traditions, power blocs, territories, and all the other trappings of a full-fledged sect.
The V20 core rulebook has this to say about the Anarchs on pg. 21: The Anarch Movement is localized and sporadic, without any real central organization outside the individual cities where it establishes itself. In fact, the Camarilla considers the “Anarchs” under its own purview. The central tenet of the Anarchs is that rule by elders is an outmoded concept, and that Kindred domains should be governed by merit, with a fundamental respect for the individual Kindred. Effectively, the Movement seeks to redistribute the power in domains from the hands of the old elite into a more equitable arrangement. While this may seem modern and reasonable, that’s not how Kindred society works in most domains, and those who already benefit from consolidated power find the idea laughable at best and treasonous at worst. As well, many Anarchs style themselves as revolutionaries, willing to do whatever it takes to strip power from the corrupt old guard who hoard it. These are no utopian domains of happy Kindred-kine relationships. These are petty kingdoms ruled by individual undead lords of whatever territory they can seize.
Anarchs are often targeted for recruitment by the Sabbat, but most respect the Masquerade and some of the other Traditions, even if they do not respect the vampires who enforce them or the system that benefits from them. Anarchs, like all vampires, are considered members of the Camarilla by default, but unlike the Sabbat they are tolerated, as per the terms of the Convention of Thorns.
The Anarch's historical origins lie in the Anarch Revolt that birthed the Sabbat, but in the modern nights they are mostly an unorganized rabble of younger vampires and Caitiff. "Anarch" was originally a name imposed upon them by Camarilla elders, since they sought to overthrow the leadership structures of Cainite society, but while many new Anarchs are indeed anarchists, the more traditional desire has been to bring equality and democracy (or at least meritocracy) to Kindred society.
In the modern era, the Anarchs that have been sidelined to the fringes of Kindred society have gathered together under the banner of the Anarch Movement. The Anarchs made their single largest coup against the tyranny of the elders and the sects in the Second Anarch Revolt. In this revolution, the Anarchs liberated Los Angeles in 1944; within a year, they established an Anarch Free State across southern and central California. The Princes of the liberated cities were overthrown and slain, and in their place the much more tolerant "barons" were given a much more tolerant degree of authority over their fellow Anarchs.
The establishment and continued existence of the Free State has put a greater strain on Anarch-Camarilla relations than at any point since the original Anarch Revolt. During the second half of the twentieth century, the Free State withstood constant incursions from Camarilla and Sabbat alike. However, the Kuei-jin staged a concentrated incursion into the region in the late 1990s with the assistance of a few highly-placed ex-Anarchs who sought to preserve the region's independence from both Camarilla and Sabbat. The Kuei-jin ousted Jeremy MacNeill, the Baron of Los Angeles, only to lose the city to a Camarilla counteroffensive. Now the region holds a fragile détente between four factions: the Anarchs in what remains of the Free State, the Kuei-jin in the New Promise Mandarinate centered around San Francisco, the Camarilla with footholds in Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Sabbat to the south in Mexico.