The Tsurara

"As the mother wept it was then I swore
To take my life as I would a whore
I know I´m better than before
I will not be reconstructed
Just wanna stay right here
On the sunnyside of the street"
- The Pogues, the sunnyside of the street

The Tsurara, or "Knife Tribe," is a new and radical family. First gathered together in the late 1940s by a young Gypsy mage known as Korasca, the Tsurara believe in the superiority of the Rom over all others, and the superiority of the Knife Tribe over all Rom. Believing themselves to be the finely honed epitome of all that the Blood brings the Rom, the Tsurara see their fledgling family as the zenith of the pentagram: the rarefied spirit that forms the highest level of Romani evolution.
Claiming to be the new Guardians of Bonnerin, the Seed of the Balanced Scale, (and in some cases claiming control of all the Seeds), the Tsurara believe the Convergence is just around the corner. They also believe that they shall be the the driving blade that slices the string of power held by all others, but most specially the vampires ...
The first Tsurara, Korasca, was the only member of his family to survive the genocide of the Holocaust. Bitter and alone, he wandered Europe searching for other isolated Rom like himself. Eventually he met up with a vampire neonate who told Korasca how she and other Rom had taken part in an uprising at Glodker, one of the Nazi concentration camps. The shilmulo neonate Trinka, went into detail, explaining how other shilmulo had Embraced many of the Rom of the camp and how they had risen against their imprisoners, destroying the camp for good.
Although at first gladdened by Trinka´s news, Korasca became more and more horrified as he heard Trinka speak of the sharing and drinking of blood. Questioning the young vampire, Korasca discovered she and all the others had been drained of their Romani Blood in order to become shilmulo. Disguising his horror at her story, Korasca agreed to guard Trinka while she slept within the Earth´s embrace.
Korasca spent half day thinking on the new horrors revealed to him by Trinka. Not only had she spoken so freely of the Blood, but she and others had freely given away their Blood, their heritage, to be free of the concentration camp. The Rom of the camp had sold their heritage in order to free themselves and save their own skins. To Korasca´s way of thinking, Trinka and the others had committed an even greater form of genocide than the Third Reich by turning against themselves and destroying their own Blood.
Soon Korasca knew what he must do. Taking up a shovel and pick, the traditional weapons of the righteous and downtrodden, Korasca exposed Trinka to the purifying rays of the sun, thus destroying his first "traitor to the blood."
Known variously as the Tsurara, the Knife Tribe, and the Slayers, the family begun by Korasca is dedicated to keeping the Romani Blood pure. The family is convinced that when the Convergence arrives, Romani of the true Blood must stand ready to play their crucial role of purification. If the Urmen see the Rom as midwives to a new era, the Slayers view themselves as surgeons wielding a gleaming scalpel.
The Tsurara look forward with fevered imaginings to the time of the Convergence, when they can lash away with the white-hot surgeon´s blade, cutting away the impure, cancerous growths, leaving only the truly pure and healthy behind, in this case, only the true Rom and those gaje destined to support them).
Who is pure and who is marhime, or impure, is a fiercely debated subject among members of the family, but almost all agree the vampires, and all Ravnos shilmulo in particular, must be excised. The Slayer view the Ravnos shilmulo as the worst of traitors, and do not even consider them to be Rom, for the vampires sacrifice their Blood for power, and without Blood, there can be no Rom. Humans and the Ravnos family are seen as almost as bad, although the Tsurara concede that some of their particularly pure Blooded may be salvageable.
Very different from their near-unanimous convictions about the vampires is the debate now thriving among members of the Tsurara over the status of the werewolves of their kin. Some insist that werewolves embody the physical rage and power of the Rom and are of the purest Blood, while other members disagree vehemently, saying the werewolves, being part animal, have their own peculiar allegiances and thus cannot be pure Gypsies in both mind and soul. Others point out that they are the children of incest, and sullied by this heritage. Still other Tsurara think the Silent Striders and other Garou, though not as pure Blood as the Rom, may still be meant to serve the Rom as guards, just as dogs travel with most Romani families (and all Tsurara kumpaniyi).
The Slayers agree that Rom must only lie with Rom, so that the blood can remain as pure as possible. Producing children with a gaje is thus considered a crime against the Blood and carries severe penalties among the Tsurara, up to and including death.
The Knife Tribe vigorously encourages its members to hone all Abilities, most especially those tied to the Blood; all branches of the family constantly seek to improve their powers. This is the main reason why the Slayer, although a particularly isolated grouping of families, emphatically encourage young members to go on tour with Gypsies from other families (even Ravnos). The elder Tsurara see this as the most convenient way to glean information about what the other families (particularly other families of power) are thinking and doing, as well as enable young Slayers to learn some of the skills peculiar to other families. However, in recent years many young Gypsies have begun refusing to accept youths of the Tsurara into their kumpania.
When a Slayer is accepted on a tour, she is usually watched very closely for the same reasons encourage their young to go on tour. Because of this suspicion, many Slayers pretend to be from a different family, usually a lesser family, in order to gain easier admission to a tour.
The Tsurara actively search out all vampires, but most especially Ravnos, as they are convinced that destroying all shilmulo is a vital cause. The Tsurara´s demographics are disproportionatley young and male. These Slayers wander from city to city looking for trouble. The most radical of these youths believe that all gaje are fair game, not just to con and steal from, but to kill.
Young Slayers often either shave and tattoo their heads or wear their hair long and unkempt. Many experiment with drugs and other forms of mind-alteration in order to tap into, or heighten, the specific powers of their Blood. Although members of the clan encourage such behavior, claiming the Knife Tribe´s mission is important enough to warrant such extreme methods.
Unfortunately for those young Rom, many of these users soon reach a point where they are only able to tap into their Blood-given abilities while using drugs. This set up a vicious cycle of drug addiction that all too often leads to an early grave for these Tsurara, and may eventually lead to the clan´s death as well.

Blood sense
At some point in his work, Korasca discovered that the Blood provided him with a method for discerning both the purity of a Rom´s Blood and the Blood of others. Over the years of Korasca learned how to sense the blood of others and determine its very nature. In the last few years before his disappearance, Korasca was said to be able to smell a Ravnos several miles distant ("reeking of gangrene and poison"). Knowing the advantage such an ability was to his cause, Korasca taught some of the Slayers how to use this ability to know their enemies.
This ability is strictly guarded skill. Slayers who learn how to sense blood must swear on their own Family that they will not reveal its secret to any not of the clan. The only Slayer known to have revealed this skill to an outsider (one of the Phuri Dae) was subjected to the Tsurara ritual known as the Cleansing.
This ritual consists of hoisting the subject over a large fire in a spread-eagled position and making small, but deep, cuts at the pulse points (wrists, throat, groin). The Blood of the subject is cleansed by the fire. Normally the ritual ends in death and the body´s cremation. Occasionally, if there is a possibility of the traitor repairing the damage to the Rom, the ritual is stopped prior to death and the traitor given a chance to redeem herself.
The ability to sense blood enables a Slayer to sense the quality and nature of blood itself. Spending one point of Willpower, the Tsurara rolls a Perception + Blood sense (difficulty of 6) to determine success. If the Slayer is unsuccessful, she simply can´t tell anything about the subject´s blood and heritage. The level of skill determines the amount of sensitivity the Rom has.
Level One: The Slayer is able to determine whether or not a given individual has Romani Blood. Additional success enable the Slayer to determine the purity of the Blood (number of Blood Purity points). This ability can also detect a vampire who currently has Romani Blood in her veins (although she cannot necessarily tell the target is a vampire).
Level Two: The Slayer can determine if an individual is a mage. Additional successes enable the Slayer to determine the general nature of the mage´s abilities.
Level Three: The sensor can determine if the subject is a vampire or werewolf. Vampires with the Obfuscate Discipline are more difficult to detect. Each level of Obfuscate increase the difficulty level by one. A Slayer attempting to sense the blood of a vampire with two levels of Obfuscate would need to roll a nine to succeed.
Level Four: Once the blood of a vampire, Rom or werewolf has been first sensed, the Slayer can "smell" the person´s blood from up to one mile distant simply by concentrating on it.
Level Five: At this level the Slayer can sense a known quarry up to three miles distant. Additionally, the sensor can determine what physical state the subject is in: active, wounded, asleep, etc.

Tsurara in a Chronicle
The Tsurara are particularly vicious, hatemongering family of Gypsies that has quickly grown in power since Korasca destroyed his first Ravnos. Although information on the Tsurara and their special abilities is given in this book, Storytellers are advised to use Tsurara as antagonists in Chronicles. Storytellers may even wish to prevent players from creating such characters.
In a very real sense the Slayer represent the lurking danger of the Gypsies´ heritage. The Gypsies have been set apart by both their Blood and their great knowledge. In addition, they have been persecuted simply for being different and a minority, and because others recognize that they possess something the rest of  the world does not. Such conditions have served to unify the Gypsies in a way that only the intimacy of a threatened minority, cast adrift on a hostile world, can do.
The Gypsies cherish their unique knowledge, heritage and abilities, protecting these from the cultural octopus that is the world of the gaje. However, in the Slayers, the power-in-self and communal identity of the Gypsies has festered and turned into power-over mentality. Believing what the gaje fear, that any who have superior (or exclusive) access to power and knowledge will feel others inferior and worthy of abuse, the Tsurara sink into a cycle of fear and insecurity. Those having this type of mind-set constantly fear that if they are not grinding others into the dirt, thus proving their superiority by pain, they will be the once at the bottom.
Such a mentality feeds on itself, turning all who do not fit exactly into the rigid specifications of the group into enemies to be tortured and destroyed. Soon, even those members of the group who are not of exactly the same hatemongering mind-set and abilities (such as the other families of Rom), also become the enemy. From this cancerous cycle of pain, domination and subjugation, there is little hope for redemption.

- Teeuwynn