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I'm thinking about apping an Invictus Ventrue. Maybe an ex-military officer. Edit: Thinking about it a bit, I might go with a Daeva instead. Play up the whole inspiring officer, warlord angle. Valhawk fucked around with this message at 06:32 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 05:22
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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:
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 |
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May 23, 2014 04:16
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Summary of the current planning for how Team Anarch met:
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 |
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Jun 3, 2014 06:54
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Anarch Prologue (It's very very long!)
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Jun 4, 2014 03:34
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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 |
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Jun 5, 2014 03:14
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Oh no, not Big Jim! He had such a cool name. I guess we can hope there's some other reason for Amber's reading, something other than him being a horrible undead monster that's not a vampire.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:58
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Worser, can you clarify if you this guy is Big Jim or not? It's not clear from the text whether it's something possessing Big Jim, or just another big guy Amber thought was Jim.
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Jul 1, 2014 06:27
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Hope you feel better Warsmith.
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Jul 5, 2014 19:46
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Well if there aren't enough people could the apps be adapted for one of the two other sects. The ones from people not already playing in one of the two existing games that is.
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Jul 12, 2014 09:07
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Team Anarch Beat Tracker:pre:Night 1 - 9 beats Night 2 - 12 beats Night 3 - 8 beats ====================================================== Total 29 beats ------------------------------------------------------ XP per player 1 XP Beats still in pool 9 beats
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Jul 28, 2014 21:53
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Ya, don't worry about being slow to post. Take care of your personal stuff first.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:48
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Beep boop, where are you War? It's sort of frustrating if Alicia's the core of the party and you keep vanishing.
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Sep 9, 2014 05:42
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I thought he said he was in a play, and now that it was over he'd have more free time.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:32
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I'd be fine with this with the proviso that a hard deadline for the regular game to resume be included. I'd rather not see the sidestory balloon out and replace the main campaign.
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Oct 1, 2014 19:39
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Leo would need to find a new translator, also a new in on taking out Abramo. Also, a new reason for hanging out with Amber/Ricky. Any of you Cams open the possibility of switching sides?
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Oct 1, 2014 21:21
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Any progress on one-shots or restarting the main game? It's been 6 weeks since Warsmith has posted anywhere, I'm not feeling confident he'll be back.
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Oct 12, 2014 02:19
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 20:02 |
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Just checking in. Is this game dead? 
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Oct 25, 2014 00:46
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