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still needs its tools. A young enforcer could be anything from a dead private detective, to a musclebound legbreaker, to the manager of a team of spotter ghouls who watch the unawares vampires of the domain for infractions of local rules. The Invictus is ancient, but we are modern. We use information technology. We watch the Internet. We use the tools of business and organized crime, changing tools to preserve the status quo, to keep us on top, and above all to keep the secret. Everything depends on our victory. Nicknames: The First Estate (formally, within the Invictus and the Lancea et Sanctum); The Old Man (outside of the covenant, especially among the old) or just The Man (among the young); The Conspiracy, sometimes The Conspiracy of Silence (used by allies and enemies alike); The Ownership; The Establishment Concepts: Old-school Eurotrash, Merc-driving capitalist bloodsucker, intimidatingly silent bodyguard, Man in Black, well-bred dominatrix, boarding-school teacher, privileged frat boy or sorority girl, soulless bureaucrat, Man of Wealth and Taste, military officer, working-class entrepreneur, business-like mobster, jobsworth security guard When we are in power: The Invictus are the default vampire government in many ways. We made the traditions, and the power structures of the Kindred are those of the First Estate. Although our power might be expressed in many different ways, a hierarchy always exists. In an Invictus-ruled domain, expect the Lancea et Sanctum to be, if not favored, significant, and the Carthians to be held in disdain. The status of the Circle of the Crone and the Ordo Dracul varies, often based on whether we need their occult secrets to keep everyone else in the dark. When we are in trouble: When an Invictus house no longer rules, its members do everything they can to be in power again, even if that means betraying their own ideals. If open war is declared against the First Estate, few of us will fight to the death. Many will capitulate and try to become part of new power structures. We play the long game, knowing that the time will come when one of our own will earn authority, and we groom our neonates accordingly. We bide our time, playing at being good members of the new order, the better to end up in charge of it once again. Fear for the Carthian or Acolyte prince whose advisors are Invictus. He may not be prince for very much longer.