A coven master is the head of a coven of vampires. Coven masters enforce their coven’s laws internally, torturing or destroying vampires who do not conform. Coven masters also possess the right to destroy vampires whose youth or weakness prevents them from surviving major transitions, such as the collapse of a coven, like when Armand immolates most of the Children of Satan in Paris. Coven masters are not simply leaders of immortal blood drinkers; they are also intransigent protectors of a way of life, attacking and destroying all external influences that might negatively affect the coven, particularly blood drinkers who refused to join their coven or follow their coven’s rules. An example of this is when Santino, as coven master of the Children of Satan in Rome, destroys Marius’s Venetian palazzo in the fifteenth century. Later, Armand, as coven master of the Children of Satan in eighteenth-century Paris, attempts (and fails) to destroy Lestat and Gabrielle for not following the Great Laws. However, Armand’s role as coven master changes when his coven is destroyed and the Théâtre des Vampires coven is established; he informs Louis that he is not a traditional coven master but only a leader, in the sense that he is the oldest and most powerful. In the twentieth century, Lestat refers to the term “coven master” as “old lingo,” as if the fall of antiquated superstitions perpetuated by outmoded covens also felled fruitless methods of leadership. The coven master idiom occurs in The Vampire Lestat (1985), The Queen of the Damned (1988), The Vampire Armand (1998), Blood Canticle (2003), Prince Lestat (2014), and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016).
For more perspectives on the “coven master” idiom, read the Alphabettery entries Armand, Children of Satan, Coven, Gabrielle, Lestat de Lioncourt, Marius de Romanus, and Santino.