Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
Since I'm getting some submissions, I updated the bottom of the first post with links directly to them and their status, mostly for my own sanity.

If I'm wrong about something regarding these apps, let me know.

EDIT: Oh, new page. I'll repost that information here, too.

Apps Submitted/Status

Josef bugman: Alistair Erikson

Soonmot: Ricky Fry

Bouquet: Loren Ainslie Chancellor

Valhawk: Leo Jansen

Zephonith: Amber Holloway

TehWarsmith: Alicia Bedford

Roland Jones: Roshan

Epicurius: Bob Scott

SECT VOTES
Anarch: 1
Camarilla: 4
Sabbat: 0

LifeGetsWorser fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jun 2, 2014

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
Rereading the Climbing the Ladder section, for the people I was talking to on IRC about it, it turns out it does have twelve steps, rather than nine; for some reason two of the steps ("Remember Your Victims" and "Beg Someone, Anyone to Fix You") aren't listed on the list I got the nine from, and the last step ("Wrapping Up") isn't exactly a step the players do and is done after everyone's stuff is brought together, but, yeah. If you've done every step then that's eleven XP, and a possible twelfth depending on how LifeGetsWorser rules that last one counting for us I guess. Sorry for the misinformation yesterday.

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
After I've made my picks, we'll do the 12th step together, yes.

Cabbit
Jul 19, 2001

Is that everything you have?

So should we just operate under the assumption of twelve XP in anticipation of the last step?

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
You can get an xp for every step you answer - I'm only requiring one question from each step answered though, so as to not bog things down too much.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Yeah, I only answered 8, so 8 XP. Can I mention how much I love the XP changes in GMC WoD?

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE
Leo Jansen



Backstory
Leo grew up poor, living out in nowhere Minnesota. His father was an abusive drunk, taking out his anger on Leo and his mother. He did ok in school, but his disruptive home life lead to discipline problems. One subject he did well in was history, though this was more because the teacher took a special interest in him, arranging for tutoring and generally acting as a mentor. It was from him that Leo first got the idea to enlist when he turned 18. When he revealed what he’d done his father cursed him out and tried to beat him up. Fortunately for Leo, he wasn’t a child anymore, and it was he broke one of father’s ribs in the brawl.

Leo shipped out for Basic the next day. The harsh discipline and structure of the military was a tough transition, but once he made the switch he started to thrive. After a tour in Afghanistan, where he was decorated for valor in helping to save one of his squadmates from after an IED exploded in their convoy. Upon his return from his first tour he was selected for OCS, where he showed exceptional leadership ability and charisma. He passed with flying colors and was assigned the rank of 2nd lieutenant.

Leo’s next two tours all in Iraq seemed to indicate that his career was on the ascendant. He rose steadily in the ranks, with rumors that he’d be promoted to captain by the end of his third tour. He definitely planned to remain in the Army for the rest of his days. His third tour, once more to Afghanistan would put an end to all that. Stateside, he was put in charge of his new platoon, he was well received by his men. Things went smoothly, until there was a major training accident. It was a live-fire exercise when an explosive charge went off prematurely killing one soldier and seriously wounding four others. The investigation pointed towards negligence by Leo. There wasn’t enough proof to land him in the stockade, but everywhere he went he got dirty looks. His command was taken away and his career was ruined. After the media circus died down, the army quietly dismissed him with a Other Than Honorable Discharge.

Aspirations:
  • Train Olof up into a worthy lieutenant/right hand man.
  • Build up his own PMC staffed with completely loyal troops.
  • Prove himself useful to Alexander.

Touchstone:
Olof Patterson

Ladder:

Confront Vulnerability

When he was discharged, Leo tried to reintegrate into civilian life, but a less than honorable discharge is a black mark that no employer wants to touch with a 10 foot poll. None of his subordinates would say word one to him, the men whom he had helped lead through life and death in Iraq deserted him completely. He drifted from menial job to menial job. At the same time, he started to drink. He insisted he had it under control, that was a lie. Most of the times he lost a job it was because he was too hungover to come in, and once or twice he came in drunk. All that time he’d managed to hide it from his father, he had always opposed Leo joining the military, told Leo his “worthless son” would be a waste of the army’s time when he kicked Leo out. It was when his father learned he was a drunk that Leo truly hit rock bottom.

Believe Someone Has Answers

When he was a drunk, Leo didn’t always hang out at the best places. The cheaper the booze the more of it he could drink, and that meant he spent more than a few nights in seedy little dives. It was here he met John Smith. The name was obviously fake, but Leo didn’t care. The man seemed totally free, living a big fat gently caress you in society's face. Nothing but his bike, no rules, no judgement. Of course, once he got too close, once John had already taken what little money he had left, not to mention a few nights that didn’t seem to contain enough booze, but were blackout none the less did John vanish as quickly as he had come. Leo realized he had been a mark, nothing more, and that freedom was an illusion.

Meet Your Maker

It was soon after John vanished and Leo was drunker than ever that when Alexander appeared. He walked through the dive bar where Leo was drinking himself into a stupor, and every head turned as he walked by. When he placed himself down next to Leo, and ordered himself a seltser, Leo thought nothing of it. Then Leo spoke to this magnificent stranger for hours. Next thing he knew it was closing time, and he was left with a business card with an address and an invitation to meet again. The next evening, Leo cleaned up as best he could and made his way to the address. It was to a very nice house, tucked away in a nice neighborhood. Taking a swig from his flask for courage, Leo went in. Alexander was there, and again there was that instant connection.

The next few months were a whirlwind for Leo. Alexander found him a place to stay, helped him get clean, helped him put his life back together. Leo beamed under Alexander’s attention, and spent more than one night with the irresistible man. The next thing he knew he was back in fighting shape, and with the additional training he spent his time on probably even better. For the first time since his discharge, his life felt like it had direction. Alexander whispered sweet possibilities in his ear, lucrative private security work, a chance for glory and to build a unit who would be truly loyal, not like the subordinates who abandoned him. It sparked Leo’s imagination and he he redoubled his efforts to put himself back together.

Things came to a head, when Alexander told him he had a special opportunity for Leo. Knowing that Alexander appreciated a rugged look, Leo let his hair and beard grow a bit wild, he’d be Alexander’s very own viking. Then the night came, and Leo died.

Find Fear

The transition was not an easy one for Leo. No matter how much Alexander might have had him wrapped around his little finger, finding out you're a blood-sucking monster never goes down well. There were upsides of course, the power was intoxicating, but to be the sort of predator who sucks someone dry and then just casually tosses them aside, rubbed Leo the wrong way. He’d been tossed aside too many times himself, by his father, by the army, by his onetime subordinates, by John Smith. No, he didn’t like the idea that he might end up turning into a creature which was just the same. Killing an enemy was one thing, Leo was a soldier at heart and he had long since had any objection to that burned out of him in the crucible of combat, it wasn’t personal, it was clean. This was messy, and Leo has nightmares about what he’ll be when he can do it as easily and thoughtlessly as some of the others he’s seen, and the fact that it’s so easy gnaws at him constantly.

Leave a Witness

It might be this reason why he he hosed up like he did. It was supposed to be an easy op, aren’t they always. A chance to show off the results of his intensive training, on an otherwise unimportant target. However, it turned out the target wasn’t quite as unimportant as he had been lead to believe. He hit them in back alley, relying on a knife, speed, and strength rather than something loud like a gun. What was supposed to be a lone man, turned out to be a lone man and two body guards. It was a hard fight, and Leo had to use up more than a bit of Vitae, but in the end training and super-human ability won out. However, as the last body dropped to the ground with a hollow thump he turns to see a wide-eyed bum staring at him in shock and fear. Leo’s going to cross the distance and make sure he never talks as well, when he really looks at the man. The tattered army uniform, the glazed stare of an addict whose life is spiralling out of control. It stuck far too close to home, and Leo just turned into the night and fled.

Suffer Your Defects

The first time the frenzy overtook Leo was a harrowing experience. Until that moment he never really understood how important it was to stay fed and the true terror of the Beast. He was walking through a back alley when the hunger really hit him. Some dumb unlucky rear end in a top hat seems to think him staggering was a good time to try and mug him. It was the last mistake the man would ever make. Leo tore him to shreds, it would take a DNA test to identify him. He stalked through those allies like a panther, and before he knew it some vagrant was turning cold in his hands, sucked completely dry.

Leo ran back to his place as fast as his legs would take him. He spent the next two nights curled up and shivering. It took a visit from Alexander to finally restore him. When he talked to his Sire about it, all he could say was how completely out of control he felt. It was too much like back when he was a drunk, and it scared him in ways he couldn’t even describe. To this day, Leo rarely speaks of the frenzy, and unlike some others who seek to use the Beast for their own ends, Leo cowers away from it.

Remember Your Victims

When he was first turned, he fled from Alexander out into the night. He was alone and afraid, and so very vulnerable. He fled back to the familiar, some seedy bar in a rundown section of town. He tried to drink, but everything was wrong, rushing to the bathroom to empty the contents of his stomach into a toilet. When he was finished, he collapsed into a booth, drained and tired. A not-so-nice girl slid up across from him. Maybe she wanted to help some poor broken thing, or maybe he just seemed a nice mark. Whatever the reason, he soon found his way into her car, and as they started the kiss the thirst welled up inside of him and he bit down and drank and drank and drank. He was sobbing over her corpse when Alexander found him.


Beg Someone, Anyone, To Fix You

Pulling him out of the car, Alexander took him back to the apartment. Leo was so glad to have someone anyone to talk to, to understand him. Alexander had saved him from himself once again. It was Alexander who turned him into what he was, and it was Alexander who would shape him into what he would become. He taught Leo how to stay fed without drinking someone dry, the rules and laws of their kind. He was molding Leo into his soldier, and Leo was putty in his hands.

Embrace a Wrong

The transition from soldier to glorified hit man, wasn’t an instant thing. The first kill was hard, this wasn’t draining someone dry by accident this was putting a bullet through a man’s brain. He had been a soldier, he’d seen action, he’d killed plenty of times, but this was different. That had been over there, he’d been fighting for his country against its enemies, and those enemies had shot back. Now he’d be doing it for one man, instead of a country, true he loved Alexander with every scrap of his being, far more than he loved some abstract idea of a country, but even so. It was probably for the best then that the first one was simple.

Alexander had arranged everything, a scoped rifle in the building across the street, the target would be alone. Most importantly, Alexander himself was there to talk him through it. Leo lined up the sight, he’d had that drilled into him in the army, and the training he’d undertaken after he started to put his life back together had refreshed his skills. He had a bead, the shot was clear, but he hesitated, did he really want to go through with this, to strike a man down in cold blood just because… ”Fire.” he heard the whisper in his ear, the voice of the man who he owed everything too. In that instant he felt the joyous elation of proving his devotion to this magnificent man, and the fear of what he would go back to if he failed, the slow death he’d been rescued from, and he squeezed the trigger.

The second one was easier...

Find Like Minds

It was his Sire that handled his first introductions to the structure of Invictus. It was a natural fit for Leo. The formality and structure reminded him quite a bit of the army. It also offered so much tempting possibility, Invictus was plugged in, and for someone who had been poor and cast aside, the draw of riches and power was certainly alluring. It also provided him the perfect place to use the talents he had honed in his army life for his own ends. The fact that he would still for the most part be working for the Sire he idolized was simply the icing on the cake. He’d drill the various intricacies of Invictus etiquette until he had it down pat.

Seize the Night

At last things seemed to be settling into place, he was finally getting up on his own two feet. It was time to start his own little army, he wouldn’t be able to handle every assignment all on his own, and something inside of him yearned to lead once more. This time, however, would be different. He would be able to select and train his men on his own terms. If he got his way he wouldn’t have to worry about being tossed aside again, like the army and his supposed comrades had did to him. No he’d build a fighting force that would strike fear in the hearts of his enemies, and he’d make drat sure each and every member was loyal to their last breath.

As if by fate, who should appear before him, but the same homeless veteran whom he had let escape from his very first job. The man, was hunched over, dirty, and had all the classic signs of addiction, but there was something in the way he was put together that let Leo know that he once was a worthwhile soldier. Now though, he stunk with desperation. He made a clumsy attempt to blackmail Leo. When Leo barked out a laugh, and pointed out that he could kill the man with his bare hands, he crumbled. It turned out that his name was Olof Patterson. He’d been in the army as well, and after a couple of deployments in Afghanistan he’d thought he wanted out. Much like Leo he’d completely floundered in civilian life, and where Leo had sought refuge in the bottom of the bottle, Olof had found it in heroin. Now he was deep in hock to his pusher, and if he didn’t come up with some cash they were gonna cut him into little pieces, which is why he was here.

Leo was sympathetic, but he saw an opportunity to begin to build his new unit and save Olof from himself at the same time. So rather than give him cash, he gave him a choice. “You can either leave now, and never come back. Or, I can solve your problem for you, but there will be a price.” Olof seemed to deflate at that, but he didn’t move to leave. “I take care of your problem, but from now on you work for me. I’m putting together a private security company, I guess you can call it, and I could use some help. You get a place to put your skills to work that’s not the army, a job, and some purpose.”

This seemed to get Olof’s hopes us, but he deflates again when he realizes that as he was there was no way he’d be able to succeed in this offer, seeing where Olof was going, having been there himself, he interjects before the man can lose all hope. “Ya, you’re no soldier now, but you were and you can be again. My other condition relates to that, you have to agree to relinquish every aspect of your life to me, no complaints.” It’s a hard pill to swallow, but Leo shines, a man in his element, looking every inch the commander of men he’s claiming to be. “I will decide when and what you eat, when you sleep, how you spend every moment of your day 24/7. I will put you back together again, only better. I will run you harder than any drill sergeant, and if I catch you even thinking of quitting or giving me lip, I will throw you back out on the streets so fast your head will spin. However, if you stick to it, and give me your all, I guarantee you’ll be the kind of soldier that would make a delta green with envy, and I guarantee you’ll never want to go back to the cesspool you’re stuck in now, and you’ll never have to turn to some needle because you feel like a worthless sack of poo poo.” His eyes bore into Olof’s soul, as he poured his own past pain and his own sense of rebirth out on the table. He’d been broken once, and he’d been put back together, and now he’d do the same. If he managed to get a loyal soldier out of the mix, all the better. “What do you say soldier?”

Olof hesitates for a moment, sweat beading up on his face, as his whole future came down to a yes or no question. Did he stay with what he knew and risk getting killed by some dealer, or did he sign his life over to this man and suffer through the changes for the hope of something better. Leo could see the gears ticking in his head as he pondered this out. Finally, in a quiet voice he manages to say, ”yes…”

“What was that, soldier?” Leo didn’t raise his voice, but Olof was forcibly reminded of his drill sergeant back in basic. Screwing up his courage fueled by Leo’s strange magnetism and his own desperation he loudly responds, “Sir, yes sir!”

Valhawk fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Jun 5, 2014

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Alistair Erikson



I had always had a love for esoteric questions, my families from Norway and granddad was always talking about the Thule society "nutjobs" he was dealing with back in Norway. My parents loved it, spent all their time looking into mysteries and secrets. Heck I'm even named after Mr Crowley, though they did that more as a joke than in memory of a man they thought of as little more than a step up from David Blaine.

I got interested myself, the only way I could have rebelled would have been to start running track and field and wearing a tight t-shirt. I got really interested, starting wondering why there were so many blanks in so many books, started asking questions, questions that didn't get answered. I started getting a bit obsessed, it was all to find stuff out after all and my parents wanted that, right?

Climb the ladder
Confront Vulnerability
I got a bit too obsessed, I stopped really phoning in to my folks, stopped being as interested in their stories. I still tried to talk to them but, well, I was so sure I would come up with some great unified theory of mythology that I got a bit distracted. I was so sure I could get the answers, that it would help to make me knowledgeable.

Believe someone has answers
They were friends of friends of friends. They were a sort of club, claimed they were researching bits of mysteries left hidden in the dark of the old books. I joined because I thought it would be good to meet like minded people. But when you've seen someone butcher a goat and smear its grease on a tree to attract some goat headed thing from the woods of Quebec, you sort of start pondering "what the hell have I gotten myself into".

Meet your Maker
She stepped in then, she was beautiful and strong and terrifying, full of fire and occultism. Said she had killed the demon by turning its blood to salt. Of course at that point I had half my guts hanging out and was still clinging to life, but she seemed to take a measure of pity on me, said it would be "A shame to waste such potential here".

Find Fear
She was part of a coterie, working for this rotten old corpse that lived on the border of the USA. He stalked corridors and never laughed and seemed to always have a smell like burned hair wafting about him, I first knew fear when I saw him tear into my sire and her coterie when they attempted to stop him from carrying out some truly horrific magic. I had already packed to leave, on my sires orders, when I saw him tear the arm off an angry gangrel and laugh, I ran and didn't stop till I had to hide myself in a rundown tennament about 10 miles away and haven't stopped looking over my shoulder since.

Leave a Witness
Grandad was still in New York, kept a bookshop and a little bar out in one of the less developed areas. I found him, told him a little bit about what had happened. He seemed more understanding than I had expected, he just nodded when I told him about all of it as if it were me admitting I was homosexual or something than I was now Undead. He tapped the old iron chest he keeps with him and simply mutters something about "Thule and Odin" every so often, but he's a good friend and god dammit he's kin to me.

Suffer your Defects
It was a night like any other, the staff at the bar were used to seeing me, even the local goths knew who I was by now, and then she walks in. She was 23 and beautiful and the only thing I noticed about her was that her neck was exposed. The most beautiful thing in the world could appear and I was only looking out for how much they good feed me. I felt sick to my core and ran back to the attic room, how could I face myself, how could I face anyone like this.

Beg someone, anyone, to fix you
He said he was a Salubrai, just "passing through to look at the leaves change". He spoke of a quest for enlightenment, of trying to learn the path to bettering all with an immortal condition, of not fearing those who hated you. I had no idea if he was the monster that he said he was, but he gave me some books a rakish grin and told me to "look after myself", I don't know if I wanted to. Told me that I'd better be careful of the rest of the night lurkers and that I'd go a long way if I kept into the books.

Remember your victims
Nothing worse than a scream. I heard it from the woods near my house, my haven as it'd become by now. I rushed out the door and saw a woman being run down by 5 laughing men. I tried my best, really I did, to scare them off and disable them. But by the time I got to her. I still try and lay flowers there as often as I can, and I worry about forgetting her.

Embrace a wrong
I recognised the guys that did it to her though, and I'd sworn that petty revenge didn't do anyone any good, but my gods I enjoyed making them scared, moving stuff around their home, making them feel like they were constantly being watched, reporting them. Even just calling and hanging up to make them really really hate themselves for what they had done.

Find Like Minds
Most vampires I run into, and I seem to run into a lot, seem to be into this "Camarilla" thing. So I decided to help them a little bit, you know just odds and ends to make sure that the city stays working. Some of their orders about making sure the guilty are protected go strangely missing in my neck of the woods though, but I still think the system needs reform, not tearing down. Yet.

Seize the Night
Fact is I am dead. But I've got a good thing, a reasonable group of people who like and know me, not quite at "Norm!" levels but still. I've actually gotten a better relationship with my family since I died, and I am determined to not end up some old bloodsucker in a castle, I am going to make the world a better place, one well placed blessing or curse at a time.

Aspirations
-Keep my part of the world safe and the people in it safe.
-Find out more about my condition, learn more about the undead.

Touchstone
-The Bar/book shop me and my Granddad live in.

Edit: Got rid of Blood Magic as will need to discuss that more with EverythingWorser. Put points into intelligence instead.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Jun 4, 2014

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe

Josef bugman posted:


Blood Ritual- (need confirmation if it is okay to devise my own)
Follow the money
Successes required- 5
Reagents- Bone of a hoofed animal, preferably skull. One Iron coin. One Vitae.
Grants the owner of the property the bone is kept in the ability to know (to within mile) where the person holding the coin is.
The coin need not be accepted by the person in order for this effect to work.
After one month the effect fades and the coin becomes ordinary.
For additional successes reduce the area of knowledge by one order of magnitude.


Ok, I think I know what you're going for here, and luckily there is a way supported by the rules to get ritual-like effects that aren't a specific blood sorcery, so what we're going to have a crash course on is Threnodies, from Blood Sorcery.

Threnodies are merits, but their requirements are Discipline levels. They're sort of...sub Disciplines, ways to alter the standard effects of a Discipline power and make them do things they're not supposed to do, generally by manipulating your own Beast in specific ways.

There are two parts you need to perform a Threnody - a Sacrifice and a Song. The Sacrifice is something the caster of the Threnody is giving up for the duration of the effect. The Song is what you use to draw out your Beast to do what you want it to do. The roll used for the effect is always your Blood Potency + The Discipline's level. Since what you're describing is kind of a reversal of the Spirit's Touch (ie, instead of getting the psychometry of the object, you're getting the senses of the person who is holding the object), I'd put Follow the Money as a *** Merit, but it would require Auspex 3 to obtain.

The other option there is the the sample Rank 1 Auspex Threnody, Farseeing. It allows you to ride the senses of the target, however, the Sacrifice there is to lose your own version of that sense for as long as your borrowing the other one. The way it works is, say you want to be able to see through someone else's eyes - well, you'd have to feed them your own eyes (this is less permanently a concern for a Kindred, but still kind of gruesome). However you're not actually harming that person (beyond being kind of squicky at them). So that's also an option.

If you think Threnodies work for what you're going for, we can work on the specifics of Follow the Money if you like that effect (I think it's pretty neat) and stat it up as one. If you're angling for something else, we might be able to do something with it (like a Sabbat Ignoblis Ritae - which reminds me, when I get home tonight I need to put down Sabbat Ritae for you guys to look at).

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(
Amber Holloway



Amber was 13 when her Dad died. Not long after that, her mother went insane. By the time she was 15 she’d left home, and had been hiding ever since. Most things in this world are bigger than her, but that doesn’t matter if they can’t find her. And if they spot her, she flees.

After leaving her hometown, she hitched rides from truckstop to truckstop, living off the scraps of others, till she reached this city. She went to ground here, finding safe places to hide and watch. Signs are everywhere, if you look carefully enough. They tell you what people want, and more importantly, what they won’t miss. Amber is good with signs. Most people don’t notice Amber, because she makes it her business to notice them first.

Until one day, she noticed the wrong person. First it was just small details - rumours of disappearances, gang members who were just a bit more trigger happy than usual. Then they became obvious - fresh bloodstains on asphalt and footprints made by shoes far too good for the alleyway they were in.

She followed the footprints till they stopped, then followed the signs that they’d left. A few scuff marks, a bum who thinks he heard something, yeah down that way… to an open manhole. She hadn’t tried to get into the sewer system earlier, because while they’re safe, they’re cold, dark and disgusting. But right now, safe trumped everything, and if there was someone down there, maybe it was worth it?

It really wasn’t. He laughed when she found him, and that sound was the only sign she had in a dead end storm sewer as dark as the pit of her stomach.

“Well done, child.” He shone a flashlight onto her face, and she covered her eyes. “Call me William.”

Confront Vulnerability
There’s something that still hurts me from way back before all of this, back when I had a life. Hell, once I even a had TV. Something about those calm news anchor voices in the evening made Mom freak the gently caress out though. She’d scream at the screen, then at me, and sometimes my brother, who’d start crying and then she’d start screaming again. We got some relief the day she kicked a hole through the TV itself. It calmed her down for a few weeks and that was enough time for me to get the gently caress out of there. But my brother was just a kid. I abandoned Brayden. I hope he makes it out.

Believe Someone Has Answers
Once, I sold my soul for a bowl of soup. Sister Margaret promised to feed me if I told her which of the bums had stolen her charity box. She made me shower, gave me a pocket bible, and made me say grace before eating. When I got back out, they knew I’d ratted by the smell of the shampoo. Got beaten for snitching, and my stuff was stolen. Do gooders aren’t a lot of use to me, and I keep that loving bible to remind me.

Meet Your Maker
In the end, like it always does, it came down to survival. William offered me food and shelter to keep me around. Looking back, of course it was a trap. Why would a vampire have food on him? He gave me some cash in exchange for odd jobs as well - delivering messages, keeping the place locked down during the day… once I spent an entire day just sitting outside some dude’s apartment building, watching the people who went in. The signs were obvious that there was something he wasn’t telling me, but as long as I was surviving, I didn’t care enough to investigate.

And then one day, I delivered a message from William to Mike. I didn’t know Mike, but apparently he owned a bar in town. Mike didn’t like his message, and had his hired goons take me out back for soccer practice. I remember trying to protect my head and crawling away afterwards, but not a lot more. William found me somehow, took me back underground, fixed me back up.

“Do you want revenge?” he asked. I could still taste blood in my mouth. I nodded. From that night on, I would no longer be prey.

Find Fear
The following night, William took me to where one of Mike’s men was working as a bouncer and we tailed him after work to his apartment. William got me to pick the lock, and we walked in. I don’t know if he even recognised me, but when I was done, I didn’t recognise him anymore. For the next three nights, William taught me how to hunt the ones who hurt me.

Leave a Witness
The last man had heard what happened to his buddies I guess, because we found him at a truck stop a few miles out of town with most of his worldly belongings stashed in the back seat of his car. It was quick work to lure him out of the car and behind the diner, and even quicker to kill him. I was wiping blood from my mouth when I noticed the trucker staring slack-jawed at us, apparently in the middle of peeing. I looked down, then back up to his face and grinned at him, still ecstatic from feeding. He fled clumsily, and in the parking lot we heard his truck start. I don’t think he even did his pants up.

Suffer Your Defects
When I woke up the following night, William was gone. I didn’t know what to do. I stayed in William’s haven, hoping he’d return. I tried hunting every night, but it terrified me. I could feel the Beast stretch inside me, baring his teeth and trying to get out. Some nights I resorted to rats, because I was so afraid the Beast would get me. I can tell you that eating a rat in a sewer makes you feel like the poo poo cherry on a poo poo sundae, but I’d rather that than giving in to the gnawing hunger of the Beast.

Beg Someone, Anyone, to Fix You
I don’t know what William was doing in this poo poo town. There’s so much I don’t know about him. I don’t even know his last name. He taught me what was necessary - what to avoid, what I needed - but there’s so much I don’t know. When I first found another one of our kind, I told her everything. gently caress, it was embarrassing, just sitting in a poo poo diner telling this stranger my loving sob story. Having all these secrets for the first time was lonely.

Remember Your Victims
One night, I tried staying out till sunrise. I almost went through with it, but as I was walking through the neighborhood, I saw Mike. He was tense in a way that he hadn’t been when I first met him, and with my new sense of smell, the fear he emanated was obvious. He shuffled away down the street, and I had to laugh when I saw where he went. Sister Margaret’s soup kitchen. Maybe I wasn’t so damned after all.

Embrace a Wrong
Revenge brought me into this world. Killing those fuckers with William was the best time of my life. But that finished when William left. I don’t want to kill again, but I don’t have anything left in this unlife of mine anymore.

Find Like Minds
My stranger in the night was there when the Camarilla came for me. Turns out they were more concerned with the trucker that got away than the five men I killed. She laughed when they staked me, something about not upholding the masquerade. It hurt like hell. They know I’m here now, at least. My patch is too much of a shithole for those Ventrue fucks to bother with, which suits me fine. I want to stay as far away from them as I can.

Seize the Night
As I recovered, I plotted. I found my Stranger. Her name was Estelle. Her life became my life. I followed her to where she lived, where she worked and back again. I met her ghoul. Most importantly, I memorized all the entrances to her Haven and the security she used. Sloppy work. I went in one night while she was out feeding. Left a dead rat on her pillow, with a note: “Luv Amber <3”

Touchstone
Once a month or so, Amber puts a few quarters into a payphone and dials a well-memorized number. If her mother answers, she hangs up. If Brayden answers, she stays. She tries awkwardly to make small talk, but she can’t see his face, so she can’t really tell what’s going on in his mind. He talks to her about mundane, comforting things and their conversations carefully skirt around the topic of their mother. She usually finishes with “see ya”, but it’s never very convincing.

Aspirations
Find sire
Have something normal her brother can be proud of
Defend the coterie from threat without backing down

Edited character sheet to spend 9 exp from Climbing the Ladder:
+1 dot in Obfuscate
+1 dot in Composure
+1 dot in Empathy

Edited to change Touchstone
Edited to finish Aspirations and update sheet

Zephonith fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jun 5, 2014

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
I'm planning on apping, but haven't had the chance yet. Is the closing date unchanged? Also, no Brujah?

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Epicurius posted:

I'm planning on apping, but haven't had the chance yet. Is the closing date unchanged? Also, no Brujah?

Daeva basically fill the role of both Brujah and Toreador, mechanically. They have Celerity, Majesty, and Vigor; Brujah had Celerity, Potence (basically Vigor), and Presence (basically Majesty), while Toreador had Auspex, Celerity, and Presence.

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
Closing date is thus far unchanged, yes.

And what Roland said re: Brujah. You want one, run a Daeva.

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
Yeah, Daeva are Brujah mechanically and Carthians fill that spot flavor-wise, so you put them together and you basically have the same effect.

Sorry it's taking me so long, struggling with some computer trouble. I'll have my app up this week.

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
Alicia Bedford



I really should have listened when they told me that a double major in history was not going to endow me with many future employment opportunities.

After I graduated, I took a trip around the country to find a position at some august scholarly institution, such as perhaps a museum of history. My journey produced quite emphatic results; no such position was open.

So, I returned home to New York, all but impoverished, where they were quite happy to accept such an overqualified individual as myself in the history department at Rochester.

It is (as recent events have given me cause to consider) not the most unpleasant of existences, but I do not find it at all savory. The vast majority of my students are only interested in fulfilling their humanities requirements. Many further believe themselves to be interested in history, but find themselves thoroughly disappointed when history proves to have little resemblance to popular culture. They are not worth my time, and they take up valuable effort I could be devoting to research, to charting the course of human society and the evolution of our culture - and predicting how it may evolve in the future.

Most likely I would have gone mad years ago if not for the company of Mina Grant and her little band of enthusiasts, the only young people in this place who actually share my passion for the past. We have whiled away many hours in my office, grading papers poorly and laughing about how the outlandishness of Peter the Great shaped a century or how many popes perished during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa.

It was after one such enjoyable evening that I noticed the man.

One of Mina's friends had pulled down a reference book and left it open on my desk. As I tidied, I picked up a folder containing my current research project. An illuminated painting fell out. It landed on the reference book, and I realized with a start that they were images of the same man.

Of course, one was a photograph of a captain of industry from the past century shaking hands with Andrew Carnegie, while the other was a painting of Prussian colonel at a council overseeing the modernization of the army, but the face was unmistakably the same.

A descendant, I wondered, a direct descendant? What a remarkable coincidence! Could I prove it?

The answer was no. I found the face, four more times across the last three centuries, always in some position of power and influence, but there was no genealogy, no link of any kind, but always the exact same visage, beyond even believable family resemblance!

Confront Vulnerability

I became obsessed with this enigma. It began to consume first weeks, and then months of my life. I neglected my more scholarly papers, my students, my very few dear friends, exchanging even my evenings with Mina's little clique for days petitioning art museums and nights digging through library archives. The final year of my tenure probationary period was nigh, and despite the warnings of everyone close to me, all I could see was that man's face.

It was most likely the most meticulously researched paper I have ever written, but when it was all I submitted to the department, a magnificently referenced theory about similar men constantly appearing in the pages of history, they were less than impressed.

I had no time to turn the situation around. I had no other options, should my position at Rochester be terminated. I had no future.

In the end, I sat in my residence on the campus, my phone turned off, working my way through a second bottle of wine, powerless.

Then the face appeared at my door.




Meet your Maker

In the depths of my despair, a man came to my house, the same man I had tracked through the pages of history, and so intent had been my search through the past that I had failed to look at the present. His name was - is - Abraham Grillo, and he sits on the SUNY board of trustees. This, he says, is just one of the ways in which he serves our proud community.

He told me that while my paper had never reached the eyes of the rest of the board, it had been brilliantly researched, composed, and documented. It had also been correct. He had been there at Frederick's right hand, and behind the money of Napoleon's foes, and across from Carnegie. And I had been lucky and clever enough to notice the pattern, and so he was offering me a chance to join him.

What else could I do?

"Five rules." He said. "One. You call me Abramo. Two. The blood is life. Three. The sun is death. Four. Control the mind, you control the world. Five. The Beast is always there, but you are stronger."

No one had held his hand through the first nights when he first entered this life, Abramo said, so nor would he hold mine. And he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me, and I felt more alive than I had in twenty years, and then I died.

He smiled the entire time. Every motion of his limbs with purpose, every word well-considered and spoken with perfect diction despite his faint Italian accent. Every moment, in control.

When I dream, if I am fortunate, I dream of being like that.

I sated the hunger of that first night on a pair of sophomores undressing one another at the bottom of the embankment across the street from the staff housing. I looked at the two students, standing there blankly at the force of my voice and the beam of my eye, and I drank from their throats until I was full and they were woozy and trembling. Humans have no words for the depth of that first craving, the night we are born, nor for the rapture of its sating, and as I stood out there, at home in the night, full as I had never been before, I knew what Abramo intended me to do.

I went to the board, and told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were thoroughly impressed with my work over the past year, and that granting me tenure was merely a formality at this point. I informed them that from now on I could only teach night classes, and that this would not be an issue. I told students to stay behind after classes and then commanded them to stand like statues while I drank my fill. It was all so simple.

In short, I grew cocky.


Suffer Your Defects

Some weeks into my new routine, the date of a previously-arranged appointment arrived. I was scheduled to give a guest lecture at NYU, on the subject of governance in the ancient Greek city-states. Thankfully I was to speak late in the evening.

Unfortunately, I realized late that I would have to drive downstate the previous night.

By the time I awoke I was thirsty again, and late evening is mid-morning for me now, and I had barely any time to hunt (how quickly that word became representative of the act of finding blood in my mind). This was not my territory, in Manhattan things were too packed together, too many people, too many witnesses.

When Edwin Bentley, the aging head of the NYU history department, met me at the lecture hall I was all but starving, and I could barely hear him speak for the sound of his pulse in my ears. The turnout was excellent, he said. Three weeks ago I would have been pleasantly surprised at the number of young people attending one of my lectures for any reason other than their own coursework, but with so many in the audience the sound of their heartbeats was deafening and the smell of their blood was overwhelming.

I do not know how I survived the lecture. I do not even remember what I discussed, or if the listeners derived anything from it. The Beast is always there, but you are stronger. After it was over I staggered off the stage, mumbling excuses about feeling unwell, when Bentley asked if I wanted a ride back to my room.

“Yes,” I said, or perhaps that Beast said it using my lips, “That would be lovely. You’re such a dear.”


Remember Your Victims

I liked Edwin Bentley. He was one of the intellectuals, the ones I respected, the ones like me who could be doing so much more than wasting away in a classroom. Edwin, though, never seemed to waste. He smiled perpetually, insisted that both students and staff call him “Ed”, taught classes with a bombastic flair and a spring in his step, neither of which seemed to diminish with his advancing age. He liked me, too, a fact that he had made clear before, and I strongly suspected that one of the reasons he had invited me to fill the slot in the lecture schedule was so that he could have the chance of some time alone with me. He was some fifteen years older than me, but I liked him a great deal, and his age had not robbed him of a certain stubbly handsomeness. When I left for the city I had quite liked the idea of sleeping with him, and had wondered what his blood would taste like.

No sooner had we walked through the door of my lodgings then I threw him onto the couch and sank my teeth into his throat. The Beast shuddered and contracted inside me like a singularity. When the sun comes up and I close my eyes, when I am unlucky I see his face, first torn between confusion and pleasure as I climbed on top of him, then surprise, then bliss as the soporific quality my fangs seem to carry took hold of him, then slowly dawning pain and horror as I kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking, until his face was ash grey and my fangs drew only air and worthless fluid.

I sat there in that room for a while, looking at Edwin’s body, and then I cleaned myself up, licked the bite marks away, waited until it was the dead of night, dragged him out of the room, put him in the elevator, and sent it into the basement. When they found him the next day, little of my horror was false, and I gave the police literally no choice but to listen when I told them that I knew nothing.

I couldn’t even go to his funeral. They held it during the day.


Believe Someone Has Answers

After Edwin was buried, I took some time off. I told the president I needed a few days to recover from my friend’s death (which was not untrue).

I spent the next few nights immersing myself in any source of lore I could find. Any conceivable article on the internet or tome of the occult or the supernatural, anything to find information on my new state. Anything that would help stop me from losing control like that again. The Beast is always there, but you are stronger. There was so little of use. So much confirmation of things I already knew through experience. So many strange stories that did not apply to myself, that I dismissed as myths and fables.

I knew that if I asked Abramo for help, none would be forthcoming.

There was one image that persisted in some form across various sources; a desperate ghoul squatting in some dark place drinking blood from bats or vermin. The idea that a vampiric undead could survive on the blood of animals, if in dire straits. In all honesty the idea filled me with revulsion even then, but I was determined at least to try.

I knew already that I had some strange, Stokerian affinity with animals, particularly airborne ones. One night, I went out onto the campus grounds, listening to the nighthawks squawking in the trees and in the air. I called back to them, and they began to circle me, and when one alighted on my arm, I seized it with my other hand and raised it to my lips.

Its blood tasted rank and unpleasant, and when the bird was dry I only felt thirstier. I called out again, and another flew within my reach and I ripped into it; this time I was too hasty and the bird died to the first slash of my fangs, spilling its blood over the grass. I kept calling, my voice growing more and more desperate, and each time fewer and fewer birds were fool enough to remain in my reach, but I kept at it for an hour, until finally I slumped against a lone tree, staring down, and for the first time I noticed the dozen or so shriveled nighthawks at my feet, and the blood and feathers covering the front of my blouse.

In that moment I understood that I was not human any longer, that that time was past and would never come again, and I sank to the ground at the foot of the tree, sobbing into a pile of dead birds.


Beg Someone, Anyone, to Fix You

I went back to work after that, momentarily resigned to my new existence. I grew so dejected that I could not even show interest in Benjamin’s latest catalogical triumph. Benjamin is the campus librarian, a shy, dear man that I have tried and failed several times to have a relationship with. I have considered more than once telling him the truth, but thus far I have found neither the opportunity or the courage.

Instead, I made the monstrously foolish mistake of confiding in a young man from Ontario named Jackson Price.

He was like me; the first one of our kind I had met directly besides Abramo. Dear God, what a difference it made to be able to have a conversation, not even one about my new state, just to speak of anything without feeling that it was a lie.

And it wasn’t just that. He was intelligent, keenly so, interested in literature and ancient mythology and learning more about our condition, and he had no trouble finding blood. He spoke of a church, a congregation of the damned, a place of brotherhood in undeath, devoted to understanding our place in the world, and I am deeply ashamed to admit that he charmed me. A church, I thought, an establishment! Older vampires, perhaps records, a history!

So I brought him to the library with me, and he stole the copy of Secret Societies in Western Civilization that Benjamin had finally managed to secure on loan, put it in his bag, kissed me on the cheek, and walked out of the school.

I have not seen him again since then, though I have heard of him. I found out later about the Lancea et Sanctum and their hoarding of ancient lore and secrets, and that Jackson was a neonate when I met him, given a trial to prove his worthiness to the covenant.

The irony, as usual, is almost hilarious. At that time I was, perhaps, the textbook example of a willing convert, and if he had continued proselytizing for a week or so I expect I would have simply handed him the book and joined the Sanctum into the bargain.

But he stole from me. He stole from Benjamin, and he stole from my school. And it was that theft of knowledge that finally awakened an aspect of that Beast inside me that I could understand. This was my school. My home, for the past twelve years. Price had violated my territory. And if I was not content with it, and my place in it, then I will simply reach out and change it.


Find Fear

There is a killer on campus.

We had already known about it for some time. There had been three unexplained deaths; the media had sensationally attributed them to a serial killer they termed “The Junkie”, due to the pinpricks reminiscent of needle marks on their bodies. When the fourth was found, I went to the crime scene, and caught a glimpse of those marks, and it was clear to me that, for once, the media were correct. The scars were not needle marks. They were exactly like the marks left on a person by my fangs before I lick the wound.

I began patrolling the campus during the small hours, after classes were concluded, and eight
nights after the fourth death I smelled something sharp and foreign and wrong.

When I found it, it was crouched over the body of a freshman, a young man. Even to my night-time eyes it was only a shadow against the dark ground. As I approached, it … unfurled, a tall, skinny silhouette, like a spider-monkey. It turned to face me, and as soon as I could see its night eyes I pitched my voice, directed my will, and commanded it to stop.

Its mouth opened in a grin.

That was when I learned how durable my new body is. The Junkie moved so fast that I literally did not see it cross the distance between us. My feet left the ground. I saw a spray of red. It laid me open from my stomach up between my breasts and cracked my collarbone when I hit the ground, and if the body Abramo had given me were any less resistant to physical injury I would have perished there.

The Junkie advanced on me, still grinning like a skull, its face covered in the freshman’s blood, its hands wicked claws, and I saw the face of the Beast; the reflection of the monster inside me that had murdered Edwin Bentley. The true Beast, unrestrained by caution or reason or humanity, an animal that could not even be bothered to cover the signs of its feeding. The Beast is always there, but you are stronger.

The Junkie had not been stronger.


Leave a Witness

I laid there on the grass, my body too damaged to move, as the Junkie towered over me. I still do not know exactly what it was, or precisely what it looked like. I remember something deathly pale, clothed in rags, with a mouth full of fangs that no longer remotely resembled human teeth, and hands that had … mutated into rending talons. Instinctively I pushed blood through my ravaged body. I could feel a burning sensation as flesh and bone knitted themselves back together, but it was not fast enough, and then the quarrel took the Junkie in the chest.

The shooter missed the heart, but they made it angry. I could not see who it was - they were dressed all in black, and wearing a mask and dark cap - but they dropped the crossbow (where, I remember thinking, did they get a crossbow?) and threw themselves at the Junkie, spitting epithets, holding a long-bladed knife in one hand and what I realized was a cigarette lighter in the other. It was a tiny flame, but the Junkie shrank back before it, allowing the newcomer to go on the offensive.

While they fought, my body had restored itself enough for me to climb to my feet. The Junkie was facing away from me, the interventionist towards me, and in the dark I saw their eyes widen as they saw my ruined clothing, and the fatal wound in my chest that had not yet fully closed.

I ran.

I know they both survived that fight, because in later weeks more victims were found throughout the county with the mark of the Junkie’s savage fangs, and no body or remains were found on the campus the next day. I do not misunderstand the significance. There is a vampire hunter here, maybe in the surrounding city but most likely here, in the school. They know my identity, but I do not know theirs. That was when I started going to to the firing range. There are two killers on campus, and one of them kills my kind.


Embrace a Wrong

In the aftermath it has become obvious now precarious my situation truly is. Other things share the night with me, thoroughly unfriendly things that I know do not have the university’s best interests at heart as I do. As I set about shoring up my position, searching for the hunter and guarding against any further attacks, it became so … expedient to simply demand what I needed of people. Controlling the minds of others is very quickly becoming second nature to me...


Find Like Minds

As one could easily imagine, a college campus is a very attractive location for a vampire. It is a large place almost entirely populated by young men and women, endowed with raging hormones and great appetites for meeting exotic and interesting new people.

Jackson Price, the Junkie, and I were hardly the first to feed at the university, nor were we the last. As the nights passed, I became aware of others - playing the role of romantic partners to students, hiding in plain sight amidst the city’s night life, prowling the grounds at night and ambushing unwitting night janitors.

These trespasses had fallen off in frequency (most likely due to the Junkie’s appearance) but, as I have learned, it is impossible to keep our kind from a hunting ground for long, and in the nights after the confrontation they began to filter in again, first a girl Kissed delirious after a computer science class, then a graduate student sent to the health office with what the baffled nurses could only describe as anemia. After that last I knew I had to take action before any other students (my students) were harmed and more attention was drawn.

So I made a proposal to the Kindred of upstate New York, in no uncertain terms. The University of Rochester is my territory. I take first hunting rights on the campus grounds. Anyone who wishes to feed on the campus will introduce themselves to me first.

In exchange, I cover for them.

I use my status and my mental powers to ensure that nobody ever notices anything untoward about the little island I have created here. I keep my thirst sated on the student body, ensuring that they are amenable to the feeling of the Kiss, so that no vampire ever has difficulty finding a meal. No long, desperate hunts. No starvation. No violence. No deaths. None of my students are harmed. If these rules are ever broken, the perpetrator answers to me - and to all of the rest of our kind who benefit from this arrangement.

Thus far there has only been one violation, and all I had to do was say the offender’s name.


Seize the Night

There is plenty more left to do, though. The hunter was surely not relaxed his or her vigil as more of my kind appear on campus. The Junkie is still out there, a danger to human and undead alike. And the more I commiserate with the unaligned wanderers of the vampire world, the more I learn about how large that world is. I am stockpiling every bit of information about us that I can. I am looking downstate, towards New York City. And I am making regular visits to the officials of the university, ensuring that none of them can resist my will when I bring it to bear. I am getting stronger. Soon, I think, I will be able to leave my commands behind me when I leave, and between them and the birds I ask to patrol the school for me, I will always have watchful eyes installed on campus. I will be a trustee. And I will find that slimy opportunist Jackson Price and teach him what happens when you lie to me and dishonor my school.

And eventually, I will meet Abramo again. Maybe by then I will have decided whether I want to thank him or kill him.

---

Well, that took about a billion years. It's real long, but not that much longer than Leo's, and I had a whole lot of fun writing it. My preferred sect will be Camarilla, I think, it appeals to Alicia's personality, but it really doesn't matter to me - she'd side with anyone who leaves her control of the school be.

Depending on sect choice and a few other things I'll probably rejigger the merits, but otherwise the sheet is good. I'll get into IRC to talk about it as soon as I can, my main computer is in the shop and I'm on a laptop without most of my books or useful stuff.

TehWarsmith fucked around with this message at 08:48 on May 30, 2014

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe

Good work, your sheet and vote for sect has been added.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Updated my sheet and popped it on Dalines because it seemed a useful site!

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(
I played around with my merits some more. I used Occultation from the Mekhet clan book - is that ok or should I swap it out for something from Blood & Smoke?

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
I have no problem with using stuff from other sources so long as it's not ridiculous. Occultation is fine.

LifeGetsWorser fucked around with this message at 15:19 on May 31, 2014

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
Just a quick reminder guys: Recruitment Closes Tomorrow. So anyone who had shown interest but hasn't submitted anything yet, you have until the end of the night, Monday, to post something (or at least part of something).

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
"When someone first realizes they're talking to a Malkavian, they always have the same question on their mind: What's your defect? What's wrong with your head? What awful, irreparable damage did your Embrace do to you? If it's not obvious to them (most have the tact not to ask, or at least the sense not to expect an answer), they'll start trying to figure it out for themselves. They'll start watching you closely, trying to figure out if you're a potential pawn, or a threat. The longer they don't find something, the more suspicious they become, and the closer they watch you.

"Sometimes it's good to give them an easy answer. Even better if it's not the right one."

"Roshan"

non-Ladder character description still being written

Climbing the Ladder

Confront Vulnerability
Before his Embrace, before his new name, Roshan was in a dark place. Unemployed, a college dropout, estranged from most everyone he knew, he barely left his room, and even less frequently the house he shared.

The Abandoned:

Believe Someone Has Answers
Eventually, someone reached out to him. This world wasn't fair; they both knew it, and hell, he lived it. Now, it was his chance to help change that. There was a plan, you see, to shake up the current government and show them we wouldn't stand for this (whatever "this" actually was) anymore. All he needed to do was...

The False Prophet: Isaak Volkov is a member of the Carthian Movement, climbing the ranks and making his mark. His methods lean towards the more anarchic, violent methods of causing social change. Many of his "soldiers" came from the same situation; mired in depression and desperation, full of anger and resentment, and tend to not last long after their "recruitment". Standard Carthian treatment of mortals. Isaak's plans for Roshan were no different, intending for his service to the cause to be flashy and short, ending in violence and a story on the evening news.

Meet Your Maker
Before things could get that far, though, someone else acted first. When everyone else in the house was out, she arrived. At first, Roshan thought she was a friend of one of his housemates. She struck up conversation, and Roshan, having nothing better to do, obliged her. Talking with her was unusual; though intelligent and well-spoken, her questions were sometimes rather odd, and a bit overly familiar. Eventually, though, she seemed satisfied, sitting back and smiling. And then, without warning, she struck, and Roshan died.

Like many things he thought he wanted, the relief it offered was temporary at best.

Your Maker: Zora Jelinek is a Malkavian of some notoriety. Among other things, she is not obviously insane as most of her clan tends to be; rather, she is eloquent, personable, and presents herself rather well. It's not until one looks into her actions that her true nature is apparent.

Besides several Masquerade violations to her name, having stolen several artifacts of power from the Lancea et Sanctum and various others, and suspicion of being involved in the murder of at least one Elder, Zora is a rather prolific sire. While the exact number of childer of hers is unknown, it is at least in the low double-digits, spread across several cities and states. Why she sires so many vampires is unknown, especially given her tendency to subsequently abandon them with little or no information about their new lives (frequently leading to them succumbing to other denizens of the night or their own madness). Theories include preparation for some sort of prophecy she's seen, possibly related to Gehenna; some sort of experiment on her part; and the creation of an army of blood-bonded servants, loyal only to her.

The simplest and most likely answer is that she's insane. She is, after all, a Malkavian.

Find Fear
The Embrace shattered Roshan's mind, and even with Zora's (rather brief and incomplete) tutelage, his transition into the Danse Macabre was difficult. Learning and adapting to a new world, one with strange new rules, new politics, a new thing inside you, would be hard enough under ideal circumstances. Roshan, though, was unable to trust what his eyes showed him, and the voices of the Madness Network screamed and bellowed and mixed with his own thoughts, wracking his mind and making it harder to control himself, or the Beast within. Even after getting a tentative leash on himself, he was worried of the things he might do.

Your Nightmare: Some vampires don't even try to control their Beast, instead letting it run wild. Caden Read is one such individual. Their lack of restraint and their revelation in bloodshed make them a threat not only to mortals and the Masquerade, but to other vampires. Read likely would have been staked years ago were they not in the Sabbat; as-is, he is yet another nuisance to the more sane Kindred of the city. The Nosferatu's actions, however, go beyond mere violence; he also makes much use of his Nightmare discipline, breaking the minds of his victims and driving them to fits of terror, toying with them before he goes in for the kill.

Roshan encountered Read rather early in his Requiem, tasked with a (supposedly) unrelated mission by one of his superiors in the Camarilla. While they escaped from each other relatively unscathed physically, the encounter shook Roshan; in Read, he saw everything he was afraid of becoming, a violent monster that reveled in its power over the minds of mere mortals and the torment it subjected them to. The Sabbat member wasn't even cursed with Malkavian madness and he succumbed to his Beast; what chance does Roshan stand?

Leave a Witness
As Roshan adjusted to his Requiem, he started prowling various sections of the city at night. It was on one of these nightly jaunts that he found a young girl, in her early teens. It was obvious that she hadn't seen a warm bed or soap in days, if not longer. Her name was Nadia, she said. She refused to explain what she was doing or why, though it was obvious enough that she had run away. Eventually, against his better judgment, Roshan offered to put her up for the night, since he couldn't get her to go home or to the police. And, against her better judgment, she accepted his offer.

The night became a week, then a month, then a year. Eventually, Roshan got her going back to school. Though

The Breach: When living with someone, it isn't exactly easy to keep the fact that you're a vampire a secret from them, even if you aren't a Malkavian. Nadia figured out the truth eventually, though it didn't change her opinion of her guardian much; she knew something was different about him from the start, and the revelation of his true nature didn't change what he had done for her. She has no intention of revealing it, either; most people would just think she's crazy, after all, and betraying help would be poor repayment for the help he's given her.

However, though she isn't aware of it, her connection to Roshan puts her in danger. While he's kept her a secret from the other Kindred so far, her discovery would put both of them in a very precarious position. After all, a Masquerade violation would be the perfect excuse to take action against a potentially troublesome neonate. Roshan would kill and worse to defend her, but that may be too little, too late.

Suffer Your Defects
Despite his best efforts, Roshan was not always in control. He took measures to protect himself and others. He only fed from animals whenever possible. He locked himself in his room whenever he felt he wasn't stable enough. He looked into methods of minimizing his Beast's control over him.

The best laid plans, however, often go awry. One night, as he walked the city streets, the madness came on strong, and his grip on himself, his surroundings, and his Beast, faltered. Panicking, he ran for it.

The Victim: Gabriel Walters walked down the wrong alley that night. Thinking he heard someone, he looked around, worried that someone might need help. Soon, he found Roshan, who by this point had nearly lost control entirely. Terrified, the Malkavian lashed out with his Dementation, inflicting a similar mortal terror on the would-be Good Samaritan, before fleeing into the night. Eventually, he made it back to his apartment.

Gabriel, on the other hand, ran into traffic. He survived, but the injuries rendered him unable to continue his career. Possibly worse, though, he encountered something dark and primal that night, shaking his psyche to the core. He doesn't know exactly what happened, but his experience scarred him mentally as well as physically.

Beg Someone, Anyone, To Fix You
Now, Roshan was desperate. At first he tried to lock himself away, but that only prolonged the inevitable and exposed Nadia to danger as well. Instead, he began pursuing every lead he could on ways to fix himself. He looked into and questioned the Ordo Dracul. He followed rumors of Golconda. He even considered going to the Elders, suicidal as that may be.

The Opportunist: Nadia, meanwhile, recommended he see a therapist. Despite initial reluctance, Roshan complied, figuring that at the least he could avoid saying what he really was. His first meetings with Dr. Vanev left him wondering if it was worth it; however, he found that, while not a cure, talking to someone was helpful. Now, he's been attending the sessions for a few years. Meanwhile, Dr. Vanev is slowly piecing together the truth.

Remember Your Victims
Roshan's inquiries into the Ordo Dracul had borne fruit. He was being given a chance to join the Defiant. He simply needed to prove himself; he, like so many neonates before him, would enter a Dragon's Nest and show what he's made of. He would, of course, be supervised.

The Body: Roshan and Lucius's trip into the haunted building started off well enough. The apparitions were only startling the first time they happened. The thrown furniture was a nuisance, but little more. The shrieks and groans were actually rather annoying. When the lights flickered out, only to come back on and reveal a message written in blood, the two vampires didn't even stop walking. They made their way through the building and eventually found what they were looking for, the relic binding the spectre to the place, and prepared to make their way out. Roshan was even trusted with carrying the relic himself, having proven himself capable and bested his first Dragon's Nest.

However, the spirit's activity had shaken the building's structure, dislodging some faulty wiring and starting a fire. Upon encountering the fire, Roshan's Beast frenzied, desperate to get away. Lucius's attempts to help him, unfortunately, impeded his ability to flee immediately, and faced with this threat, Roshan struck back, hard, before he ran away.

When he came to, he was sprawled out on the ground. The building was an inferno, and Lucius was nowhere to be seen. After collecting himself, Roshan returned to the Kogaion; he said that the spirit had killed Lucius, but he managed to escape with the relic. While the neonate being the sole survivor of these expeditions was rare, it proved his competence and showed his worth to the Ordo. A few were suspicious of his story, but this came to nothing. After all, any ancilla that let himself get killed by a neonate didn't deserve to live anyway.

The only one unhappy with the way things turned out was Roshan.

Embrace a Wrong
Richard Thatcher was unhappy with his homelife. His marriage was unsatisfying, his kids were ungrateful and annoying, his job was terrible. So he sought out a distraction from his life, and he found one in the employees of . They gave him what his wife wouldn't. But that wasn't enough for Richard; he began to take his frustrations out on them as well, his anger at his wife, his children, his rear end in a top hat boss and pissant coworkers. However, one night he took it too far, and went home with blood on his hands.

Unfortunately for Richard, his victims were in the employ of a Camarilla ancilla, and he wasn't going to let this stand. While he hadn't used his real name, tracking him down should have been easy enough. The task was delegated down the chain of command, and eventually, it fell to Roshan.

At first, he simply intended to find the man and have him brought to justice. After speaking with his victims and seeing what had been done to them, though, something dark awoke within him, and he decided to take justice into his own hands. When he finally found Richard, rather than the police, re turned to his own abilities.

Richard's gaslighting was prolonged and painful. The Dementation eroded his mind and withered his stability. Various sights and sounds, many set up by Roshan himself as he Obfuscated himself and followed the man, reminded him of his guilt and further shook his psyche. When Roshan finally confronted him, several days later, he didn't even need to threaten or coerce him; at the mere mention of his crime, Richard broke down. After a brief conversation, Roshan left, and Richard turned himself in.

Your Bête Noire: When Julie Thatcher came downstairs and saw a strange man sitting before her crying father, only to disappear before her eyes, she thought he was the devil. Now, she believes that he was some criminal enforcer or a corrupt cop or something, forcing him to take the blame for their crimes. His job isn't important; all she knows is that he's the man who destroyed her family. After her dad's mental breakdown and subsequent arrest, everything went wrong for her. Her mother became distant and unstable, unable to deal with the stress of her husband being a criminal and her now having to take care of her children alone. Her classmates whispered about her behind her back. She was alone, and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

She's older now, and while she can't fix her family, she has a goal she can achieve. She's going to find the man who tormented and framed her father and destroyed her family, and she's going to expose whatever corruption he's involved in and bring him to justice. Joining the local police force after graduating high school was the first step of this process. Now she just needs a lead.

Find Like Minds
Roshan's various endeavors had earned him some attention. He was a full member of the Ordo, and while still near the bottom of the Ivory Tower, he had at least proven he was worth keeping around.

However, the group he had connected to the most were his fellow Malkavians. Looked down upon by almost all other Kindred, the information and resources they possessed was surprising, but more often than not they were the victims of the plots and plans of their fellows. When he was able to, Roshan tried to help his fellows; while he had it bad, his madness at least left him at least somewhat lucid much of the time, which was better than some others could say. And, as word of his actions disseminated through the Clan, between word of mouth and the Madness Network, Roshan found himself receiving assistance in return. It wasn't always pleasant, and almost never expected, but Roshan had found some true allies.

Your Dupe:

Seize the Night
Now Roshan finds himself, if not in a good place, then at least a far better one than where he was when he began. He's proven his competence to his Camarilla superiors, while mostly avoiding excess attention or ire. He stands as a Dragon of the Ordo Dracul, ready to delve into it Mysteries. He has accrued various acquaintances and allies, even if they're not ones most people would expect or necessarily desire.

Most importantly, though, he has goals to pursue, and for the first time in a long time, reasons to do more than simply try to survive. Still working on this, sorry.

The Enabled:


Touchstones
Nadia
Dr. Vanev


Might have left a few names or other things empty; I left some things blank with the intention of going back and coming up with names later. Will probably edit the sheet a bit too. My sect vote is Camarilla; while Roshan would like the Anarchs more, the idea of struggling within the Ivory Tower's power structure and such sounds more fun.

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jun 1, 2014

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
Bob Scott



Listen to me, my brethren, and I will tell you the truth, how I was temped by the Devil and how I was set free; how I lost my faith and got it back. So listen to my story, and learn from it and it will save your soul from hell.

Climb the ladder
Confront Vulnerability

I had just been three years out of Bible College and had moved to the city to minister to the poor here. The poverty, the hunger, the despair of the city called out to me. I was young, I was prideful, I thought I would save the people of this city. Like a latter day Jonah, I raged at the city, calling on them to repent of their wicked ways, to pay attention to the poor and downtrodden in their midst, and to turn to God. But, unlike Nineveh, they rejected me. They rejected God. And it was my fault. I hadn't been worthy of the task He had given me. In despair, I fell into a deep depression.

Believe someone has answers

I was depressed and felt abandoned. God had abandoned me, I thought, and I saw no point in life. I'll confess to you that I contemplated suicide, sinful as it is. I had decided that, if God were going to abandon me, I would abandon God. I slipped into a fog of hedonistic vice, looking for nothing more than the next party, the next orgy. I had sinned, I had become unclean. That was when I met him. He called himself Tarquin, but that couldn't have been his real name. Tarquin had It. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him. He could get into the best parties, get hold of anything, legal or illegal, and he had the face of an angel. He'd smile at you and you would feel like you were the only person in the room. That you were alone with him. And Tarquin saw me and liked me. I became his follower...I became his slave. It's hard to explain now how it felt. How full and complete I felt, just being in his presence. Of course, that was before I knew the truth.

Meet your Maker

I had been serving Tarquin for 5 years. He only had to call and I would come. The least of his wishes was like a command. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him, no matter how degrading. I became his procurer, finding drugs, women, men. It didn't matter. Finally, one night he came to me. I still remember it. He stroked my cheek with his fingers, and said, "You have served me well these years. I've watched you, seen how well you've served me, and I want to give you a gift. That was when he did it. That was when he made me. . .what I've become. I remember the agony of it, but also the ecstasy too. It was like nothing I've ever felt before. Words fail.

Find Fear

It's impossible for anyone not Embraced to know what it feels like, and for those of us who were, no words are necessary. You change, both externally and internally. You get stronger, faster, tougher, but with that comes a certain hardening of attitude. You stop being a man, and become a monster. It wasn't very long after Tarquin Embraced me that he introduced me to one of those monsters.

It's name...her name, was Rachel. And she was a little girl. Or at least she seemed to be. Rachel was a Malkavian, a clan of vampires who, without exception, were mad. That in itself didn't disturb me. I had known madmen before, and later would go on to know Malkavians who did not disturb me so much. But Mary was a monster. She had no self control at all, no restraint. Hers was a sad story. Abused as a child, she was embraced at a young age by a cruel sire who then largely neglected her. So maybe she was doomed from the beginning. She was little more than a beast, though, violent and feral, but a clever one. Tarquin was amused, but I was disturbed beyond measure, for I saw in her my eventual fate.

Leave a Witness

One of the fundamental rules of our existence is that we keep our true natures secret from humanity. This is fear, but also prudence, for, while each of us is individually stronger and faster than any human, they exist in such numbers that, if they knew our true nature, they could destroy us. I violated that rule once, and it was the best thing I could do, for it saved me. Her name was Mary Sue.

While I had been Embraced by Tarquin, I was still his servant, and, indeed, he kept me loyal to him though rituals, so that when he commanded, I obeyed. Tarquin had a weakness for young women and men. He enjoyed their innocence; it was a thing for him to corrupt. He always has been a corrupter. Sometimes he would have me bring them to him. She was one of those. A young girl, newly arrived in the city, she had answered an ad I had placed seeking potential models. That was one of the snares we used. Now, I had done this a hundred times before, but there was something about her that filled me with shame. She was so innocent, it shone off her, and it almost hurt to touch her or even look at her. Suddenly, the enormity of my life overwhelmed me, and I wept bloody tears. I told her...everything, who I was, what I was. I expected her to recoil in horror. I expected death. But instead she held me, her eyes brimming with tears, and whispered, "You poor soul".

I went back empty handed to Tarquin that night. He was not pleased. But I hardly noticed the pain of my punishment.


Suffer your Defects

While we have many strengths, we are not without weaknesses, and our greatest weakness is the Beast that lies inside us. No matter how much you try to keep it under control, sometimes it slips out, and when it does, it can have disastrous consequences. Tarquin kept me busy, but still, I tried to make sure to feed regularly. Especially after I met Mary Sue, I was careful not to drink too much from one vessel, which made feeding harder. But it also protected them. But one night, I couldn't. Tarquin had kept me busy the entire week, running errands for him, leaving me no time to feed, and my hunger grew and grew. That was when the beast came out. I drank too deep and killed someone. He was what society would call a "nobody"...poor, not important. But he must have been important to someone. He was a human being, with a name, and a face, and I killed him. I think Tarquin had planned it that way, as a lesson to me. "Remember what you are", was his message. "Remember that you are a monster; that you are damned, and embrace your damnation." If it was a lesson, I remember it still.

Beg someone, anyone, to fix you

Tarquin had never had much use for Kindred society, and had left me largely ignorant of the nuances of Kindred politics. He had largely stayed aloof from the Prince's court, and would not suffer me to know many other vampires. Still, after a time, I became aware of the Lancea at Sanctum, the vampiric church. I hadn't been inside a church in years, ever since I had rejected God after my failures. But the events with Mary Sue and her influence on me left me unsettled, unsure. I knew, at least, that I was lost. So I went there, humbly, to learn. Finally, it made sense. I learned that salvation was possible for me, too, but that it would require repentance.

Remember your victims

It was there, in the presence of the Lancea et Sanctum, that I confessed. For the poor man I killed by feeding was not my first victim. And my first victim, I could not blame on my beast. Tarquin was lazy, and could be careless in his keeping of the Masquerade, and I would sometimes be sent by him to kill witnesses. There was one that I still remember, because it was so senseless. He was a little man, bald, an insurance salesman named Otto Baker. He was in town for a convention, and, drunk, he came across Tarquin feeding....obviously feeding in an alley. He was horrified, and Tarquin knew something had to be done. So, he used me, as he always used me. Otto Baker's wife Carol, his children Karen, Cynthia and Timothy, his dog, his elderly father, and his coworkers in Kansas City, Missouri, will never see him again, because I snapped his neck and dumped him in the river. I did this, even though he committed no crime, even though he had never wronged anyone, and his only sin was to be in the wrong place and see something he shouldn't see.

Embrace a wrong

I kept seeing Mary Sue, and indeed, I think it was her faith in me that helped me break free of Tarquin's control and find my way back to God. You see, she never lost faith in me or stopped believing that I could be saved. She gave me strength. And I, in return, protected her. She was mugged, once. She wasn't hurt, physically, but was frightened. There was only one thing I could do. I found him. He was just some low life. I tracked him down, broke his fingers and toes, and then I warned him, and told him to warn his friend that they needed to fix their lives and they needed to stay away from people I loved, or else I'd find the people THEY loved. He understood then. I'll do anything to protect Mary Sue. Anything.

Find Like Minds

I joined the Lancea et Sanctum, and found in them brothers and sisters able to help advance me in my faith. While they are perhaps more derived from Catholic ritual than I'd like, they're good people, and fellow Christians, and they helped me realize that there's no conflict between my faith and my condition. I'm even been anointed as a minister there, and allowed to conduct services. Sometimes I help them in other ways. I'm glad to do it. I'm recognized by the prince now, also, and am a member in good standing in the Camarilla.


Seize the Night

As for Mary Sue and I, we've wed. We didn't have a wedding, of course, but we've said our vows in front of each other, and in our eyes we've wed. She's mine now. My protector, my redeemer. I've set up a church of my own. Of mortals. It's not exactly looked on favorably by the Prince, but no one there knows I'm a vampire. Well, no one except Mary Sue, at least. My flock is the lost, the lonely. They think of me as the new Adam, and Mary Sue as the new Eve. It's taken me a long time, but I've finally come to realize that my vampirism is a gift from God. After all, didn't he say, "This is My Blood, which will give you everlasting life"? Tarquin is still out there. Still a source of temptation, and sin. But now I have my wife, and I have my flock, and I'll protect them. However I have to. And we will grow through the city until all are redeemed, mortal and kindred.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jun 2, 2014

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, kindred of all ages - I've reviewed your submissions, and one thing I can say is I really like all of them. Eight is a hard number to cut down to 6, because it leaves out two very well written applications.

Thankfully, some of you reminded me of another option. I had contingency plans in place regardless of what sect was voted upon (yes, even Sabbat, though no one wanted to play that game), and with each potential plot running on a 4-6 player theory, eight submissions gives me a chance to run two plots, and not have to cut anybody.

As such, I'll be running two games - which may be complete insanity, but we'll try it anyway - one Anarch, one Camarilla. To make things simpler, I'll go ahead and place people in groups based on what was mentioned in your submissions/where I think your character would fit best if you didn't imply a specific Sect (and to make it even (and interesting) I'm going to place a Camarilla sympathizer with the Anarchs don't hate me TehWarsmith). Please note the gifts of the ST - you get 1 free Status in your assigned sect, so if you had one already, that means two, etc. Congratulations to everyone for making this too hard a choice for me to make, ha!

Without further adieu:

Anarchs:
Soonmot: Ricky Fry
Valhawk: Leo Jansen
Zephonith: Amber Holloway
TehWarsmith: Alicia Bedford

Camarilla:
Josef bugman: Alistair Erikson
Bouquet: Loren Ainslie Chancellor
Roland Jones: Roshan
Epicurius: Bob Scott

So remember, you get a point of Status in your Sect - we're not playing an autarkis/learn about it later game, at least for the big 3.

Secondly, step 12 in Climbing the Ladder. You have three coterie mates each, and I want to know how you guys ended up running together. So, let's give it to the end of the week - if you haven't finished your ladders, do so by then, and then I want to know how it is you all know each other (in each group, though cross-pollination can also happen, at least a bit). Use NPCs, past experiences, whatever. If you need an NPC, let me know, I have a stable of them. I would also like you to each describe what it is you do for your Sect, at least in a general sense. More specifics about the City, Rochester, New York, will come in the days ahead.

Ok, so, once again, congratulations to everybody! Once we've got relationships nailed down between the direct coterie mates and I have a sense of how everyone operates, I'll post the game threads and we'll be on.

Oh and also, we'll run the group Beats since those who answered that question were down for it. So keep that in mind as well.

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
noooo i dont get to hang out with buddhist death cult vampire

That's alright though, this way everyone gets to play! Soonmot, get your bad self into IRC whenever you get a chance so we can hammer this out!

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE
Summary of the current planning for how Team Anarch met:
  • Leo, attempting to build up his own unit of soldiers, and on the lookout for any training regimes he can use.
  • Abramos(Alicea's Sire, a high ranking Invictus) casually mentions to Alexander(Leo's Sire, also in Invictus, and who may or may not be currently planning to userp Abramos' position in Invictus) that he's heard about Alexander's soldier and that Alicea might have some information that is useful to him. (Alexander is annoyed by this because he thought he had kept Leo and the whole building up a small personal army a secret).
  • Leo meets Alicea who has been doing some research on the Spartans after her recent encounter with the Junkie(A vampire who's been draining people around Alicea's Campus. Is he a Dragur, or just an rear end in a top hat, who knows). Alexander offers her access to the Police's confidential memos/reports on the Junkie in order to help Leo.
  • Alicea knows about a ancient secret Spartan text which supposedly contains information about a secret training method, in the collection of some rich collector of Greek antiquities.
  • Alicea hires the services of Amber to help break in and steal the scroll(s).
  • Amber recognizes Leo for being involved with the disappearance of Olof(Leo's Touchstone and current first recruit for his unit) who she tangentially knew.
  • Shenanigans ensue.

Soonmot, do you have any suggestions on connections between Ricky and our PCs or NPCs, or the rapidly evolving heist plan?

Valhawk fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jun 3, 2014

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Whoop whoop! Ima read through everyone's backgrounds again but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say our meetings may have revolved around meeting ALicia on campus somehow.

EDIT: Also, I was reading through Armory to find out stats on a compound bow. I can use athletics or firearms to fire the bow, which would you prefer I use?

Soonmot fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jun 3, 2014

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
You are welcome to use whichever one suits your fancy, though firearms can probably apply just fine.

Bouquet
Jul 14, 2001

Notes from Team Camarilla discussions:
  • The Salubri Alistair met in the woods was Si Thep, Loren's sire. Si Thep gave him a card in case Alistair ever needed anything. By the time Alistair came to ask for a favor, Si Thep was gone and Loren was in charge, so she helped him out instead.
  • Roshan came to the meditation center during his searching for answers phase and met Loren after she was embraced but before Si Thep died. The meditation thing did not work out for Roshan (too much room for the voices to fill) but he and Loren parted on friendly terms.
  • Loren's brother Conway is a member of Bob's church??

Bouquet fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Jun 4, 2014

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE
Anarch Prologue (It's very very long!)

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Ricky's Impressions and Aspiration #3

Alicia: "My sire didn't really tell me too much about other vampires, but one thing she made sure I knew was that you can't trust the Ventrue. I think that's bullshit because Alicia is great. Like me, she protects people, well in her own fashion. I don't buy that taking control of the campus was .just for power, she cares too much for that. Whatever that woman wants, I'm going to do my best to deliver."

Amber: "What can I say? I have a soft spot for strays? She's a good kid, scared and alone, but a good kid all the same. If I can help her find some confidence and a safe place to sleep the day away, I'll be happy."

Leo: "Man, I don't even know. He's a builder, I like that. I like [i]him[/b]. But there's something else going on there that I just can't trust. There's some elder that has him dancing on a string and it'll be best for us all if those strings can get cut. Hopefully he'll come around on his own, his plans could really help Alicia expand."

Ricky: "Me? I'm a simple guy. I've got Fang, I've got my buddy Dr Dan. Hell, I guess you can say I've even got Alicia and Amber as friends, too. All I want is make something better than what's already here. The good thing is, I've got pretty much forever to make it happen."

Coterie Aspiration: Expand the Campus safezone and establish a powerbase.

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(
Coterie impressions (aka Ask Amber!):

Leo: "Murderviking? He's one scary loving dude. All that poo poo about power, order, rules... gently caress, and he thinks I'm a bad influence on Olof? On the other hand, if he's looking out for Olof..."

Ricky: "Oh man Fang is the best. If you scratch him right behind the left ear he does that silly back leg thumping thing. He's super smart too. If you pretend to have treats, he sees right through that poo poo. And he knows how to track! What? Oh Ricky... Yeah he's a pretty cool guy."

Alicia: "Lady's full of big words and likes rules almost as much as Murderviking. Reminds me of those Brighton assholes who wouldn't give me a dime back when I was mortal, who'd just keep walking and pretending not to see me. She's smart though. I prolly shouldn't mess with her, but sometimes it's loving tempting."

Amber: "gently caress, what's there to know? Wait, why do you want to know? Hey, you gotta be paranoid to survive in this world. Gotta keep a lookout. And gently caress, there's a lot of big bad poo poo out there ready to gently caress up my poo poo. This vampire blood made me better than I could ever be as a human, but there's always a bigger dog out there."

Coterie Aspiration: Defend the coterie from threat without backing down (Or as Leo calls it, Tuesday)

Edited to add Aspiration

Zephonith fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jun 5, 2014

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE
Impressions:

Ricky: "He trains dogs, I train men, there are more similarities than many would want to believe. He seems very interested in building up a strong force for Alicea's campus, he's smarter than he looks I wonder if he's worked out what that might mean even more than she has. Plus, he recommended a canidate for my unit. All in all, a good man to have around, I can work with him."

Alicea: "A scholar of antiquies, a Ventrue through and through, more interested in commanding obedience than loyalty. It's something the Lords never seem to understand, command a man's body and you have yourself a mindless tool that will do only what it's told, command a man's devotion and you have yourself a subordinate that will do everything they can, and often more. She seems keen on securing my army to protect her campus. She's something of a control freak, I wonder if she understand what she's inviting in. After all, Mao was right on one count, power springs from the barrel of a gun, and when all the guns work for you... let's just say I hope she's interested in sharing."

Amber: "So this girl knows Olof. I'd better keep her away from him, last thing I need is to have her drag him back down into the shithole that was his old life. Meeting her might make a good test for him later, once he's actually been rebuilt into a true soldier once again. Until then, I'll have to keep a drat close eye on her, because I sure as poo poo don't trust her."

Leo: "Me, I'm a soldier, an officer, I guess you could say I'm becoming a warlord. I know two things for certain, I'm going to build up a loyal force of troops that will prove those army snots that drummed me out were loving cowardly traitors I've seen them to be. If I can make myself useful to such a wonderful and noble man as Alexander along the way, well the benefits go hand in hand."

What Leo does for the sect: "In these nights there are always problems that need to be solved. When these problems take the form of someone who needs to be taken out of the picture, I get involved. I take my missions from Alexander, who occasionally solves problems for the Baron.

Valhawk fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Jun 7, 2014

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
Alicia's impressions and aspirations:

Ricky: Such a dear man. I am indebted to him; as much as I wish my fellow undead would accept the need for order and stability, I know full well that much of the time it is only the threat of his strength that keeps the peace near the school. Ah, well. It certainly helps that he is a delightful man; anyone who is able to make peace with the Beast and remain a decent, functioning, individual has my great esteem.

Amber: I do not know quite what to make of Miss Holloway. I fear the world has ruined her without any help from the paranormal. Her talents are invaluable, of course, and she is clearly quite perceptive; a valuable naysmith - or, as they are called in modern times, a devil's advocate. Perhaps Richard and I can be a constructive influence on her.

Leo: All I see are questions when I look at Mr. Jansen. What does he intend? How much of it can he actually accomplish? Where could a man such as him originate? And what sort of person could command the loyalty of such a man?

I think that if I can find these answers, I will have a very interesting opportunity before me in these coming nights.

Alicia: And what do I want? Truly, (though few would believe me) all I want is to be left in peace. I want to observe. I want to watch, at this turning point in the history of Kindred society, and witness events as they unfold.

And I want to protect my school.

But I have learned enough about our kind in my short unlife to understand that in order to keep my students and my territory safe, it is not enough to remain passive. We are not peaceful creatures.

The best teacher I ever had warned me against the idea that history is only something that happens in the past. History, he said, is always being made. It is happening all around us.

It is time I participated.

Aspirations:

-put an end to the Junkie
-discover the identity of the hunter on campus
-find out who is pulling Leo's strings


What do you do for your Sect?

For the moment, I command respect among the local Anarch Movement as the mistress of the university campus, and the warden of the Masquerade in the area. Richard and I see off troublemakers, break up skirmishes, and clean up their messes near my jurisdiction - the city is still strewn with entirely too many aimless veterans and rebels-without-causes; the residue, I am told, of the violently militant Sabbat sect. Abbot does not like we unaligned bleeding our strength on one another when the Camarilla are still steadily expanding through the state.

Edited with Sect note and self-reflection.

TehWarsmith fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Jun 5, 2014

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
So, Team Camarilla has talked a little bit in IRC, and I think there was some talk of a google doc, but basically, as far as Bob is concerned, he's crossed paths with Amber due to her work among the poor, Loren's brother is part of Bob's church, and Roshan and Bob met because the Ordo and Lancea were both interested in an artifact of some kind, and both Roshan and Bob were trying to get it (I'm thinking it was the statue of a falcon given to the Holy Roman Emperor by the Knights of Malta, but I'm flexible). We also talked about all of us being ordered by the prince to do a mission for the city together.

Bouquet
Jul 14, 2001

Here is the google doc for Team Cam's prelude: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uuoSNz-k3jrgMzo0ecSQli3RiaBGDl1WTXzhI7pzsEc/edit

LifeGetsWorser
Oct 23, 2010

Me "IRL" :smug:
Fun Shoe
The Baron and his "Small Council", Rumors now included.

Malcolm Abbot - Lasombra, Carthian, Baron of the Rochester Anarchs Possibly a big Game of Thrones fan, Baron Abbot is the childe of a Sabbat Cainite - he claims he was shovel-headed, but he had enough sense of self to get out of dodge when the sword started crumbling a couple years back. Since then, he's poured most of his efforts into pulling the local Anarch Crusade together - and he's quickly risen through the ranks and garned quite a bit of a following, especially after the final death of the previous Baron, at which point Malcolm was voted to the post nearly unanimously. He and his coterie, mentioned below, are largely credited with the final break-away from the Ivory Tower, at least upstate, though for now he hasn't pushed for anything big now that Anarch independence has been achieved.
Erri Gurewitch - Tzimisce, Invictus. It's rumored that Erri's been with Malcolm since the beginning of their Requiems, but being a more law and order sort, she gravitated towards the Invictus while Malcolm took up with the Carthians. Still, Erri was happy to come with Malcolm to the Anarchs, as despite her Clan, the Tzimisce tends to blanch slightly at some of the more savage aspects of Sabbat behavior. Despite being Abbot's oldest friend, Erri seems to be somewhat on the sidelines of the Baron's Crusade - her more moderate voice frequently rejected in favor of more radical ideas. Still, Erri continues to funnel Invictus manpower and resources into Malcolm's projects, maybe hoping he'll wake up one of these nights.
Nina Derbyshire - Ventrue, House Tremere. Nina "Derbyshire" was never a fan of Ventrue politicking or the made up genealogy nonsense. She claims she was Embraced as a mistake (her sire's), and joined the Pyramid as another mistake (her own). She took the name Derbyshire as a giant middle finger to the overblown pomposity of both groups. Despite all this, she's a shrewd ally and clever blood mage, and Abbot owes her his unlife more than once.
Takashi Giovanni - Nosferatu, Giovanni Family. The first thing you notice about Takashi is that a storm cloud always seems to be figuratively hanging over him. The second is that he smells like fresh, wet, overturned earth...literally. It's public knowledge that the rest of the Small Council isn't fond of the Giovanni, but Baron Abbot keeps him around so he must hit it off with the Keeper somehow. Takashi's a decent enough Necromancer, but where Malcolm's really been using him is his connections - even more so than Gurewitch, Takashi's offered him bodies (probably not living ones though) and money (probably dirtier than what Invictus favors can garner). Despite the sources of these offerings, they come more frequently and in greater number than the Tzimisce's assistance, so Takashi seems set to usurp Erri's position. No wonder she doesn't like him.
Noel Quijano - Ravnos, Carthian Premier. Noel's the one who introduced Malcolm to the Carthian Movement, and the one who introduced him to the Anarch Crusade. Despite being powerful enough on her own to claim the Premiership of the local Carthians, she defers to Abbot's judgement when it comes to the Crusade, having been heard to state that he knows how to "think on a bigger scale than [her]". Noel's kind of a scary bitch, as she's displayed abilities far beyond what a Ravnos ancilla should know, though how much of that is Chimerstry and how much is actual knowledge is uncertain. Still, she's not someone you want to tangle with if you can help it, and the rest of the Small Council seems to know that as well.

LifeGetsWorser fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jun 6, 2014

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(
Oh yeah we just talked this over in IRC - this will be the first time Amber's getting involved with the Anarchs properly, so she doesn't work for them currently. Before, the factions just vaguely knew there's someone lurking out in the shittier areas of town. The Anarchs are predisposed to her due to hearing about what she did to the Camarilla vampire who dobbed her in, and the prologue mission.

Also posting for reference: A handy map of Rochester, suburbs color-coded by quality

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
(This is all in third-person rather than first, for reasons. Sorry.)

Sect Duties: Roshan's work for the Camarilla is mostly errands and odd jobs for his superiors in it. Things like investigating Richard Thatcher and the like; he's usually doing stealthy and/or investigative stuff, rather than providing muscle. His work for the Ordo Dracul is similar, sneaking into Dragon's Nests and finding occult items or recording unusual activity (or, similarly, infiltrating rival strongholds and "acquiring" information and items they located first).

Impressions

Alistair: A surprisingly decent guy for a vampire, Roshan finds Alistair a strong ally, and perhaps one of the few people he can consider a friend, vampire or otherwise. Intelligent and, for a vampire, trustworthy, he's a useful source of information, and with their shared interest in the occult, a potential partner in many activities.

Loren: Loren is a useful ally, and someone he sort of admires, in a way. Dedicating herself to such a righteous cause is admirable, though the killing makes Roshan somewhat uncomfortable. However, Roshan is under the mistaken assumption that her master reached Golconda before his death, and thus has incorrect assumptions and expectations of her. Also, someone who would commit diablerie, even as part of Salubri tradition, fills him with a sense of dread.

Bob: "Wary" would be the term to use here. Roshan is already predisposed against the Lancea et Sanctum, and Bob's cult unnerves him. That Bob seems to truly believe what he says deepens his concerns, rather than lessens them. That said, worry, for the moment, is as far as it goes. Despite a less-than-friendly first encounter Roshan has no concrete reasons for his distrust, and despite the above Bob is competent.

The Camarilla: Flawed, but better than the alternatives. They could do with some shaking up, though, and fewer power-mad elders at the top.

The Anarchs: Would be ideal if not for certain issues. His early encounter with the Carthians and their view of humans as expendable mar his opinion of them severely, though.

The Sabbat: Mad dogs without a purpose. They need to be stopped, one way or another, before they do any more damage.

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 7, 2014

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Sects in the city

My thoughts on the Cam? I don't know, they seem kind of like every paranoid lunatics take on what the government is, like they are everywhere and constantly watching and hiding moon lasers from the Russians. Really it just seems like they are the people at the top of the pile at the moment, most of their members seem bright enough and I've mainly had to do only some research work into "occult occurances" in the area. That and maybe keeping an eye out for hunters.

The Anarchs? I can respect most of them, they are sure as hell rattling the cage, but some of their members seem to be just like the Camarilla, just cut from a different cloth. And some of the crap they get away with is terrifying. Judge individually and all, but if they start messing around I am going to have to protect my people.

The Sabbat? Only heard rumours, it sounds like a lot of them would have fascinating archives, in particular the Lasombra. But they also appear to be completely insane like "pants on head we will force our people to dig their way out of graves" crazy. Glad they seem to be losing power. Though I have been hearing things in the wind. Best to keep some firepower on hand and hope I am behind a desk when the shooting starts.

The team

Roshan: Roshan is a stand-up guy, a bit flighty and given to long periods of being a bit hard to contact, but he gets the job done. I could spend weeks chatting to him about ancient Mesepotamia and it'd be nice to try and get him to connect a bit more with some people. Hope we can keep working together. Also I think I'll offer him a place in the house. The guy needs somewhere proper to stay and it can't be good to have yourself living in the sewers, maybe my library will be of use in that, might even have a first edition of Crowley's "occult primer" that I can lend him!

Loren: Always had respect for the old Buddhism, it contains a great deal of interesting religious facets that can be used effectively in a great many contexts. Loren herself? Well her sire left me a few books and I thought about seeing him a few times, but he was never to be found even though he was only a few blocks away. I think the lady has some stuff she needs to sort out. And yet, I dunno I just feel my palms itch a bit whenever I am nearby. Its probably nothing, but that's how I ended up nearly gutted by "goathead"

Bob: Oh dear, Catholicism is interesting and the Lance has a hell of a lot of stuff in the archives I would give my eye teeth for. But Bob? He reminds me of all the people who hand out leaflets around the college kids and tell my granddad that he is "corrupting the youth" by letting an 18 year old have one drink. He is sure as hell one of the nicer people I have met, and at least he appears to be on the right team, but sleep with one eye open as granddad puts it. I feel sorry for his "flock", the guys who come to my bar at least get to drink, laugh and sing. All his do is sing his praises and get a bit high on "the sacred".

  • Locked thread