Driven to the edge of sanity, the Deceivers are feared not only by the Human race but by their own kind as well. Their devious personalities have come to manifest themselves in accursed supernatural abilities enabling them to assault the enemies' minds directly, making them see and hear whatever a Deceiver finds most useful to sow fear and confusion among enemy ranks.

Physically less powerful than the offspring of other Lieutenants, the Zephonim make up for it through their mental abilities. The Deceivers have attempted to artificially shape and force their Vampiric evolution through self-torture, experimental alchemy and twisted breeding programs. Moreover, their devious personalities have come to manifest themselves in accursed abilities.

Cunning and trickery have always been the primary tools of these spies and assassins – where once they served their lord Zephon in his political machinations, the Zephonim now focus their attention on the Human enemy. Acts of sabotage, spying, psychological warfare and targeted killings are their preferred operations; when forced to appear alongside their siblings on the open battlefield, however, their supernatural ability to sow confusion and discord has come to be greatly feared.

A Deceiver is capable of assaulting his enemies' minds directly, making them succumb to whatever he finds most useful to sow fear and confusion amongst their ranks. These masters of deception can drive a Human mad with confusion by possessing their very eyesight, making them hear things, and often see things that are not there. Much of a Deceiver's value as a warrior is in his ability to divide a Human group and make them more vulnerable to Vampire attack.

It is not only Humans, however, who fear the Zephonim, but their own kind as well. The extremes they have gone to in their attempts to further themselves and master their own evolution have driven the Deceivers over the edge of sanity, and their precise motivations and agenda are no longer clear. They are not fully trusted by the other Clans – the remnants of the Razielim in particular have long suspected the Deceivers' dark influence at work behind the purge of the supposedly traitorous offspring of Raziel following his execution. Nevertheless, they are tolerated for now due to their usefulness in combat.

While the Deceivers are their most active agents on the battlefield, Clan Zephonim is also valuable in another way to the Vampire race. While every Clan has its own breeding farms of captive Humans buried in the heart of their own territory, the Zephonim have for centuries cultivated the art.
In centuries to come, Clan Zephonim will come to make use of their mental powers to re-affirm the sect of Vampire-worshipping Humans' waning faith, compelling them to serve their dark gods as devoutly as ever before. For now, the Deceivers' only goal is to bring Humanity to its knees.

The Deceivers reveled in their emerging powers and abilities, fully embracing the advantages bestowed upon them by their master Zephon. As time wore on, their insect influenced gifts evolved into physical ones. Beneath their skin a hard chitinous armor began to form, pushing out and slowly causing their flesh to peel away. Their bodies lengthened and any semblance of humanity began to give way to a more efficient killing form, one that reflected their instincts, their will, and their reflex actions. They embraced the changes to their form that their dark gifts wrought, binding their new skin under a tapestry of insectoid styled armor. Zephon's ability to hide his true face beneath an exoskeletal mask was seen as the height of evolution for the Decievers: they chose to imitate their master with the split mask to reflect their duality between vampire and predatory insect. Soon their cocoons began to resemble spider nests, their homes that of a large hive, and their method of feeding a twisted abomination of arachnids. They would leave their victims alive for weeks hanging in prisons of web to be fed upon at leisure. Woe to any who stood against them, for death by their hands would not be quick or neat, but a slow lingering torture...