Note: The World of Darkness is written in first person accounts with unreliable narrators and with entities like the Antediluvians, where much of the information is propaganda, there are conflicting accounts of even things as basic as on if they are alive and how many of them are. This is going to be focusing on what seems most likely the case of the Clan Founders, the 13 Antediluvians most often purported.
Millennia ago the first murderer turned into the first Vampire, Caine, found himself wandering into the first city of humanity. There the humans considered him like a god and he was made king. For a time, Caine ruled well and the city prospered. Caine, perhaps spurred on by the hope he could make a new family to replace what he had lost, created the first childes, turning a few humans into vampires, the second generation, traditionally numbering three. These in turn sired their own childes, the third generation, traditionally numbering thirteen. It was then Caine realized what he done, cursing others to bear the weight of vampirism for eternity and accidentally creating a potentially exponential disease that could end humanity. He quickly banned the practice of siring more vampires.
From here there are many conflicting accounts. For disputed reasons, the third generation turned against the Sires, the second generation and slew them in a great rebellion. When Caine saw what they had done, that he lost his only family again, he cursed the third generation and their descendants, creating their Clan weaknesses. A great flood came crashing over the Earth, perhaps to wipe away the corruption of the First City. The third generations escaped destruction at the flood, potentially by hiding in underground crypts, going into deep slumber across centuries. It is said that one day that they will awaken again in an event called Gehenna and it will be an apocalyptic event where they will devour all their descendants for their blood, another reflection of Caine's cursed bloodline warring amongst each other.
The Antediluvians are the ultimate antagonists of Vampire the Masquerade. They are a pantheon of vampiric demi gods that are part mythology. The two biggest vampire organizations are the Camarilla and the Sabbat, the former denying the Antediluvians are alive or even ever existed, and the Sabbat obsessed with them and slaying them in a war for survival. Their appearance in a Chronicle is meant to be a plot device as strong as the storyteller wants, and as an antagonist they are either an instant lose condition or an end time scenario. They are the founders of the Clans, representing the various types of Vampires, and can represent that Clan's nature, strengths, and weaknesses. If Caine represents Vampires and Vampirism, the Antediluvians represent the types of Vampires, the Clans.
The Antediluvians are Vampires and have all the natural powers given to all Vampires. Their bodies are dead, and immune to functionally all diseases and poisons, nor do their dead limbs ever tire or suffer from normal injury. So long as they have blood in their veins they regenerate quickly from any wound that is not "aggravated" (meaning one of their particular weaknesses.) A vampire can embrace or turn a human into a vampire during which the Vampire drains blood from the human with their fangs before replacing it with a bit of their blood. This blood drinking is a form of aggravated damage that bypasses similar resistances such as Werewolves being impossible to kill with conventional weapons. Vampires can also boost their physical attributes by calling on the potency in their blood, with the more potent their blood the greater the boost, with Antediluvians having among the highest blood potency, only after their sires and grandsire Caine.
The Kindred, the term Vampires have for themselves, weaponize the potency in their blood through the disciplines, various learned techniques utilizing their blood. Most Disciplines are ranked 1-5, with the greater 6+ range used for Elder Kindred, and 10 representing the total mastery. The Antediluvians usually have at least 5 in almost all the common disciplines and have mastery over their Clan Disciplines, the foundations of what their Clan, the type of Kindred represents. I am going to go over the common disciplines and describe what the fifth rank in it entails to show what almost all Antediluvians should be able to do, and then what the tenth rank in it entails. The tenth rank in all disciplines is always called Plot Device and allows the Antediluvian to use that discipline to do whatever the Storyteller requires of them. You could argue this is game mechanics but it is the only description of what 10 Dot Disciplines do and World of Darkness has a metafictional element with the Storyteller, the game master controlling all the plot elements in the game, being herself or himself a game element that several abilities can actually interact with.
Potence, Fortitude, and Celerity are the three physical enhancing disciplines.
Potence enhances a Kindred's strength. While it depends on their starting strength, 5 Strength can break down a metal door, while 6-7 the level of weak to normal human level Kindred being amped by 5 Potence would have the ability to throw around small vehicles, suggesting a strength increase hundreds to thousands of times over. It also gives a resistance to have the Kindred's strength lowered. At 9 Dots, the Kindred's strength is said to be able to perform the mythic feats of Hercules, Atlas, Thor, and Samson. Assuming these are their most famous feats Hercules and Atlas both lifted the sky, and Thor fought Jormundanr who circled around the entire planet. At 10 Dots, Potence rises to Plot Device and should be able to match any strength level. It might be an NLF to say it can be as strong as any character ever, but given it's supposed to be a plot device for World of Darkness it should be able to match any strength feat in the verse, which for a verse like World of Darkness can match essentially any verse you might put them against with characters containing infinite conceptual realms within their bodies. There's also a neat Potence ability to hit someone with an attack and have its effects work on a delayed reaction.
Fortitude enhances a Kindred's durability, and gives them a limited ability to survive against even the weaknesses of the Kindred. At 5 Fortitude it gives a Kindred a similar durability to its 5 Potence counterpart, allows them to make their animal companions similarly durable, can resist some forms of psychic attack and temporarily resist the Kindred weaknesses like light or fire. At 10 Dots in Fortitude, the Kindred can become temporarily "invulnerable", and gains more psychic resistances, can regenerate from aggravated damage, can transfer damage done from a hand to the striker, and remain fully aware during the day when Kindred usually become sluggish.
Celerity enhances a Kindred's speed. At 5 Dots of Speed, Kindred can easily avoid bullets or roll out of the way of an explosion, walk around water and up walls, grant mortals their speed temporarily by consuming their blood, and have a level of metafictional speed able to do an action before the Storyteller says what happens. By 8 Dots, Kindred are said to act instantly, defying gravity and completely invisible in their motions, passing through mortals to kill them. At 9 Dots, the other Kindred seem frozen in time, and at 10 Dots their Celerity becomes a plot device allow them to move as fast as the plot requires including characters able to straight up leave the Tellurian, the infinite metaconceptual creation.
There are other physical based disciplines:
Protean is the famed Kindred Discipline of shapechanging. At 5 Dots it allows for changing into mist or into certain animals like bats, to gain various animal like body parts such as eyes that see in the dark or beast-like claws that can even harm ghosts. It allows the Kindred to meld into the ground itself. Each Dot grants more transformation related abilities such as automatically turning into mist when attacked, turning into mythical creatures a swarm of animals, reverting other things to their true form, or become incorporeal. At 10 Dots it becomes a plot device and can change into otherworldly things like an indestructible flame.
Animalism is the Kindred disciple of commanding animals and manipulating The Beast, the animal predator side of every Kindred triggered when they see blood. At 5 dots it allows for summoning animals, emotionally manipulating them in various ways, and possessing them. At higher levels of Dots can gain greater control and versatility of control of animals, as well as the animal side of people such as inducing frenzy and panic as well as empowering the animals under their control. Very high levels of Aniamalism allow merging with animals or someone's internal beast to tear them from the inside out.
Obfuscate is the Kindred discipline of stealth. At 5 Dots a Kindred can disguise themselves as others, or make themselves and their allies disappear. At higher levels it allows for protection from various supernatural senses, the ability to appear as a trusted friend, a nightmarish creature, or an unsuspicious whole new identity as well create illusory duplicates or enter the dreaming to avoid detective. At 10 Dots gains Memories Fading Glimpse where reality forgets the Kindred existing and no one can perceive the Kindred anymore. They still appear in drawings for instance but a human trying to look at them for instance will see a blank piece of paper.
There are three common Psychic Disciplines the Kindred
Auspex is the Discipline of supernatural senses of the Kindred that also allows for protection from psychic attacks. At 5 Dots, Auspex allows various supernatural senses like telepathy, clairvoyance, psychic visions, aura-reading, and psychometry. It also allows astral projection. As their dots increase they gain even greater psychic senses. by 7 Dots they have planetary clairvoyance and the ability to take others into the astral plane. At the highest level gains the ability to foretell the fortune like an Oracle, seeing what will be.
Presence is the Discipline of supernatural allure and subtle emotional manipulation. At 5 Dots, Presence allows the Kindred to dramatically sway the emotions of a building of people towards terror or towards following the Kindred's will. With 8 Dots, the Kindred's emotional repertoire expands to include appearing as the ideal person, instilling hilarity, phobia, cooperation, or paralysis among people. At 9 Dots this power grows to being used on a city wide scale, and at 10 Dots to a planetary scale.
Dominate is the more direct Discipline of overwhelming a target's mind with psychic control. At 5 Dots, Dominate allows the Kindred to control a target, shape their memories, or possess them. As it gains in Dots, the psychic power grows capable of commanding large groups at once, their mental commands spreading like a virus or commanding all of their descendants across generations. At 10 Dots as a Plot Dot, Dominate would likely scale to the strongest mind hax the Storyteller can allow if the plot required.
Perhaps evilest of the Antediluvians, Absimilard was born a physically perfect man of beauty and strength. Entranced by both the beautiful Second Generation Zillah laid with him and embraced him, turning him into a Kindred. However in doing so she gave the exceedingly vain Absimilard a small scar. Enraged by this he became one of the major factors pushing for the death of the Second Generations, killing Zillah himself. For this, Caine cursed Absimillard to be as hideous on the outside as he is on the inside, creating the creature known today. His clan Nosferatu share in his hideousness, vampires associated with vermin and disease and underground places. They are not evil like him, and he seeks to destroy them for ever reminding him of his own hideousness.
The clan disciplines of the Nosferatu Absimilard would have mastered include
Potence 10: Plot Level Strength
Obfuscate 10: Plot Level Stealth
Animalism 10: Plot Level Animal Manipulation
In addition Absimilard is a physical beast. Even before he became a vampire he apparently hunted tyrannosaurus with nothing but a spear and loincloth. He fought maybe the strongest 4th generation, the Nosferatu Baba Yaga who could control all of Russia in their fight in a pitched fight despite him being weak from Torpor, the drowsiness that comes in the times near or at when Kindred must hibernate.
Arikel was usually considered the oldest of the Antediluvians and most beloved of Caine. She was known for her unearthly beauty and being a sculptress of amazing quality, possibly why she was embraced, so that beauty would not fade from the world. She was vain of her beauty, but far from cold to the plight of others. It is said at least by some that she was the only one of the Antediluvians to not revolt against the Second Generation and she and her clan alone were the only ones spared by Caine without a curse on their bloodline. Fearing retribution from her angry siblings, especially Absimillard who despised her for retaining her beauty, Arikel went into hiding in Crete. She remains there this day, still fairly active. While she is excessively vain and would like to be queen of the vampires, Arikel has no designs on conquering the world herself, mostly content to admire the beauty of herself and her art, and is relatively nice for an Antediluvian. Her clan, the Toreador are the sensual and the beautiful and the artistic, seducer vampires confused for succubus and incubus.
The Toreador Clan disciplines learned from Arikel are
Celerity 10: Plot Level Speed
Auspex 10: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
and obviously
Presence 10: Plot Level Social Influencing/Emotional Manipulation
Arikel even without using her disciplines is also supernaturally beautiful, causing a mildly hypnotic effect just being around her, seeing her visage, hearing her beautiful voice, smelling her sweet scent.
Cappadocius was the founder of then Clan Cappadocius now Clan Hecata. Cappadocius was a priest and a mystic with many communications and dealings with spirits, chosen to be embraced for his occult knowledge into life and death. As he was being turned into a vampire, the spirits he had communicated with attempted to hold his soul in place, to keep him together. The result fragmented his soul such that he retains a piece of it even as a Vampire but only a piece with the rest gone to the Underworld, leaving him mentally and physically unwell. Cappadocius was unusually active for one of the Antediluvians, wandering around searching for something. Upon the discovery of Christianity he very quickly converted though with a bizarre interpretation. He interpreted Christ's teachings to consume bread and wine as his body and blood as a veiled reference to God sharing a Vampiric aspect and deliberately allowed himself to be killed so that he might diablerize God, consume the blood of God, and gain divine authority to end the cycle of life and death, giving immortality to all. It is possible this was borne out by a true desire to reunite with the other pieces of his soul. Now Cappadoicus haunts the modern Kindred spiritual form as one of the spirits he communed with in life.
Cappadocius' clan are deathly even in comparison to other Kindred, and have shadowy dealings with spirits. Their Clan Disciplines he would have mastered include
Fortitude 10: Plot Level Durability
Auspex: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
as well as their unique clan Discipline Necromancy, the command of Spirits. This allows for a wide variety of soul manipulation abilities such as soul-switching, soul sealing, soul removal. It allows for travel to the Shadowlands where ghosts reside (the astral plane), or making the barrier stronger or weaker. There's a lot more general spiritual type abilities it gives.
Cappadocius also has the benefit that he is now a Spiritual entity who commands many spectres around him, though retains his Vampiric qualities.
Ennoia is one of the most mysterious Antediluvians to her clan's fragmented awareness and lack of record keeping. Ennoia is said to have been a daughter of Lilith. She is said to have been raised by wolves and birthed children from them creating the Garou. Her time early on is unclear. At some point she came to the First City and was embraced as a Kindred. However she disagreed with Caine, finding civilization a decadent and corrupting force, citing the actions of the other Antediluvians as proof. She left to the Wilderness for 40 yeas to purge herself of civilization's decay, urging the other Antediluvians to do the same. For unknown reasons she and Ravnos were very close but came to bitter hatred, enganging in battle alongside their forces for centuries until Ravnos enlisted outside aid. Ennoia was driven from the world and her forces, became scattered into the wilderness again, now become Clan Gangrel, beastlike Vampires most like animal predators then humans. This is the most common account though there are numerous that are very different.
The Gangrel's Clan Disciplines Ennoia would have mastered include:
Fortitude 10: Plot Level Durability
Animalism 10: Plot Level Animal Manipulation
Protean 10: Plot Level Shapeshifting. It is stated in one scenario that with Protean 10 Ennoia merged with the very Earth and now can cause Earthquakes and Fissues to "consume" entire cities and their blood
Haqim, according to the most common account, was a warrior-hunter in 10,000 BC who was unusually perceptive and inquisitive into the nature of life and death, who for his skills was embraced to be an eternal guardian of the First City. Haqim was loyal to his cause and tried to create peace between the other Antediluvians. When the First City was destroyed, and the Second created, Saulot made him and his chlides the lawkeepers of the city. Haqim took this seriously and appointed his childes into three casts and strove to create peace between his vampiric relatives. However in time he became bitter from the constant in fighting of his siblings and led his people out into the desert. According ot a rarer account, Haqim actually made himself a vampire. He found the vile King and Queen of Enoch, two mysterious second generation vampires and somehow slew them as a mere human, consuming their blood. This account is a bit less likely and be more metaphorical. Now Haqim's Clan, the Banu Haqim living in Arabia are the clan of stealthy assassins who enforce justice upon the Kindred, slaying the Kindred who disgrace the laws of Caine and protectors of mortals.
The Clan Disciplines of the Banu Haqim that Haqim would have mastered are:
Celerity 10: Plot Level Speed
Obfuscate 10: Plot Level Stealth
and the unique clan Discipline of the Haqim: Quietus, manipulation of blood. Already helpful against mortals, it's true asset is against other Vampires, befitting the nature a Clan of Vampire Hunters. Quietus allows for a large number of biological manipulations to do things like drown people in their own blood or paralyze them. Against Vampires who use their blood potency to use their powers, it can essentially power null them, and high levels of Quietus can be to inflict the powers of Quietus not only upon an individual but their entire bloodline. If Haqim cursed one of the other Antediluvians, it would affect that Antediluvian's entire clan.
Also according to the rarer account Haqim was the first vampire hunter and killed two second generation level vampires as a mortal? That... shouldn't be possible but if he did it would imply a ridiculously high level of combat skill.
Ilyes was founder of Clan Brujah. Ilyes was often seen as a cold and rebellious troublemaker by the other Antediluvians who has many stories of casually killing mortals for defying Vampiric Superiority. This may be the other Antediluvians using the quiet and imposing Ilyes as a Scapegoat though he was known for his temper. Against Caine's laws he sired the fourth generation Troile, a red haired and fiery youth who the records re unclear as to the gender of (art above depicts them as female.) Troile betrayed and consumed the blood of Ilyes, becoming the Antediluvian from his death, however many claim Ilyes escaped his death via usage of Temporis and will come to avenge his betrayal by killing the descendants of Troile, while some few thing that the two are just different identities for the same individual. The Brujah Antediluvian is a rebellious force of change and his Clan is a Clan of Warriors, Punks, Rebels, and Anarchists.
The Clan Disciplines of Brujah that Ilyes would have maximized include:
Potence 10: Plot Level Super Strength
Celerity 10: Plot level Super Speed
Presence 10: Plot Level Social Influencing/Emotional Manipulation
The Brujah also have a subset that call themselves the True Brujah, warriors of a colder and more calculating disposition similar to Ilyes then Troile. They have learned a more unique Discipline known as Temporis, manipulation of time, said to be a refinement of Celerity. At Temporis 10 it would give Plot Device level Time Manipulation likely able to equal any other in the World of Darkness. It allows for moving outside of time, pausing time, rewinding time, running backwards and forwards through time, create time loops, bring other times to the present, and more. Some Brujah say this is how Ilyes escaped his own Diablerization at the hands of Troile. It is likely this is how he was able enter Lilith's garden in the Umbra, the realm of the spiritual and conceptual.
The nature of the Lord of Darkness is hotly contested between the Ventrue and the Lasombra. Sticking to the most common account, Lasombra was a complete failure in life and was embraced for trivial reasons. Given godlike powers, he was still treated as lesser by the other Antediluvians, the paradox of finally being important yet still eternally treated as lesser. Lasombra brooded on the darkness and the sea, his only real loves. After the fall of the Second City, Lasombra retreated to the sea, settling on a Mediterranean Sea, inspiring tales of vicious sea monsters that consumed whole boats. He was worshipped as a dark god by the Hyksos, the Sea Pirates. His clan, Clan Lasombra are those Vampires who most cling to the darkness, shadowy and indefinite, infiltrating religious institutions to pay tribute to their dark god who watches over the wine-dark sea.
Lasombra would have mastered his clan disciplines including
Potence 10: Plot Level Strength
Dominate 10: Plot Level Mental Manipulation
and the clan's unique discipline of Obtenebration, the control over darkness. It allows for shadow manipulation, turning oneself into a shadow, transport into the Abyss itself, making ones darkness resistant to light, create shadow duplicates of enemies or constructs of darkness, and more. Lasombra is said with Obtenebration 9 to be able to plunge the Earth into darkness for seven days straight, extinguishing sunlight. Moreover it is said with Lasombra's mastery he was able to merge with the Abyss itself, the primordial darkness that existed before God said "Let there be Light", an otherworldly realm of pure darkness deleting all light and information like a black hole, with some speculating that Lasombra's ultimate goal being the return of existence to that darkness.
Wise and Mad. One and Many. Strongest of the Antediluvians and Weakest of the Antediluvians. Malkav is a creature of paradoxes. They say before he was Embraced, he was already special: perhaps a prophet, perhaps an angel, perhaps just a wise man, he was said to have grasped true reality. From there some say Caine sought to reveal the nature of creation unto Malkav, showing him the infinitude of reality. They say in his prime, Malkav was greatest of the Third Generation. However after the deaths of Second Generation, Caine cursed each Antediluvian and to Malkav he gave the curse of insanity, haunted now by his peering into unspeakable reality, haunted by visions incomprehensible. His clan bears this nature now: artists and oracles, pranksters and seers, they are all mad, "gifted" with unspeakable visions. They say Malkav in his madness was slain, and that his clan gathered around his body and in mad bloodlust, consumed Malkav's blood. And that is now how Malkav lives, not as a perhaps but in the blood of his clan, giving them information and guidance and mad visions, living as a mind virus. During the end times, he can possess them outright, his body the combined bodies of his entire clan, Many identical young girls appear during the end times speaking in one voice declaring madly they are Malkav.
Malkav has a very unusual physiology as his true self is the Malkavian mind network connecting all the minds of clan Malkav, his "body" being the bodies of his clan. This gives him access to a huge range of Disciplines without question as he has access to any Discipline his clan knows. The specialties of Clan Malkav he would have mastered in his life are
Auspex: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
Obfuscate: Plot Level Stealth
Dominate: Plot Level Mental Manipulation
Malkav also potentially had passive madness manipulation. It is said his body is buried in the middle east, and the derangement of that area may be caused by his madness emanating out.
The Ravnos Antediluvian has many names as befitting the founder of the Clan of Tricksters. The Ravnos have given accounts of their founders, accounts that are likely baseless given their nature. There were many accounts of Ravnos as the favored child of Caine, an ally of the Garou turned into their eternal guardian, the wrongfully betrayed of Ennoia, a spy placed amongst the ranks of the Third Generations to perform espionage on them, and most strangely, a monster sent by the gods to punish the Canities for being their fallen servants. It is also possible that multiple of these exist as seperate entities confused as one. Regardless Ravnos is the founder of the clans of tricksters and nomads living as Romani and Indians.
Ravnos is unique in that he (possibly she though he was perceived to be masculine) is the only Antediluvian to actually appear and be seen fighting, as opposed to being know through legends and sightings, giving an idea of what fighting an Antediluvian would be like. During the "Week of Nightmares" Ravnos awoke in India sending psychic tremors across the world and visions of doom to the psychically sensitive. He battled from India to Bangladesh, the battle creating a storm across the entire region that destroyed orbital satellites and extending over a week. The resistance was made up of Three Fourth Generation Eastern Vampires, armies of vampires and lycanthropes, as well as the aid of the Technocracy, an organization of reality warping mages dedicated to maintain normalcy who declared Code Ragnarök, a threat to the world. The battle was seen as far away as the underworld. The Technocracy eventually won by hitting Ravnos with two spiritual plane neutron bombs hitting Ravnos both physially and spiritually with neutron bomb level power, with enough force it ripped open the gate ot the underworld, leading into Mummy and Demon's metaplots. This force halted Ravnos but didn't stop him. However it did clear the storm overhead allowing the Technocracy to focus an orbital laser reflecting the Sun's light onto Ravnos. Ravnos was still weakened from having just come out of his torpor and both in and out of universe people doubt Ravnos was defeated that because there's no way even all that would stop an Antediluvian.
Ravnos Clan Disciplines Ravnos would have mastered include:
Fortitude 10: Plot Level Durability
Animalism 10: Plot Level Animal Control
and their unique clan Discipline Chimestry, the art of illusion. With Mastery of Chimestry, Ravnos can create entire illusory universes, bring his illusions to life, and make people immune to illusions. It is because of his trickster nature and mastery of Chimestry and Fortitude people believe Ravnos may have survived. Also at his death he let out a psychic wail that created a madness in all of his clan across the world for four days straight.
Saulot and Tremere are two entities but are now linked in a particular way. Saulot was a saintly man with prophetic gifts. He hated his vampiric nature and refused to take blood not freely given, leaving the First City to find escape, being the first vampire to seek for Golcola, the state of Enlightenment for Kindred-kind that would escape their nature. During his travels he did attain at least a level of enlightment opening his third eye. Having forseen the apocalypse known as Gehenna, Saulot strove to ascend to the position of Yama King so that he might prevent is, manipulating the events of Tremere.
Tremere was a Human Mage in the middle ages. Feeling the enclosing of the Consensus, the ambitious young mage wanted to find a way to continue to use their magic regardless of consensus. Vampires had abilities unaffected by such so he stole vampiric blood and used it. He found the prone body of great Saulot sleeping in his coffin and injected it into himself. What he didn't expect was that it would turn him vampiric outright, and worse that it contained the Antediluvian's soul. Now two souls existed in the same body, battling for control.
Saulot's followers, are not one of the 13 main clans. They are the Salubri, the gentle healers who heal both Kindred and humans. Their Clan Disciplines Saulot would have mastered are:
Fortitude 10: Plot Level Durability
Auspex 10: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
and their unique clan discipline Obeah, Healing. This obviously gives Saulot healing and similar medical abilities like purification, banishment of corrupting spirits, inducing a peaceful sleep, astral plane manipulation and more. Saulot also has a specific weird resistance. Due to his enlightenment, when Saulot was cloned, the mind inside the cloned child Saulot body was the same as the original Saulot, like it the same Saulot. So if you have a character who can create a duplicate of others, doing that doesn't work on Saulot because they will have the same mind.
Tremere's clan, Clan Tremere, is that of Ambitious Blood Mages characterized by their naked ambition and strive for power. Their Clan Disciplines are
Auspex 10: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
Dominate 10: Plot Level Mental Manipulation
and their unique clan discipline Thaumaturgy, magic made in mimicry of Tremere and his follows background as former mages. Thaumaturgy is made of many paths and is such a versatile Discipline it is better characterized at Tremere's level as Reality-Warping.
Set is revered by some to not only be an Antediluvian, but an actual god. While there are many divided accounts, there is actually a first hand account of Set and Osiris by a Kindred that was there in the Mummy books. Set was the brother to Osiris, who became Pharaoh and exiled Set to Egypt. There Set was embraced, possibly by Zillah as other accounts suggest, and returned greater in power and bloodlust then his brother. He slew Osiris, and tortured his wife and child Isis and Horus. Isis was able to escape with her son and followers. Despite the alliance of loyal humans, vampires, fera, and mages, they knew they had no chance against the Antediluvian. Isis in secret created the spell of life and resurrecting Osiris and turning Horus into the first Mummy. Set destroyed the alliance during the casting and defeating his brother again but was castrated and defeated by Horus who waged war against Set and his follower. Set's clan are the Setites, the serpentine vampires of the Desert. They are networks of cults serving Set, seeing him as the path to freedom from the overbearing false laws of morality represented by Osiris.
The Clan Disciplines of the Setites that Set himself would have mastered are
Obfuscate 10: Plot Level Stealth
Presence 10: Plot Level Social Influencing/Emotional Manipulation
and their unique clan discipline Serpentis, manipulation of and taking on the qualities of serpents. Serpentis gives a large amount of strange abilities such as making the entire world want to attack the target, transform into divine form like one of the Egyptian Gods, becoming a snake of darkness, become temporarily immune to Sunlight, creating poisons, commanding serpents. All of these are associated with Set's symbolic role where he travels down to the Egyptian afterlife to prevent Apophis, perhaps the Wyrm itself or an aspect, from consuming the Sun God Ra.
Beyond this Set has a lot of magic, it's well known the Tremere stole a lot of their magic from the Setites who have been practicing magic for thousands of years prior, albeit with far less ambition and therefore to not as high an extent. Also one Gehenna scenario portrays Set as ridiculously strong, like subjugating a half dozen other Antediluvians at once, though Gehenna scenarios are inherently somewhat contradictory.
The Eldest is the most monstrous of the Antediluvians. There are two accounts of the monster's creation both of which involved a Second Generation experimenting with a human, casting out a part of them, either all of their evil, or the internal beast in all vampires, and had the human consume it. This led the human to twist and change into an inhuman form. The Eldest considers Kindred the next stage of evolution and looked down on the other Kindred for maintaining themselves close to human form and mind, instead spreading itself like a monstrous plague, taking on alien forms and spreading its mass embracing and warping others to be like it. The Tzimisce Clan are those that consider the Kindred the next stage of evolution like their founder, who seek to abandon the human condition entirely.
The mastered disciplines The Eldest passed onto his clan include
Animalism 10: Plot Level Animal Control
Auspex 10: Plot Level Sensory Abilities
and their unique clan Discipline Vicissitude, the art of shaping flesh and bone. This allows for functionally any form of bodily change including turning pools of cannibalistic blood, taking on dragon form, growing and shrinking, turning ones blood into acid, growing blood-sucking tendrils, bodily shifting other people, and reform the body after it's been destroyed along with other horrific abilities.
The Eldest is very often considered the strongest of the Antediluvians. It is said to be able to burrow through and crash through the ground anywhere in the world. It made a deal with an Earthbound, Demons who can reshape planets, called Kupala for power and before Kupala betrayed thbe Eldest, The Eldest betrayed Kupala and destroyed it. The Eldest in one ending literally just absorbs all biomass on Earth into itself.
Ventrue accounts hold that their founder Ventru was the eldest of the Antediluvians, found by Caine himself who saw great potential in the boy and gave to Enoch of the Second Generation to foster. From there Ventru was entrusted with guardianship of all Kindred, to safeguard them despite the chaotic mess of personalities they represented. They say he said this to Ventrue the day before Caine left. When the Deluge came, it is said that Ventru led his breathern against the Second Generation in loyalty to Caine, believing their sires had led them astray and unwittingly inviting Caine's wrath upon them. Despite the curses upon them Ventru continued to try and keep his brethern together in the days of the Second City and was struck own and killed by one of the, most often attributed to Lasombra. Now his clan remains a clan seeing to regain rulership over the Kindred, stoic and seeing themselves as the Kindred's rightful kings, tasked with bringing them in line.
The Ventrue Clan disciplines Ventru would have mastered include
Fortitude 10: Plot Level Durability
Presence 10: Plot Level Social Influencing/Emotional Manipulation
Dominate 10: Plot Level Mental Manipulation
Ventru was also said to have had a commanding voice that commanded people to follow his commands, though this may have been a usage of his disciplines.
The Antediluvians do have weaknesses though. After the rebellion Caine cursed the clans with their own individual weaknesses such as as Malkav's insanity and Absilimard's hideousness. More then that however, while the Antediluvians are godly level vampires, they are still vampires and possess the weaknesses of vampires. Just as Caine was cursed to never behold the Sun and to fear the living flames, so too do sunlight and flames kill an Antediluvian. Some of them have tools to get around this somewhat, but it's a problem for all of them. All of them get paralyzed by a stake through the heart, all of them need to consume blood to survive, and all of them enter long periods of hibernation which for the Antediluvians can be literally centuries or longer. Also while a cross usually wouldn't work on a WoD Vampire, True Faith, a person who has true full faith can use a holy object to ward them and their powers away, though such levels of faith is extremely rare.
Honestly, the biggest weakness of the Antediluvians is that almost all of their abilities come from them utilizing the potency of their blood, something they have to actively expend. There's not really a stamina problem, Ravnos was able to use it for a week straight without feeding during the week of nightmares. However they don't always have it on and when they don't the only passive abilities they have are much lower superhuman stats, Arikel's supernatural beauty, Malkav's potential Madness Manipulation, Cappadocious being a spirit, The Eldest being whatever the hell the Eldest is, and sometimes Lasombra being the Abyss. The most realistic way of killing an Antediluvian is just finding it when its asleep and killing it before it wakes. This is the more realistic way that Haqim killed two second gens, it's how Tremere killed Saulot even though that was Saulot's plan, etc. Also for a similar reason blood manipulation is particularly strong against them as if you can prevent them from using the potency in the blood you essentially power null an Antediluvian as Haqim shows.
Name: The Antediluvians, The Clan Founders, The Third Generation, Sleeping Horrors, Blood Gods
Origin: World of Darkness/Vampire: The Masquerade
Powers and Abilities: Vampiric Physiology, Enhanced Physical and Mental Stats, Supernatural Stealth, Supernatural Senses, Shapeshifting, Animal Manipulation, Emotional Manipulation, Mental Manipulation, Astral Existence (Cappadocius), Necromancy (Soul/Spirit Manipulation), Fusion/Earth Manipulation (Ennoia), Blood Manipulation (Haqim), Time Manipulation (Ilyes), Darkness Manipulation (Shadow Constructs and Duplications/BFR/Fusion with the Void), Many Bodies (Malkav), Passive Madness Manipulation (Malkav/Ravnos), Illusions/Reality-Warping (Ravnos/Tremere), Healing/Purification (Saulot), Magic (Tremere/Set), Egyptian Serpent Manipulation/Form (Set), Bodily Control/Form Shifting/Assimilation (The Eldest), Resistance to Emotional/Mental Manipulation, Likely Resistance to Reality-Warping and a wide variety of abilities (The Technocracy could not easily deal with Ravnos)
Weaknesses: Standard Vampiric Weaknesses, Various Clan Weaknesses, Blood Manipulation
Attack Potency: Wall Level to Small Building Level Passively (Vampires with superhuman attributes or Potence 5 can throw trucks around), Country to Moon Level with High Level Disciplines (Can perform "Mythic" Feats, The Eldest slew an Earthbound, Ravnos fought through Fourth Gens creating a storm across India and Bangladesh, Absimilard can blot out the Sun for 7 days, and is stronger then Baba Yaga who could control all of Russia, Set is comparable to Horus the strongest Mummy, Mummies able to create planetary storms and earthquakes, Ennoia can fuse with the Earth), up to Infinite Metaconceptual with Potence 10 (With Plot Device Strength, should be able to replicate whatever strength feat the plot requires)
Range: Planetary in general (Basically all the Antediluvians have planetary range with their abilities), some of the Antediluvians have shown universal+ range like Lasombra fusing with the Void and Ravnos creating illusory universes he can make real
Speed: Subsonic to Supersonic Passively (Antediluvians with high level of stats or Celerity 5 can avoid bullets and explosions), likely Relativistic at High Levels of (High Levels of Celerity can allow an Antediluvian to avoid laws of physics and become truly invisible), up to Infinite Metaconceptual with Celerity 10 (With Plot Device Speed, Antediluvians can likely replicate whatever speed feat the plot requires)
Durability: Wall Level to Small Building Level Passively (Vampires with superhuman attributes or Fortitude 5 should be comparable to Potence 5 can throw trucks around), Country to Planet Level with High Level Disciplines (Can perform "Mythic" Feats, Ravnos resisted the power of Fourth Gens creating a storm across India and Bangladesh, Absimilard resisted Baba Yaga's power who could control all of Russia, Set is comparable to Horus the strongest Mummy, Mummies able to create planetary storms and earthquakes, Ennoia can fuse with the Earth), up to Infinite Metaconceptual with Fortitude 10 (With Plot Device Durability, should be able to replicate whatever durability feat the plot requires)
Stamina: Superhuman (Ravnos fought for a week without feeding)
Intelligence: Superhuman (The Antediluvians are millennia old Vampires who mastermind plots across a similar plot with superhuman mental attributes able to gain all the information from someone by talking to them or predicting the future, comparable to Mages who can create platonic machines affecting the conceptual plane. Absimilard and possibly Haqim have also shown superhuman combat skill feats before even becoming Vampires)
So if the Antediluvians joined together for the first time since the Rebellion and started a Gehenna end of times scenario in other universes, how would other universes survive the Final Nights
DC Comics is a verse that I like to compare to a lot of verses just for being so versatile but also one of the main earths in the local multiverse is Earth-43, the Vampire Earth and just recently in the 2020s they had a Vampire Apocalypse plotline called DC vs Vampires so what would happen if instead of those vampires on Earth-63, Gehenna happened on Earth-1?
DC has some of the most physically potent characters in fiction, with members of the Justice League that just hang out on Earth able to threaten conceptually infinite realms even back during the Silver Age when Spectre was able to fight Hell Lords that can affect all of Hell or speedsters like Barry Allen able to run into the speedforce and even the Source. However there are actually similar feats with realms in the Umbra being similarly infinite and entities of infinite conceptual size such as Apophis, the Oneroi, The Celestines and Plot Device level powers can hypothetically match them as well as speed feats of characters able to travel anywhere in the Tellurian or even outside it. This mean some Antediluvians can actually match the Justice League Heavy Hitters in their physical stats. Or at least kinda. Doing so fully would require Potence, Fortitude, and Celerity 10 of which no Clan has all 3 as disciplines. Illyes would be the best having both Potence and Celerity meaning he could match High Tier Justice League Members in Speed and hurt them physically though he wouldn't have the durability to withstand their attacks. Physically speaking the Antediluvians are a lot more around the lines of Mid Tier Justice League Members such as Red Tornado who is faster then Jay Garrick and highly durable but lacking in high tier strength, the equivalent of two of the three physical disciplines. The country to planetary levels the Antediluvians can normally reach is also around the level of the high tiers of most planets in the universe, as well as the Mid Tiers of Earth-1, So the Antediluvians should try to avoid direct combat, though fortunately for them, that's their specialty.
The Antediluvians would, realizing they're in a very dangerous universe and manipulate events from the shadows. With intelligences comparable to the Mages who are similar to DC's Super Intellects, the Antediluvians could manipulate things from the shadows. This is aided by the fact that through both Presence and Dominate, more then half would be Top Tier Telepaths by DC's Context, with six of them also having the ability to see the future, and four of them have Obfuscate on the level that even the Super Senses of someone like Superman likely couldn't sense them. If they try a direct strategy then they would likely get overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and potency of the Justice League. Ravnos can create universal illusions and make them real but DC has an entire subpopulation of Homo Magi who can do similar. While most Homo Magi like Zachary Zatanna can't affect living entities, Kindred aren't living which was famously why Old World Mages could turn them into chairs, almost identical circumstances. Similarly Lasombra can turn into a universal void, but Obsidian has very similar abilities and could likely fight Lasomba evenly, let alone with aid from Alan Scott and Jade. However they would be an extremely dangerous threat via subtle long term methods. The Eldest can assimilate adding their abilities to his. Lasombra can create shadow duplicates of people with their powers. Tremere would likely try to add DC Magic to his own and Ennoia fusing with the Earth might give her the access to Gaia's powers the way some in World of Darkness think she does. Beyond that though is the obvious, vampirism. The Antediluvians could infect characters in the verse with vampiric to spread them. The new fourth gen's vampiric abilities wouldn't be that potent at first due to lack of experience, but would retain their metahuman abilities the way Abominations do, basically turning the verse's own strengths against it.
However while they would be a huge threat, there is one character who would stop them. Superman, the greatest hero of them all. Superman not only has top tier physical and mental stats for the DCU, not only can literally create sunlight via the Solar Flare, not only resists almost all the Antediluvians' abilities, but Superman is Superman. His narrative is what the entirety of DC Comics centers around. Plot Device powers only let an Antediluvian do what the plot requires, and against someone with the narrative weight of Superman, I don't think it would work. There are things the Antediluvians can try to do against Superman. Lasombra can blot out the Sun for 7 days. However Superman has an internal solar battery and even the young inexperienced New 52 Superman bench pressed the Earth for five days with no sunlight and only a single drop of sweat. Ravnos can create illusory universes, but Superman can use Torquasm-Vo to fight Dominus who created an entire illusory multiverse. While the Antediluvains can bring about the Final Nights on most Earths easily, and would be a massive threat on Earth-1, I think Superman would be able to save the world from them.
Vampire Hunter D is well regarded as having some of the strongest vampires in fiction. In the post apocalyptic far future rule by the scientifically advanced tyranny of the Nobility, the ancient blood Gods awaken, how do they do? Also fun fact, the apocalypse that devastated the world in Vampire Hunter D happened in 1999, and in World of Darkness 1999 was when the Week of Nightmares happened starting its own apocalypse.
The Antediluvians would quickly find things have changed since their days in the 12000s AD. The Kindred, now called Nobles have taken over the world and the average noble is now as strong as an Elder was in their day. Their attacks are described as destroying hundreds of tons of rubble, shattering laserproof steel, creating Magnitude 8 Earthquakes, destroying mountains, shifting the land and wiping out biomes. (Potence/Fortitude 6-8) Their speed is fast enough to avoid bullets and explosions and even to somewhat compete with early D who can avoid lightspeed attacks (Celerity 5-8) This combined with having the "standard" noble powers which encompass all the common vampire abilities, roughly the equivalent of 3-5 Dots in every other Discipline. They are regularly thousands of years old and invent science-fiction technology and mastermind plots. Thus the average noble is now equivalent to the Elders of Generations 7 and 6 or even the Methusalehs of Generations 4 and 5. However the Antediluvians, assuming they are not fresh from torpor find the notion amusing. For they are Generation 3. Malkavian's body alone contains Elders and Methusalehs similar to the Nobles. Beyond that the Antediluvians have access to 9 and 10 Dot Powers even most Nobles would find beyond them. It would probably be a bit more of a fight or an Antediluvian here, there are more Methusaleh tier Nobles then there are Methusaleh generation Kindred they would run into, but not only didy have a lot of help from the Technocracy during the Week of Nightmares, but instead of 1 Antediluvian, there's 13 all of whom can cover each other's weaknesses.
However they would also face greater resistance when they reach the Greater Nobles. There are 1,000 Greater Nobles, including the 7 Kings. These characters have outright cosmic feats such as Greylancer able to stop a power that could threaten the galaxy, The Accelerator replicating the power of the Big Bang, absorbing all the energy of the Astral Realm, a separate reality equal to the universe alongside speed feats, fighting in nanoseconds or instantly moving things a hundred million lightyears. Obviously these feats are absolutely insane by World of Darkness standards, but even outside of physical amplifying with 10 Dot Physical Disciplines, there are similarly universal scale abilities from the Antediluvians such as Lasombra merging with the Abyss, Ilyes affecting time on a universal scale, and Ravnos creating illusory universes. They would essentially be more like Mages to the Greater Nobles' Warriors, focused on specifically hax techniques as opposed to physical capacity. They also have the advantage of the Greater Nobles having all the Antediluvians vampiric weaknesses but not the other way around. The Antediluvians can use garlic or running water or even holy weapons, with only objects used with "True Faith" able to hurt a WoD Vampire whereas any cross would work on a Greater Noble. That said the verse has similarly broken hax and ways around even Obfuscate 10 with their legendary ability to predict fate itself with super-mathematics, similar to how Auspex does so by divining the future. If they tried to take on the entire world at once, they would likely get overwhelmed by numbers and physical power. It would be better for them to try to slowly increase their influence.
Also there's a few top tiers and um... yeah the Antediluvians can't do anything against them. The Sacred Ancestor is the thematic equivalent of Caine, and a fight between him and the Antediluvians would be similarly one-sided. D during Armageddon fights the Sacred Ancestor for all time and regularly kills Greater Nobles on the level of the Antediluvians so they probably wouldn't do well against him either. The only real thing that they would have against him is I don't think he has an obvious way of detecting ones with Obfuscate 10, though it's possible Left Hand could tell him they're there, depending on what Left Hand is.
Castlevania is another one of the most potent vampire verses, with both Castlevania and World of Darkness taking inspiration from the Universal Horror Movies. With even low tier demons and vampires and able to sink ships and create storms, and mid tiers able to create dimensions with celestial bodies in them, along with light-timing feats even for low tiers, the Antediluvians would awaken again in a Vampire World of much higher physical stats then they are used to, but with the the verse high tiers reaching universal to multiversal, the Antediluvians with their abilities should be able to have at least some ability to fight against anyone in the verse with their own universal abilities such as Lasombra's ability to become a universal void, Ravnos able to create illusory realities and make them real, Ilyes ability to control time on a universal scale etc.
Were the Antediluvians to fight the creatures of Chaos, probably the most useful Antediluvian immediately would be Set, who not only has Obfuscate that most of the creatures of chaos would not be able to face, but is able to take the form of the Egyptian Gods, who regularly suppress the chaos of Isfet the Cosmic Disharmony and its embodiment Apophis. By taking the form of Ra, Set can also ironically summon the Sun's light to burn away enemy vampires. The creatures of the Night, servants of Chaos gain the powers from Chaos magic derived from their Lord Chaos, this would allow Set to suppress enemy magics. The Creatures of Chaos have a wide variety of abilities including chaos manipulation, plot manipulation, soul stealing, spatial manipulation and madness manipulation however there are all abilities that Wizards in World of Darkness can perform and the Antediluvians would have some resistance to.
A greater threat would happen if the Antediluvians attempted to attack the Castle instead. Instead resides the Lord of the Night himself Dracula, chosen of Chaos, as well as Death, the very concept of Death. The Antediluvians don't have very much that can affect a conceptual entity like Death outside maybe the magic of Set and Tremere. Dracula would be more interesting, serving the same role in Castlevania as Caine does in World of Darkness. Dracula is vastly more powerful then any of the Antediluvians individually and them fighting him would require likely teamwork between them and exploiting his weaknesses with the likes of Saulot using purification and Set using the form of an Egyptian god, and any of them using holy weapons. However Dracula's castle is a plane of reality that is at one with him, the two being parts of each other, and in there he is reality, controlling it. Things like erasing the existence of people inside or nullifying their magic are things he can easily do that would very much mess with an Antediluvian inside.
The Belmonts and other Vampire Hunters would be a strange fight. They are physically extremely powerful by WoD standards, and they have true faith which would be a potent offense against the Antediluvians. That said their resistances while comprehensive are mostly on a small scale. Things like planetary scale emotional manipulation, universal scale stealth, universal scale illusions etc. would be very large threats. As such a fight between them would be a dangerous fight on both sides that depends on if the Antediluvians has Celerity or Auspex to see the fight coming, and who acts first.
World of Darkness is one of the most powerful Horror verses, with probably the most infamously powerful Horror verse being the Cthulhu Mythos at the same time as the Universal Horror films that served as inspirations for the World of Darkness. So what if those strange stars hanging above the Arkham and Miskatonic universe beheld the Final Nights of Gehenna?
In the Mythos, the Antediluvians would be most similar to the Old Ones like Cthulhu, ancient apocalyptic horrors that will awaken one day. However even the millennia old Antediluvians who sleep for centuries are incomprehensively young to the Old Ones who are vigintillions of years old and sleep for millions of years till the stars are right. The Old Ones would have psychic powers equivalent to 10 Dot Psychic Disciplines and be similarly fast able to plunge from star to star. That said while those are extremely dangerous abilities, even at their height when they could telepathically know all the goings on in the universe, Absilimard, Set, Haqim, and Malkav 10 have Obfuscate 10 which may make it difficult for even the Old Ones to sense him having to use precog to foretell them in the future. The Old Ones have access to advanced magic, such as Cthulhu sealing the Old Ones into the Earth but not only was Ravnos able to resist the Technocracy trying to kill him, which is an organization of reality-warping mages controlling the world, but they are also have Tremere with plot level magic to undo their spells. However the Old Ones have their famous trick for the Mythos, they exist in higher spatial dimensions and affecting them in three dimensions is only affecting an insignificant part of them. The Antediluvians would struggle to affect that though Ilyes can uneven the fight by invoking the Old One's weakness, for when the stars were not right the Old Ones lay in deathlike sleep, with Ilyes able to control time with Temporis to rewind time back to when the stars were not right.
More fitting for the Antediluvians is to utilize their usual weapon, their masterminding plots across the centuries to wrest control of the Earth from the Old Ones, strengthening the magic seals on them, keeping the fight from happening. Both sides have precog with Cthulhu granting his followers visions of the future and high Auspex giving visions of the future. Both can emotionally control the planet, the Old Ones having molded humanity to prepare for the re-awakening of the Old Ones, while Presence 10 can allow for emotional manipulation of the planet. There are more Antediluvians but they act much slower due to their sealing, and their mind warping is strongest on artistic types, middle level on scientific types, and weakest on practical types, in WoD terms limited by banality like Fae Magic. The Antediluvians Presence Discipline has no such weakness, and as Kindred have high banality, they would likely have some resistance to having their own brains warped. The Antediluvians acting together can contorl humanity, guiding them to delay the awakening of the Old Ones. Much like the World of Darkness, every human has an incomprehensible potential. In World of Darkness this is via awakening, but in the Mythos it is the opposite, humans harnessing the power of dreams. This is important as Presence 10 can explicitly warp the dreams of humanity to a common goal, in this case harnessing the dream power of mankind to maintain the seal on the Old Ones.
In fact with no Technocracy to keep humans unaware of their power, the Antediluvians can harness the power of humans' dreams to gain considerable power. The Mythos Earth is plagued by alien entities but outside of the Old Ones they should be relatively easy for the Antediluvians to handle. The Haunter in the Dark warps cities and can send people to the void itself, but not only can Antediluvians likely resist that level of reality-warping but those with Celerity 10 can actually likely run fast enough to return from the Void itself as Ilyes was able to enter and exit Lilith's garden. The Color out of space is an alien color that mutates and lifedrains what it comes across, but Lasombra can become the void itself which consumes light including all frequencies of color. The Dunwhich Horror can summon Elder Gods but not only can any Antediluvian blitz the Dunwhich Horror and kill it before it completes the ritual but The Eldest could absorb it to gain its powers. Malkav can actually enter into the Dreaming to lead the Dreamers there, though the Antediluvians should be wary of trying to expand their dominion from Earth as even the least of the things in the Dreaming are Zoogs, Dream Rats that can eat an unwary Dreamer, let alone the actual gods within it which would be like fighting a powerful Umbra entity.
Finally what if the Antediluvians were in the biggest Tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons? World of Darkness and D&D are actually getting a sorta crossover book so it feels especially fitting. While there are Powerful Vampire Lords in D&D with CR in the uppe teens, the Antediluvians would be almost unmatched in Vampiric Strength, being more akin to lesser gods and elder evils in the epic CRs of 20s to 30s, with such level sin D&D scaling to feats that can affect the entire planet often with very clear World of Darkness Parallels like creating an ice age, Ragnorra being an Elder Evil being a living comet that smashes violently into a planet, Murderoids being living planetoids, Elder Evil Zargon creating planetary storms ala High Tier Amenti, Father Llymic blotting out the Sun like high level Obtenebration, and Abominations heating the Core of the planet. With D&D also having light timing feats for reflex scaling for characters able to avoid light-wielding magic attacks after they are fired, the Antediluvians would be right at home as Apocalyptic Elder Evil Tier Vampires, most similar to Kas, the right hand of the god Vecna, a vampire with a CR of 25, though probably stronger then even him.
The plane it's most obvious for them to appear in is Ravenloft, the plane of dread, the horror inspired setting. The Dark Powers trapped evil souls in prison realms on the plane, which shaped into domains befitting the soul's nature, representing different flavors of horror. With most of the the Darklords being in the CR 10-20 including Count Strahd, D&D's most famous vampire, the Antediluvians would be a threat unlike almost anything in the setting save the Dark Powers themselves and if the Dark Powers allow for it, the Antediluvians would unironically free many of the Darklords of the torment of the Hell they're trapped in by taking over their realms, possibly causing it to shape to the Antediluvians (though it's inconsistent what happens if a Darklord dies,) Of course the major exception Gwydion, the Sorcerer-Fiend, an eldritch monster that once ruled over the the Shadowfell in the Realm of Shadow with a CR of 40 that even the Dark Powers worry escaping. However he is sealed in the Obsidian Gate and needs to manipulate people by disguising himself as others and manipulating them in dreams to unseal him. The Antediluvians are absolutely not going to fall for such with their level of Mental Stats and Auspex, and can control the dreams of the entire plane while maneuvering things to keep anyone from ever getting close to the Obsidian Gate. While it passively emanates madness, Malkav is implied to do the same on a much wider scale with the other Antediluvians unaffected by such. So long as the Dark Powers don't interfere with the Antediluvians and so long as they are on the same scale, the Antediluvians should have no trouble with becoming the scariest things in the realm of horror.
This is probably not too much of a surprise. The Antediluvians are roughly equivalent to Elder Evils, cataclysmic horrors that individually threaten a plane, and are a good final villain for a long high level campaign. Having 13 of them is a very extensive threat to essentially any material plane in the multiverse. However the D&D Multiverse has something the Tapestry in WoD does not, which is a LOT of characters with True Faith. Two of the Core D&D Classes, Clerics and Paladins, are famous for being good against undead, especially Clerics, with anti-undead and have a ton of true faith, once again especially Clerics. Does this mean any random Cleric or Paladin can fight an Antediluvian, obviously not. But the classes do have type advantage and if an Antediluvian tried to solo a plane, they'd fight the strongest Paladins and Clerics of it to actually be something of a threat. That's not even including the 24 Solars, the Highest Angels of the Lawful Good Deities, who have all that plus various other broken abilities for being Outsiders. Solars which emanate sunlight at will. The Antediluvians as a group would be a threat on the scale of the entire material plane, but there would be reasonably potent counters to them.
