Ca'Serpente

Introduction

Rising like a wound from the dark waters of the Grand Canal, Ca’ Serpente is the secret heart of undead Venice—the seat of the Prince and her court. No living soul treads its marbled halls uninvited. Mortal maps do not mark it. Gondoliers avoid it, and whispers claim that those who look too long upon its black façade feel as though they are being watched… and judged.

To the Kindred of Venice, Ca’ Serpente is more than a palace—it is a symbol of dominion, fear, and unassailable power.

History

The origins of Ca’ Serpente are lost in conflicting legends. Some say the foundations were laid in Roman times, upon a buried Mithraic temple. Others claim it was raised overnight by an Assamite sorcerer bound in blood to a long-dead Prince. What is known is this: the palace existed long before Venice’s mortal nobility dreamed of Doges, and long before the current Prince carved her rule in bone and silence.

The name Serpente—serpent—refers not only to the palace’s coiling stone motifs, but to the style of rule it represents: cold, elegant, calculating, and always watching.

Exterior and Architecture

The palace is a brooding black monolith of stone imported from the East, its sharp Gothic lines twisting subtly in the moonlight. At a glance it appears to shift—an architectural impossibility—its towers sometimes taller, its windows reshaped. The waterline around the building teems with dark eels and strange fish that refuse to die when gutted.

No torches are ever lit outside. No sound ever escapes from within. Yet Kindred arriving on court business find the gates open without knock, as if expected. They always are.

Interior Rooms of Note

The Throne of the Deep

At the core of the palace lies a massive, vaulted chamber lit with balefire green. The Prince’s throne is carved from fossilized coral and whale bone, set upon a dais shaped like a serpent coiled in eternity. Behind it is a polished obsidian mirror—one that reflects nothing and is said to be a portal to damnation for the disloyal.

The Hall of Debts

A long, cold corridor lined with locked iron scroll cases, each marked with a sigil, a name, and a drop of blood. These are the contracts, Boons, and Oaths sworn by Kindred of Venice. The Prince’s Chancellor—an impossibly aged Nosferatu—tends the records and never forgets a debt.

The Blood Garden

This interior courtyard is open to the moonlight and full of strange flora—vines that bloom only when fed vitae, and roses that whisper secrets to those who bleed into their roots. The garden is tended by mute ghouls who wear mirrored masks.

The Pale Chapel

A sanctum for Kindred rites, diplomacy, and sacrifice. Lit only by moonlight and sealed from the touch of God, it is said to house the remains of the city’s first Prince—entombed in glass and still whispering.

The Prince’s Presence

Though she rarely appears in public, Doge-Prince Contessa Elisabetta Moceniga della Notte holds absolute dominion over Venice from her cold seat in Ca’ Serpente. A regal and terrifying figure, she is said to know every whisper in her city before it is spoken aloud. Her voice, when it comes, echoes from the walls of the palace itself.

Few see her face. Fewer still forget it.