History of Septum Civis

It’s somewhat difficult for me to put down how exactly Septum Civis was started.
I have lived in the area since I was a small child. I grew up here. I knew the politics, the
people, and the nightlife. I was a part of the Norfolk coffeehouse crowd since the age of
16. I became a part of the alternative scene around the same time, since everything tended
to blend together here. Pagans and Wiccans rubbing shoulders with the Goth crowd, and
the occasional Vampire in the mix.
In high school I had a close knit group of friends. Claudia was one of them. She
got the nickname from the fact that she was short and looked like she was eight when she
was 16. It was unclear if it was diabetes or genetics which caused her to be so short,
either way; me and the midget had some fun times.
The Vampire community was something that was deep underground at the time. It
was not easy to find. To some extent you had the LARPs and Gamers, but what of the
real deal? You heard whispers, rumors, but we never found the people involved. More
than likely they were good at hiding in plain sight.
Things stayed that way for a few years. We got out of high school and not soon
after, the shit hit the fan. It was around 96 or 97 when John C. Bush got busted for
statutory rape. This in and of itself wasn’t newsworthy, however the fact that he was a
LARPer, who used “The Masquerade” as an excuse to form some sort of “Vampyric
family” and try to get underage girls in his bed. Well, that was news, especially in a small
minded, conservative area (televangelist Pat Roberson’s 700 club is within spitting
distance). The coffeehouse I frequented had become part of an investigation, and the
undercover cops stuck out like a sore thumb. The local press (or should I call them
tabloids) didn’t bother to differentiate the difference between the Goth community and
the Vampyric community, lumping both together. This unfortunately caused a lot of bad
blood for many years. Anything and everything Vampyric went underground. It was
difficult even for the Goths to get anywhere for a club night since no venue wanted the
attention.
It took a couple of years for that to die down. I spent time in my college years
mining the internet for information on the Vampyre community. There wasn’t much, but
finally I found some information on the Sanguinarium. I was skeptical, but decided to
read the teachings and make an informed decision when I was done.
In the meantime Claudia had died due to kidney failure. Her death was a great
loss to all of those in the coffeehouse culture. In many ways, she was our Kitra. She was
able to get many different groups to work together who otherwise wouldn’t speak to each
other. She may have died, however it is said that her ghost haunted the coffeehouse and
some people. I know she haunted me, and my dreams.
So I don’t drag this out for a long time, a few years later, the Goth scene had
gown big enough for two club nights in the area. One on Tuesdays at The Wave, a gay
bar that welcomed our business, the other was at Jillian’s at Waterside. One of those
nights at Jillian’s, I was sitting on the balcony with a few of my friends. It was a warm
night and I had a sense that something was coming in on the wind. I wasn’t sure what or
who it was. I just knew something or someone was coming.
 In walks a tall, skinny Puerto Rican wearing a set of fangs and a D’Drennan ankh.
I had only seen it online, and from what I knew, the Sanguinarium was mostly centered in
NY. So I figured the worst I could do was ignore this person, why not talk to him? Find
out if he is one of ours, or just some gamer who knows where to shop. He introduced
himself as Ryu, and we talked for a time. He spoke of Father Vincent, whose name I had
heard in passing (always in a good way). We spoke of other things, various people we
knew, and what not.
We spent a couple of months gathering at local coffee shops having discussions
on various topics. Ryu spoke of his household Noctem Aeternus, and their teachings. I
was able to send a friend of mine to him when he was seeking information and a teacher.
Ryu and I discussed a general respect for the Black Veil and the need for some local laws
to head off another John Bush problem. A lot of innocent people had been hurt, and the
Va. Beach police had been sued for civil rights violations as a result of the investigation.
One cop in particular, Don Rimer, seemed determined to destroy anybody
involved in the Vampyric community. He was convinced that all vampires were devil
worshipping pedophiles who were going to come after your kids. A couple of years later
he was charged with 2 counts of assaulting a female officer. He retired and the charges
were dropped. Virginia Beach was always known as a good old boys club, so I was not
surprised when one of their star detectives with 20 years on the force got a sweetheart
deal.
Since then Don has spent the last few years giving lectures and seminars on
“Occult Crime”, mostly to the fundy church crowd (which there is a lot of in Va), and
occasionally to law enforcement. He’s been debunked by members of the local Pagan
community and other law enforcement officers (Google “The Cycle Continues” by Kerr
Cuhulain for more info on Don’s shenanigans) . The Lanning Report is another resource
that completely contradicts Don’s silliness. He makes grand statements with no facts to
back them up, such as “Occult Crime is growing” and “the Church of Satan is growing
faster than ever”. Most of the time people don’t question these statements and when
pressed, Don whips out a wild emotional statement such as “have you ever had a dead kid
in your arms?” It would be easy to ignore this guy if it were not for the fact that innocent
people have been hurt by his actions. Don is a fanatic who spreads ignorance and fear and
makes no bones about it.
Eventually the inevitable happened. Someone who claimed to be a vampire was
almost murdered by his household, at the behest of an ex lover. He survived, worked with
the police and testified against his attackers. Some of those who attacked him got a deal
to testify against the ringleader, Teresa Davidson. She is now serving 50 years in prison
(she is appealing the case). The victim in this case, Jonathan Barron, continued to work
with Don Rimer, and I have reason to believe he was a paid informant (I have no
evidence to back that up, however I find it interesting what the police know about the
community when we don’t speak with them).
Once I learned what happened, I had no choice but to shake my head. I’m an elder
in this area, and because the crime itself happened not far from where I live, I should’ve
stepped in. I was too wrapped up in my dayside life, paying bills and moving in to my
first home, to know what was going on in my own backyard. As an elder, I had a
responsibility to the others in my community to look out for it, to offer help to others
when they were in need, and give guidance and advice when asked. I failed to do that,
and I was ashamed that I had let the community down.
I felt that the only way for me and the other elders in the community to make this
right was to come together as a group and set down some basic rules, structure, so that
when we had a problem or dispute in the community, it could be dealt with inside the
community. So I called together all the households and elders (including Lord Ryu and
Lord Ramirez) and after long talks, we came away with an agreement. We agreed that we
would follow the Veil, form a court, much like the rabbinical courts within the Jewish
community. The elders would hear various disputes, such as breaking the Veil or other
local traditions. We also made it clear that we would not tolerate breaking mundane law.
Doing so brought too much attention to us and endangered others. If we had reason to
believe that a serious breach of mundane law occurred, the court would contact law
enforcement and hand over the offender to them.
Sometime later Jonathan was later exiled by the council for sexual harassment of
a female member of his house. It appears that later on he attempted to stab Ryu at a local
haven, and the establishment banned him from the premises. Rumor has it he might be
moving to Florida to establish a household there.
Even with all of that, we’ve managed to show others that we have a system that
works. If someone has a grievance against another, and said issue cannot be worked out
between the two, they are welcome to bring it to the council and be heard. Whereas there
have been a few minor disputes, most have been worked out on their own. Over the
years, word of this court and how we work has headed off a few issues before they
became a problem. This in and of itself is an accomplishment. Septum Civis is in an area
that has a lot of transient people, usually in the military. It’s not hard for someone to
come in, claim to be the king of all vampires (or other such silliness), and try to get in
some girl’s pants. Now they know, if they drop names, we can usually call the people in
question and find out if it’s true. Yes, we do background checks, namely to keep out
minors, sexual predators, and the media. Rumor has it that local law enforcement has
investigated us, and thus far not found anything to charge anyone with. Hopefully they
will know that we don’t want problems, we want to fix them.

Lady Raven Cadwell (aka Darci)

Co-Reagent of Septum Civis