The Return of Menippus:

Loremaster
Nov 13
6 min read

A Chronicle of 1553 in Argos**

As compiled from the writings of Katherine of Montpellier, Childe of Aristeia, Grandchilde of Menippus the Mycenaean.

Prologue: The Wind over the Lion Gate

In the winter of 1553, the winds that cut across the Argive plain were cold enough to bite even the dead.

Argos, ancient to the point of myth, had become restless. Mortals whispered that old spirits were stirring beneath the citadel. The Camarilla whispered louder—for word had spread, through rumors carried by Brujah sailors and Tremere spies—that an ancient Toreador, believed lost since the fall of Constantinople, had resurfaced under a mortal name:

Prince Medalin Anagnos of Argos.

Only a handful knew the truth behind that name.

Only a bloodline traced back to the courts of Mycenae, Rome, and the Dream of Constantinople understood that Medalin Anagnos was Menippus, beloved protégé of Michael the Archangel and among the oldest of the Toreador still walking the world.

I write this because he has summoned me—me, Katherine of Montpellier, his grandchilde who once believed him dust scattered in the ruins of the Queen of Cities. I write because the nights of Argos are thick with portent, and I fear that what has awakened will not easily sleep again.

The Forgotten Methuselah

Menippus had been born when bronze was the measure of a man’s worth.

He had walked through the Lion Gate of Mycenae not as Cainite, but as an artist, a singer of sacred hymns to the gods—his beauty enough that kings invited him to feast. His sire, Amphion, claimed him on a night of omens: a red star, a moon half-devoured, and a storm that never reached the ground.

Menippus adapted quickly to the night. He learned the arts of influence, beauty, and cruelty from the nobles of Mycenae; he learned survival from the warlords and priest-kings; he learned treachery from his own clan.

He outlived them all.

Rome was no kinder. Artists and ancients were both swept into political tides, and Menippus nearly perished twice—escaping only through the aid of a strange Ventrue philosopher who called himself Aurelius. But Rome was not his destiny.

Constantinople was.

In the city of Michael the Toreador, Menippus found a vision of beauty that rivaled Olympus. With his brood beside him—Aristeia, my sire, among them—he became one of many artisans tasked with maintaining the mystical Dream that elevated the city above mundane Cainite politics.

But even dreams fall.

When the city fell to the Ottoman army in 1453, Menippus was said to have perished alongside countless ancients. The truth was stranger. He survived—but he did not remain. Something in him broke that night. Whether it was Michael’s death, the loss of the Dream, or the shattering of hope itself, none can say.

For a hundred years he vanished.

Until now.

Argos in the Winter of 1553

Argos was no Constantinople, yet it held a beauty Menippus cherished—old stones, older myths, and mortals who still whispered of Hera, Perseus, and the Danaans.

Prince Medalin Anagnos ruled quietly, elegantly, and absolutely.

He kept a court so small it could fit in a single hall:a Gangrel wanderer who remembered the nights before Sparta; a Lasombra defector who hid her sire’s shame behind scholarly robes; and a thin-faced Daeva-blooded ghoul who served as his public voice among mortals.

To Camarilla's eyes, it looked like a minor princedom hardly worth notice.

But to those who understood blood…

Something vast moved beneath the surface.

The death of Amphion at the hands of Lilith in 1551 had shaken the eldest of his line. Tremere watchers claimed that his aura, when seen, now shimmered with colors not associated with the Toreador—colors reminiscent of ancient cults, long-suppressed rites, and the primal passions of pre-Hellenic nights.

When Aristeia received his summons, she sent me in her stead. She feared, rightly, that something in Amphion’s death had awoken a part of Menippus that had slept since the Bronze Age.

And so I came to Argos.

The Hall of the Prince

Menippus chose to meet me in a chamber beneath the ruins of the ancient theatre. It was lit entirely by oil lamps carved in the shapes of lions and bulls—Minoan in influence, though impossibly well preserved.

He stood beside a marble column, robed simply, not as a prince but as a philosopher. His hair was black as obsidian; his eyes faintly red, as though reflecting a fire from deep within the earth.

When he spoke, his voice was soft, melodic, and devastating:

“Katherine of Montpellier. You have grown into your beauty… and into your burden.”

I bowed. “Grandfather. Why summon me after a century of silence?”

“Because,” he said, “the dragon has left its coil.”

He gestured for me to walk with him through the chamber.

“Two years ago, Amphion met his end,” Menippus continued. “Not through the blades of Rome, nor treachery of Cainites, but by the hand of Lilith herself. She tore out the heart he once used to shape my existence.”

A tremor—a flash in the aura around him—made the lamps flicker.

“I felt it,” Menippus whispered. “As though she reached through the ages to touch me. To remind me of the pact Amphion broke. And to remind me of what I am.”

“What… are you?” I dared ask.

He smiled then, a terrible, beautiful smile.

“Older than Toreador. Older than Mycenae. I have worn many names, little one. Menippus is but the first I remember.”

The Power Play in Greece

I learned that night why the Camarilla began speaking Menippus’s name with fear.

A coalition of younger Ventrue, Lasombra defectors, and local Brujah philosophers had sought to unseat Prince Medalin Anagnos. They believed him merely a cultured elder—dangerous, yes, but not ancient enough to defy a proper coup.

They attacked him in his own hall three nights before my arrival.

He did not raise a hand.

He merely spoke.

And the would-be usurpers fell to their knees, overcome by awe so profound it bordered on worship. They fled in terror, but not before one of them managed to babble the truth to a passing Tremere:

“He is not a prince. He is a god wearing a prince’s face.”

And that rumor had spread like wildfire.

A Dialogue with an Ancient

“Grandfather,” I said as we reached a balcony overlooking the moonlit valley, “are you planning to join the Camarilla again? Or to defy them?”

Menippus leaned upon a marble balustrade carved 3,000 years before either of us existed.

“The Camarilla…” he mused. “A necessary cage. A beautiful idea corrupted by fear. I upheld it once. I may yet do so again. But I will not bow.”

He turned to me, and for a moment I saw through the layers—Toreador, Mycenaean priest, Constantinopolitan dreamer, something far older.

“I did not summon you to entangle you in my politics,” he said. “I summoned you to write. To witness. To remember.”

“Remember what?”

“That I have awakened,” he whispered.“And the nights of Greece will tremble because of it.”

The Unmasking

As the moon rose higher, Menippus lifted his hand, and a faint aura danced around his fingers—gold, crimson, the blue of the Aegean, and something black like obsidian.

“My sire’s death freed bindings placed on me long ago,” he said. “Lilith did not kill him for vengeance. She killed him for a purpose. To unshackle me.”

Terrified, I took an involuntary step back. Menippus simply placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Do not fear me, little muse,” he said softly. “I am not Michael. I am not Mithras. I am not one of the mad ancients who hunger for dominion. I want only one thing.”

“And what is that?”

He looked out over Argos.

“To build again what was lost.”

“The Dream?” I whispered.

His eyes glowed faintly.

“Not the Dream,” he said.“My Dream.”