The Pre-History of New Orleans: The Followers of Set, the Baron, and the Samedi

Though Set had commanded his children before not to war among one another, they often did over petty things such as territory. So through the ages, Set reached out mentally from his torpor to ‘change the lines’ as it were, whenever it became necessary.

Several centuries ago, the most powerful of Set’s childer and grand-childer heard the last of these calls through a dream. With the discovery and exploration of the new continent (the Americas) and the East, squabbling was already starting to break out among the Clan.

Set parceled out territory to each of these eldest of his children giving them impressive areas to spread their doctrine and influence. Then his attention turned to his grand-childer Ghede. All that was left to give him was thought to be a small continent and a smattering of islands half a world away. The other ancient Children of Set mocked Ghede in the mist of the dream, thinking he was being punished. For surely, he was getting the worst of this arrangement.

But it was obviously not so.

Set’s mind whispered to Ghede of how large the Americas truly were. The Dark God could see through the eyes of a bloodline of his children that were already there (the  Tlacique). He showed his grand-childer this vision as well. Pyramids, cults, blood sacrifice, and much more. Though Ghede was the youngest, the progenitor chose him to take these lands and bring them under his dark shadow.

Ghede moved to the island now called Haiti, but he had already arrived too late to ally with his long lost relatives. Most of the Tlacique were annihilated when the Spanish arrived in the New World in fights between the Camarilla, Sabbat, and the church (the latter seeing them with all their serpent imagery as Satan worshippers).

Ghede and his childer were now forced to look about for allies and co-conspirators. They found this with the coming of slave labor to mind the island’s fields, and more importantly what the slaves brought with them.

A powerful spirit calling himself Baron Samedi arrived with the slaves. The spirit was worshipped as a god-like being by them. Even threats of death and punishment at the hands of ‘good Catholics’ only served to make the slaves conceal their religion rather than abandon it. The practice of Voudoun became a mixture of Catholicism and African spiritualism with many of its practitioners gaining much psychological power and a few gaining something more...

Ghede took notice of the flourishing forbidden religion which reminded him much of his own. He made a pact with the Baron, and the total knowledge of that pact consisted of remains a mystery to this night. But now, Setites could learn the secrets of Voudoun death magic without paying the Baron’s price. Ghede and a few of his childer set themselves up as powerful loa (spirits) in this new religion, but soon they found that they were not alone.

A group of vampires had traveled to the island with the slaves as well, or had been there hiding the whole time, or perhaps both. It was hard to tell because many of the indigenous societies worshipped spirits of the dead and these creatures had the ability to conceal themselves as well as any Setite. At any rate, this ‘new’ bloodline looked like rotting corpses and referred to themselves as the Samedi. Most of the Setites wished to destroy these vampires before they could gain a foothold in Haiti, but Ghede ordered them not to. It became apparent to the rest of the Setites what at least part of the deal Ghede had struck with the Baron was.

With the coming of more European colonies on the mainland of the Americas, Ghede sent out his childer and grand-childer to mix into and take control of certain colonies.

When New Orleans was founded in 1718, his childe Jonas had already been in the territory for quite some time.