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Mitama
Feb 28, 2011



They say Shibuya Ward lights up even brighter at night than it does during the day. Seeing as you haven't seen the sun in ages, you could well believe that. Even more so when you stand in the scramble crossing on a green light, as the crowds pour and shuffle on by without regard for one another. Neon lights and huge video screens beam down from nearly everywhere, an ever constant stream of flashing technology and information. No other place in Tokyo moves faster, herds in more people, shines brighter.

Perhaps that's why it's here, out of all the districts in Tokyo, that the shadows run the deepest.

The capital of Japan belongs to no vampire covenant, to no prince. In their place, the Kindred have established powerful organizations known as zaibatsu that run Tokyo's society at night. The zaibatsu have taken hold of corporations, crime syndicates, even parts of the government, a massive conspiracy underneath the urban glass and steel. The Danse Macabre plays behind gambling halls, night clubs, and boardrooms. The Kindred compete and kill with corporate politics, with hails of gunfire and blood, with a metaphorical (?) knife at the back. Same as anywhere else.

Three major zaibatsu exist... and begrudgingly, a fourth. A fourth established by a mortal who ran afoul of vampire politics, who dug in deeper and leaned on mysticism to purge his interests from the Kindred. A zaibatsu run by humans, who know the masquerade and hold it hostage over the zaibatsu, who compete with the Kindred and threaten their holdings. From the glass skyscraper in Shibuya, the Hototogisu have set-up a five-year plan to unite Tokyo under a single power and remove the "monsters" from power in the process. That plan is now at it's fifth and final year.

This is the world you live your unlife in. You haven't been part of vampire society for very long, but you've made your way well enough. Lived under the shadow of your sire (or alone), made some friends, formed a small band that did small jobs for the zaibatsu when they needed deniable muscle. Now, an executive from the Maeda Group has contacted you for a very special job in Shibuya. The assignment's simple enough, the pay is very good (a feeding ground of your own), but what caught your eye was the implication that this was as much an initiation as an assignment.

The Maeda zaibatsu is recruiting. And it looks like you're about fall further into the neon abysss with them.


__________

Information:

Hello. I've read the latest Vampire: the Requiem corebook, and while there was a lot of stuff I liked (and didn't like) from it, the Tokyo mini-setting (Three and Four Diamonds) was the one bit that grabbed me the most. So, now I want to run a Play by Post about sexy Japanese vampires with katanas and pinstripe suits. :drac: :japan:

The game is set in the Tokyo Metropolis, focusing on Shibuya Ward and the neighboring areas. Your PCs are neonates, small-time yet independent vampires soon about to enter into the power plays of the zaibatsu and Tokyo as a whole. I'm taking a fair bit of inspiration from yakuza movies, particularly those leaning on the themes on family and betrayal. It's a treacherous, bloodthirsty world out there and as you climb to the top of the cannibal ladder, your coterie are the only people you can really trust. Or are they? Let's play to find out.

I'm new to GMing Storyteller and World of Darkness in general. If I come up with any mistakes, let me know.

Character Creation:

You will need Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicle to play, particularly for the rules and in case you want an overview of the Tokyo mini-setting (p. 265). Just follow character creation as listed there. I'm open to any concepts if you can make it work with a group of Kindred, so surprise me.

Leave Covenant as blank for now; the idea is that you've been an independent group of vampires about enter into the fold of the Maeda zaibatsu. That said, you can buy Status merits in other zaibatsu/covenants and gain their benefits if you have a good story reason for it. Might turn out to be an interesting hook. Just don't go overboard with it. The only exception to this ruling is for the Hototogisu Status merit (can't get that).

I recommend reserving one or two Aspirations for later; if you get picked, I will ask you to use them to relate to your fellow coterie-mates.

After that, I would like you to answer questions based from the steps in Climbing the Ladder (p. 282). This is so you and I can get a better handle of your character and we can place some Storyteller characters you can care about into the city. When that's done, I might ask you to answer a few more questions depending on which part of your character I want to know more about.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?


The recruit will run from now until April 21st.

Other Things:

If you need to reach me for questions, I'm in synIRC through #redhandofdoom or #trixchronicle.

Beats will work as listed in the book, though I'll also copy from recent nWoDs and award beats for posts detailing excellent RPing, meaningful interactions, and significant acts of character development. Instead of a free beat at the end of a session, you get one for consistent posting throughout each week. I might use the Group Beats rule (everyone's beats go into single pot, which get distributed after some significant downtime), to encourage the group to help each other realize each other Aspirations and otherwise work together (even in an OOC sense) to get Beats. Let me know what you think about that.

Also, 50 things to do in Shibuya.

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Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
I've never played the World of Darkness before, but you run a good game. Consider this an interest post.

Cabbit
Jul 19, 2001

Is that everything you have?

Vampire's my least frequented flavor of WoD and I've not yet had reason to look at the new GMC rules; this seems like a pretty cool way to address both of those things!

Punting
Sep 9, 2007
I am very witty: nit-witty, dim-witty, and half-witty.

Definitely interested in this, despite my crippling lack of knowledge regarding Japan and the new GMC stuff, so interest post #3 here. :v:

Paycheck ending up being a little smaller than expected this pay period, there shall be a great lack of purchasing Blood & Smoke, and so I must unfortunately retract my statement of interest. :(

Punting fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Apr 12, 2014

Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

Yeah, don't sweat the details. This is going to be the Hollywood version of Tokyo, so aside from landmarks feel free to come up with your own things as you go. I don't think anyone will mind that much. :)

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013
Hisao Hashimoto

Before he was Embraced in 1999, Hisao was an up-and-coming member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime family in Shibuya. He was a pimp and a drug dealer, selling bodies and meth on the streets of Tokyo. Notorious amongst his brothers for his womanizing, he was on his way to rising up in the ranks and becoming a lieutenant until he attracted the attention of a Daeva. His Sire left him the day she Embraced him, leaving nothing but a note explaining what he was.

Now that he could no longer go out in the day time, Hisao was forced to change tactics. He retired from pimping and, using his connections, rose to the position of General Manager at The Elegance, a Love Hotel controlled by the Yakuza. After a decade or so of dutifully managing the hotel for his bosses, Hisao began to mature. He realized that he had eternity on his side. Why bother with a bunch of lowlife embezzlers, dealers, and sex traffickers when you could have so much more? Still retaining his membership in the Yakuza, Hisao began making motions towards the Maeda zaibatsu, looking to attract their attention.

For the most part, Hisao keeps up the facade of his former life. He allows the Yakuza to use his business for whatever they wish and ensures their privacy. Occasionally he goes out for a night on the town with his old friends in order to keep their trust. He keeps a small group of women around him, charming them into spending a night with him whenever he feels the thirst. But deep down, he has become a true professional, ready to take control of his own part of Tokyo in time.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
It was the time I botched a shipment of drugs to a businessman that was supposed to help us acquire more control in a certain bank. I made a mistake regarding who to trust, and as a result my friend, Ichiro Sato, was arrested along with the girls and the banker. I had to personally sever the end of my smallest finger, hand it to my boss, and bow to him while asking for forgiveness. If I had not dishonored myself that day, I might not have went to the woman who Sired me for "comfort". Ichiro's on probation now, but I haven't seen him since then.
• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
Akira Matsuda. Best businessman I've ever dealt with. Calm, professional, and collected. I've never heard of him failing to achieve what he wants. More Kindred should act like him.
• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
I can't help but notice that I've gained a bit of a temper. I was never one to be quick to anger, but there's this Beast inside me now, and it rages at everything. My new gifts at manipulation and speed are grand blessings, but I shudder to think what havoc that Beast could wreak on my plans if it were to get loose. I've seen what happens when a vampire lets loose. There's a foreigner that lives in Harajuku. Matthew Long. A Gangrel that looks and acts like one of the berserkers from European myth. He's brought in to fix problems for the zaibatsus, but he's infamous for his brutality. He lives like a beast, and I will never let myself act like that.
• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
My ex, Chie Miura, is suspicious of me. I haven't aged a day since I became what I am, and she knows it. We used to be in love before this happened, and I can't bring myself to harm her, even though she might bring ruin to me if she keeps prying into my business.
• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
I have a room in an apartment just another block away from The Elegance, although it's not much. A bit under my means, but there are no windows in the place, which is what is really important. Every now and again, I'll put a girl on watch if I feel like someone will try to bother me while the sun is out. I tell them the same lines every time: "I'm a hardworking businessman, and I have to keep long hours when I work. I'm going to rest here for the day. Could you make sure no one disturbs me while I sleep?" Works like a charm.
• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
I managed to find the Maeda Group easily enough. The yakuza gripes about them constantly. All it took was to track down a ghoul, and that got me in. I've been helping Akira Matsuda acquire properties around my area underneath the yakuza's noses. I'm sure to be accepted soon enough if I make them enough profit.

Yamtaggler
Feb 6, 2011

My brother gave me half of a rock and told me to wait for you in the woods...
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in this, but I know nothing of the Mystical Land of Nippon or the World of Darkness. Sourcebook is good reading, though, so maybe I'll whip something up. Would you be opposed to my character being foreign?

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008
Being a big ol' Japan nerd and having played a lot of VtM: Bloodlines, I'm totally down for this. I'll throw up a character sometime tomorrow.

Fuzz
Jun 2, 2003

Avatar brought to you by the TG Sanity fund
Shin Makoto



Orphaned at a young age and growing up on the streets of Shibuya, Shin learned quickly how to handle himself, using his small and wiry frame to his advantage to allow those that would bully him to underestimate just how much damage he could do... usually to their bones and/or faces. It was only a matter of time before the local Yakuza took notice and added him to the fold. Quickly rising in the ranks as a voracious, and yet compellingly charismatic, street tough, Shin was anything but subtle. Known for his over the top personality and jarring mood swings, many a thug learned to fear the wiry devil that was Shin, and just as many came to adore him as a brilliant gang leader who would often be prone to sweeping bouts of generosity and loyalty.

Being the big fish in your little pond only lasts so long, and eventually his little gang of toughs caught the eye of a rival Yakuza Lieutenant named Tetsuo. A rival with a much bigger and better armed gang of cronies behind him. After several weeks of violent and bloody clashes on the streets, culminating in a confrontation with Tetsuo, who plucked Shin's left eye from his head as a show of force, Makoto's Yakuza days were at an end... or so he thought.

Bleeding and battered in the gutter, he was approached by the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Mizuki-sama promised him power. Mizuki-sama promised him revenge. Mizuki-sama gave him immortality.

It took a short time to use his new powers to recruit a new flock with which to take down Tetsuo's gang, culminating with Tetsuo himself being beheaded in the middle of the street, before a crowd of onlookers. The gang war was over, but there were always bigger fish and bigger ponds, and Shin had just scratched the surface. It was only a matter of time before he grew bored with his little kingdom and lost interest in the trials and tribulations of his assorted followers. Slowly they began to disperse as their leader became aimless and bored, the higher-ups in the Yakuza families distancing themselves from Shin due to his volatile nature and short fuse.

But then came the Maeda zaibatsu, and an offer for something new...


• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
My eye... gone! My gang... gone! My reputation... GONE! And then that pussy poo poo Shun came and tried to get me to go the coward's route, like he did... to give it all up. Let it go?! An honorable warrior doesn't just let a disgrace go! No, Tetsuo would pay, with blood, and guts, and maybe bits of brain, too, hehe! I would rise again.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
Shoji Akage, The Night Demon. No on crosses him, everyone respects him. Well, not everyone respects him, but those that don't end up getting unfortunately separated from their faces. Truly an artist.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
The blood, sometimes it's too sweet, so tempting that you can't pull away... but the power, oh, that rush of sheer POWER. Everyone wrapped around my little pinky finger, little puppets for me to send against my enemies... and when I want to do the job myself, oh... well, that's when the real fun starts, isn't it? Shiga Sato... businessman with his suits, worrying about money. MONEY! Of all things! Who gives a poo poo about a bunch of paper, that's not where the REAL fun is at. Paper is so outdated, blood is the future!

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
Shun. Shun was like my brother growing up... until he pussied out. Yeah, he was bigger than me and protected me when we were kids, but then he became a big softy when the Yakuza families needed the most from us... when the REAL poo poo started. He may have protected me when we were kids, but I'm the only reason the Families didn't string him up like a fish and leave his guts flapping in the wind. I even helped bankroll his little noodle shop, and I mean, sure, it was a great hangout back when I gave a poo poo about noodles, and we had a lot of fun nights, but still... no stomach for the real world, always hiding behind his 'Justice' and 'Morality', what a turd. He's lucky I didn't gut him right then and there when Mizuki-sama first gave me this gift... but he's his own sort of family. GODDAMN! It's weird, watching him grow old, have a family, do the 'normal' thing, like some fat sheep!
... then again, sometimes it's nice to remember where you came from, you know?

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
One of the benefits of having a rep is that you can stake out your own little spot and beat the poo poo out of anyone that messes with it. Mama Sakura always had problems with the local thugs roughing up her mahjong parlor... nowadays I just have to take a stroll through it and they know not to gently caress with me, though honestly I sometimes miss shoving tiles up little dipshits' noses, just to see how many would fit... can you believe I once got 5 of them up there? HOO BOY, that was a night! I mean, his skull cracked open with the 6th one, but still... 5 tiles! All up in his nose! Pretty sweet.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
They came to me. Some mook in a suit, said they needed someone with my style... Kaz or Kazy or something was his name, I forget. I told him I'd come along if he could beat me in a fight, and wouldn't you know, the little twerp did it! I was so surprised, I couldn't even be angry! But I hosed him up good, even he had a sense of humor about it. The look on his bosses' faces when we strolled in, all banged up and bleeding, was worth it... gently caress those guys, I'll show them what I'm really made of one day... for now, let's see where this goes, maybe I can spin this into something useful down the line. Either way, beats sitting around with my thumb up my rear end for another 5 years, right?




I ate a Humanity for 2 extra starter experience. Starter Discipline dots were 2 in Majesty, 1 in Nightmare, then I bought the Celerity and Vigor with exp, and the rest all went into Merits. He's spread thin, I know, but I prefer that to powerbuilding because it provides more flavor. Also I had no idea what to do about gear. Let me know if there are any problems, I'm flexible.

Fuzz fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Apr 11, 2014

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

I have a really silly idea in mind. Coming back as soon as i grab my corebook and get my hands on this Blood and Smoke thing...

Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

Plutonis posted:

I have a really silly idea in mind. Coming back as soon as i grab my corebook and get my hands on this Blood and Smoke thing...

Blood and Smoke comes with all the updated rules, so you just need that book. :)

Yamtaggler posted:

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in this, but I know nothing of the Mystical Land of Nippon or the World of Darkness. Sourcebook is good reading, though, so maybe I'll whip something up. Would you be opposed to my character being foreign?

That's fine. If your sire is from Tokyo, they probably had a very good reason to Embrace you.

Mitama fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Apr 12, 2014

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
Adding myself to the list of people who have never played nWoD, but am super interested. You'll have to bear with me as I get my head around the rules, but I have an idea for a kung fu trainee who got embraced by her sensei to carry on his line of eternal undead kung fu masters!

ZiegeDame
Aug 21, 2005

YUKIMURAAAA!
This right here is the post of someone who is going to submit a Host club madame to this here thread.

Clipperton
Dec 20, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Kanaoka Kei



At the more extreme end of Japan's countless youth subcultures, that sprout, bloom and die before the mainstream can ever notice them, are the hardcore body-modification cults.

Kanaoka Kei pierced her own ears when she was eight, got her first tattoo at twelve. At twenty, she had a split tongue and subdermal implants on her forehead. She worked as a tattooist, and her strange and unsettling designs were a big hit with the body-mod types.

She loved being able to change herself, to be in constant flux. She really loved frightening and intimidating all the squares on the subway--it gave her a taste of power that women don't often get in Japan.

Then, at some party or other, she saw the photos. A stack of grimy Polaroids of unknown provenance, they showed a full-body tattoo of the best quality Kei had ever seen. The imagery was even more grotesque and terrifying than her own, more unsettling than the most extreme ero-guro. She fell in love with the artistry; she just had to know who had created this.

And, to her everlasting regret, she succeeded in tracking him down.

He was Horiyokai, the "tattoo goblin". In life he had been a horishi, a traditional tattoo master. After death, he freelanced for the zaibatsu, who wanted elaborate tattoos for their ghouls.

Kei thought Horiyokai would kill her for discovering his secret, but instead the horrifying creature offered her an apprenticeship. To be a horishi, to create real traditional irezumi tattoos, was higher than she could ever have risen as a mortal woman. Even after he'd explained the terms, she didn't balk. So he Embraced her.

Now, when she's not learning her art, Kei acts as Horiyokai's agent. She brings him food, she deals with the zaibatsu on his behalf, and if any client of Horiyokai shows off his tattoos and threatens a Masquerade breach, Kei is the one who pays him a visit. She even freelances from time to time with a coterie; in life Kei liked to scare people off, but now that's all she does, and she finds herself in need of company.


• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

When I saw those photos, when I saw what it was possible to achieve with needle and ink, finding the artist became an obsession. My best friend Emi and I had pooled our money to open our own tattoo parlour--I flaked out on appointment after appointment so I could follow some lead, until it drove us out of business. It ruined her. I hardly even noticed. Pursuing my obsession had already taken me to darker places than I had known existed.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

My contact in the Maeda Group, the one who arranges for sensei Horiyokai to tattoo their ghouls. You know the one I'm talking about, with the suit, and the hair. He smiles at me, he shows me a little kindness. I've seen the horrors that our kind can become--I work for one--but this one makes me think we can keep enough of our humanity to be kind. It gives me hope.

If it turns out he's just trying to gently caress me, or gently caress me over, I don't know what I'll do.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

Stasis is what scares me. What I loved about life was its constant change--the changes I made to my body, and the changes in the world around me, the constant rise and fall of trends and fashions. I could walk through Yoyogi Park and tell you exactly which sub- and sub-sub-culture everyone belonged to. Now it's all slipping away from me. I can't change my body any more, and my grip on the world is slipping too. Will I end up like those old fossils in the Maeda Group boardrooms? Never changing, every night the same as the last?

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

Emi knows. I was going to be a horishi, for God's sake, how could I not tell her? It started with emails and texts, but then she insisted on seeing me. I was weak, I needed human contact, and I said yes. When she saw me she screamed and screamed, and I just wanted to reassure her, and it all just...came out. She got over it, kind of, and we still talk. If Sensei ever found out...

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

Sensei owns a little tattoo shop, and I sleep there. Or under there, to be precise. Sensei taught me to sink into the concrete to protect myself--it's the first step to getting the claws I'll tattoo with. I like it. I feel almost like I'm part of Tokyo, like I'm closer to the people here.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

I'd made contact with the zaibatsu a few times, organising clients for Sensei, but I didn't really know anyone. Then one night one of Sensei's clients, a ghoul belonging to a Maeda executive, started showing off his tattoos in a bar downtown, and talking about how he got them. I don't know what he thought he was doing. I think Sensei might have broken his brain a little bit. Horiyokai's tattoo sessions can be...extreme. Anyway, by pure luck I was in the same bar, scouting for Sensei's lunch. I shut the ghoul up quick and hauled his rear end back to Maeda. I don't know what happened to him after that.

I guess Maeda were impressed, because they called the shop two nights later wanting to know if I could do a job. Sensei doesn't care, as long as I'm not busy when he needs me.

Clipperton fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Apr 20, 2014

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Interested! I've got a big stack of V:tM books, but never gotten to play nWoD.

Speaking of that stack, is this the new corebook only, then, I presume? I don't know how much of the old stuff is compatible or desirable. :raise:

Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

Yeah.... I'm not familiar with oWoD, unfortunately. But if there's anything from VtM you want to throw in, let me know and we can work it out.

I'm glad there's a lot of interest! Gonna be thinking up of some extra questions for the apps I have later (much later, it's game night).

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I meant nWoD / Requiem, whups. I gave up caffeine yesterday; loopiness has been a running theme since. Don't got time for that old, busted WoD.
Of course it's funny to talk about a decade-old game as "new", but relativity...

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011



Komori Ikki

The youngest child of a Maeda middle manager, Ikki was constantly ignored by his parents in lieu of his three elder siblings. This led the young boy into isolation, and after finishing his high school studies, he became a shut-in NEET, a lonely hermit who leeched on his barely tolerant parents. The boy found solace on the world of the Internet, and became a widely renowned internet personality on message boards, where his eCred and hacking prowess were among the greatest VIPPERS on 2ch. Hoping to gain more fame and as a way to strike against his neglectful parents, Ikki broke on one of the Zaibatsu's database and vandalized it.

It was very surprising to him, however, when a Yakuza car stopped in front of his house and dragged him off in front of his surprised parents. While being driven away by the silent men in suits, Ikki thought that they would kill him for his previous caper, but they instead brought him to one of the top Zaibatsu executives, Tetsu Sawada, who impressed with the boldness and the skills of the young man, decided to Embrace him and make him one of the cyberwar security specialists of the company.

Sawada also gave him an apartment on Shibuya to serve as his main headquarters, and to the relief of Ikki's parents, the newly-sired Vampire quickly moved there and continues his hermit life, leaving only for one assignment or another.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

Oh, so a bunch of suited gorillas come home and drag me to a Limo and no one in my family lifts a goddamn finger to stop them. Really cool dad, bros, mom. Seriously, I thought they were going to beat me to death or oh god, even dismember me or something. I was really close to crapping myself before they brought me to Sawada-sama, especially since I saw some gore videos of Yakuza executions on liveleak before. (´口`)

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Ehhhhh, I'd guess Sawada-sama? He's the highest-up guy I've known, I guess. I mean, there's the CEO and higher guys than him, but if I can use only the ones I know...

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

Scare of what? It's not like I've ever wanted to die, and it's not like I've liked to go out on the sun either. There's this... This blood thing, though. I've got some packs, and there's always stray cats or rats. I try not to drink from people but... Well, it's something I actually want to try one of these days.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

Well, turns out my second-eldest Brother, Satou, was kinda suspicious at me getting a 'sudden job' and moved out of the family home. Security footage on my apartment's lobby showed that he actually entered the building one day, although he never even had the courtesy to visit me. (`д´)

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

An online rep can get you a lot of poo poo, you know! Other than the salary I get to root out enemy hackers, I get some money out of mining some cryptocurrency and playing MMOs just to sell characters to people. Also I got a bunch of contacts that can tell me if things are getting dangerous early. (・∀・)

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

Pops was from it. And turns out that vandalizing one of their subsidiaries with gross pics got them quickly in my rear end. I'm really lucky that they just let me live... Or rather, live like this. Although I say it's a big friggin' improvement on how things were before.

Plutonis fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Apr 12, 2014

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010

Plutonis posted:



Komori Ikki

goddamnit

you're the worst

i love it

Do you folks think I'll be fine just using the Blood and Smoke book, or should I seek out the God-Machine Chronicle too? It keeps getting referenced. Also, does this book just replace the core Requiem sourcebook as far as Merits and Disciplines and whatnot goes?

Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I meant nWoD / Requiem, whups. I gave up caffeine yesterday; loopiness has been a running theme since. Don't got time for that old, busted WoD.
Of course it's funny to talk about a decade-old game as "new", but relativity...

Oh!

Yeah, B&S kind of stands on its own and if we're talking mechanical bits, I think the Requiem stuff would need some conversion to match with the GMC update. Again, if you got anything there you want to port, we can work it out.

TehWarsmith posted:

Do you folks think I'll be fine just using the Blood and Smoke book, or should I seek out the God-Machine Chronicle too? It keeps getting referenced. Also, does this book just replace the core Requiem sourcebook as far as Merits and Disciplines and whatnot goes?

You can check out the God-Machine Rules update, it is a free download.

And yeah, a lot of Merits and Disciplines have been changed from Requiem.

ZiegeDame
Aug 21, 2005

YUKIMURAAAA!

Midorikawa Reiko
(All names in Japanese order just because.)

Midorikawa Reiko was born in a small city on the eastern coast of Honshu in the 1930s. Her life was unremarkable until her home was destroyed, and her whole family killed, by an American air strike in 1945. Being one young girl in a sea of war orphans, she did whatever she has to in order to survive. This quickly meant selling the only thing she had: her body. That was how she first came to Tokyo.

With nothing to get by on but her looks, she became an expert and doing just that. And she had plenty of looks to get by on. She briefly tried to build a career as an actress, but was routinely rejected because of her unsavory past. She resolved to make the best of her situation. Over time she became a friend to all the working girls around her. She would give guidance to new girls on the street, or lend support when one of them was in trouble. It wasn't what she'd imagined her life to be as a little girl, but it was the only family she was likely to have.

Cut to 1967, when her looks were just starting to fade. She was struggling to come to grips with losing the only way she had ever been able to get by, but Hoshitomo Hanzou, a regular customer of hers, had other plans. The man has always unnerved her, but he paid well and often and never caused any trouble. That is, until one night he said he would give her a gift that would make her beauty eternal. He failed to mention the aversion to sunlight or the unending hunger for human blood.

At first she stayed with Hanzou out in order to survive, but she had never seen him as anything but a customer, and now she thought of him as even less. His obsession with her was frightening, though. As soon as she was able, and with a little help from some contacts she'd made in her new underworld and well as the old, she bought a bar and struck out on her own. It wasn't much, but it had a basement where she could wait out her days. Soon she was able to hire some of the girls she knew, and it all grew from there.

Now she owns two very successful businesses: HERA and RA, a hostess and host club respectively. The two buildings face different streets, but are back-to-back and connected underground. That shared basement houses a third club that caters to a very exclusive clientele: the undead.

A few years ago she saw a young man in a high school uniform who bore a striking resemblance to her late older brother. After a little digging she learned he was 18-year old Haruna Saito. At first she just watched him on those winter days when he would walk home as the sun was dipping under the horizon. Eventually she abandoned caution and good sense and approached him. He turned out to be a remarkably charming young man, and had no problem with dating a woman nearly two decades his senior. He is in his final year of University now, and being with him makes her feel more alive than she can ever recall feeling. But she fears she cannot keep this going forever. At some point she has to let go, let him start a real family, before he notices that their age-gap is narrowing with every passing year. But she can keep going just a while longer, can't she?

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
The week before my embrace, perhaps not the lowest I've ever been, but it felt like the biggest fall since my family was murdered. Just a few gray hairs and several clients say they can no longer see me, as if everything inside me shriveled up as soon as I turned 37. That was why I was so willing to accept Hanzou's offer, but I did not take well to the embrace once it was done. Two evenings after I was supposed to help a younger girl, Fumiko, confront a troublesome client. I was too busy drowning in self-pity at my monotonousness to show. She confronted him on her own anyway. Her leg never healed right, and she never forgave me. Of course, she has grandchildren now, and I'm exactly where I was.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
Ishimura Aki, one of the 12 of the Takahashi Family in the financial sector. She was the one who gave me that first loan that allowed me to get out from under Hoshitomo's thumb. She understand that the point of prosperity is to improve everyone's situation, and that those with power have an obligation to look out for those beneath them.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
There is an undeniable power that comes from this curse, a promise of eternal beauty and the strength to never be a victim again. But there is always the temptation to be the victimizer instead. My greatest fear is ending up like my Sire, living only for my own pleasure with no regard for how I twist or destroy the lives of others.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
There are quite a few beautiful young men and women in my employ. Most of them don't even know about the basement that connects the two clubs, but there are a handful who know exactly what goes on down there and willingly participate in it. Maybe it's because of their loyalty to me, maybe they just love to feel the kiss, but they help me avoid preying on the unwilling and to generate good will with other kindred. They are all very precious to me.
If any of them is more precious than the others, it is Ayasegawa Chiho. A bright young girl, and the one I trust to manage the clubs when I have business elsewhere.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
I have an arrangement with the local yakuza. Members of their organization in good standing, and their wives, receive a special rate at my clubs, and in exchange they ensure the safety of my business and my employees. They don't know about my true nature, of course, but anyone trying to enter my establishments during off-hours would be considered insulting the yakuza directly, and would be dealt with accordingly.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
It's simple, really. I run a successful business and they are in need of new sources of income. Takeda Izumi from their New Special Projects Division approached me with that simple idea. I told her I wasn't interested in being bought out, but if I am able to expand I have no problem with doing so under the the Maeda name, so long as I am still in control of my own enterprises.

ZiegeDame fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Apr 22, 2014

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008

Daimon Sasaka

Daimon has had a turbulent life. An adopted son of a underground boxer living in Tokyo, he’s had a mean temper ever since he was a baby. What started with temper tantrums as a child, grew into beatings of other children as he aged. His father was often called to apologize to the family of the children Daimon beat up, but behind closed doors he would punish his son the only way a boxer could. This all changed when he enrolled in higher education, studying Pop Culture. Learning about the ins and outs of pop culture seemed to have a calming effect on him, not having started a single fight since his enrollment. But in truth he had taught himself some restraint, his aggression kept in check and fed by drunken bar brawls with random strangers as well as studying. It’s during this time that Daimon began indulging in fashion, the social scene and how the world really worked. He saw businesses as the hands that rocked the world’s cradle and decided that this was his future.

Upon graduating, he went through a couple small business jobs before getting sick of the monotony of such life and opened his own nightclub. The foreigners have a saying, “All roads lead to Rome”. Using that as his motto, he’s now trying to build his own empire and have a hand in the way the world works. One meeting and violent assault at a time.

After being turned and having the night opened to him, Daimon began looking into the world of the zaibatsus. In there, he saw a possibility for unification. Merge all the assets into one zaibatsu… with him as the head.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
It has been a few years since I started my business. The club was running, not perfectly but it was. A place like mine didn't really draw in a lot of money, so I was always looking to make ends meet. But then came a letter from the bank, along with a bill from my suppliers. The amount of money they wanted from me, it was too much. I couldn't pay that. It was a slow month, I had a little poo poo selling alcohol and pocketing the money. I was ruined, this was it. I would have to go back and face Father... In the moment when I was losing my mind, my secretary came in to report a high class customer had entered. He was dressed in the latest upper class fashion, the kind that isn't seen in clubs like mine. Real high class stuff. In my desperation, I decided I was either going to milk him dry with booze, talk him into a cooperative venture or kill him and take everything he ever had. And I did want to kill him, just to calm myself down. What happened then... lets just say he introduced me into a new world. And he owns half the club now.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
My sire, definitely. Big businessman, rich, finger in every pie. I thought of myself as someone who could play people as well as hurt them, he showed me how wrong I was in both aspects.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
I've always had a... temper. Father called me a wild beast in the guise of man. Ever since the siring, that has never been more apt. I've heard of some vampires who completely lost themselves to the Beast. I've seen them when I was running jobs. They freak me out. Definitely. The danger of becoming like that, freaky.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
My secretary. The first few times I needed to feed, I invited some of the more troublesome customers to my office. "Give them a talk about how we do things" was the excuse to just ravage them. Then one of the little bastards started yelling and before I could shut up him, my secretary bursts in, her eyes wide. Who can blame her? Guy slumped over in his seat in front of my desk, me standing over him with a blood soaked suit and blood running down my mouth. Frozen in shock as she was, I cleaned up my mouth and invited her in. Explained the situation to her, the dangers of what would happen if she talked. I was shaking, my composure shot from her seeing me so I think she got the message. That was painful to me. She's an old friend, good person, not someone I'd ever hurt, even now. But she had to know. I also doubled her pay.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
I got roller blinds in every room of the house, though I only sleep in my room with the door firmly locked. Father, drat the old bastard, takes care of me while I'm out. He's living with me because its more convenient for him. He knows the hours I pull, so he doesn't ask why I'm sleeping the entire day. If someone would be stupid enough to attack me, I'm sure the old fart could break them in half. He's a former underground boxer.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
A business meeting at the Womb VIP room in midnight. Arranged by my sire, he was showing me off to the group big wigs (I think they were big wigs anyway). Said that I might be of some interest to them. Can't say I really impressed them at first, saying how I wasn't tranquil enough yet or something, until one of their aides accidentally spilled wine over my green shirt and I beat him to death with the wine bottle. That got a few eyebrows raised and I got considered for some low level work. Not the kind of splash I was looking to make, but it got me the job.

Archer666 fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Apr 20, 2014

Twibbit
Mar 7, 2013

Is your refrigerator running?
Definitely going to try to get in this game, just need to figure out what kind of PC to make

Fuzz
Jun 2, 2003

Avatar brought to you by the TG Sanity fund

Twibbit posted:

Definitely going to try to get in this game, just need to figure out what kind of PC to make

Judging by the other apps, not a Daeva.

mistaya
Oct 18, 2006

Cat of Wealth and Taste


Sheet Here

Jou Tanaka, 2nd generation Japanese American. Married, father of one. He was sent home on a business trip to help integrate new security technology in the family firm. The competition wanted what he knew, so they turned him, doubled his paycheck, and set him up in a sparse but secure basement hotel room. Jou was trapped in Japan, completely dependent on the company that stole his life.

Three years later, his ex-wife put his teenage daughter on a plane and didn't tell him she was coming till she was already in the air. Jou would rather die- or kill- than let anything happen to his last link to mortality. He's stepped up his timetables on his escape.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

I divorced my wife over the phone. I didn't have a choice. I couldn't leave Japan, and I couldn't put her in danger by asking her to come here. Lying to her, telling her I didn't want her anymore, was the hardest thing I've ever done. I lost it for a while after that. I tried to be a monster, but I wasn't any good at it. I missed her. I hunted women who looked like her. It didn't help.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Sakurai Hanako, she's... I guess you'd call her my sister? We were sired by the same vampire. But unlike me, she took to the curse like a koi to a pond. She runs the entire floor now, and I'm still just a guy in a cubicle. She takes me out 'drinking', sometimes. She's almost as new as I am but she's managed to strike a balance that I haven't yet.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

Living forever scares me. Everyone I know will die, unless they're like me, already dead. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in a hundred years. But that excites me too. What will the world look like in a hundred, two hundred, five hundred years? I want to see it. I want to see what kind of technology comes to pass. My sire was Embraced before the Industrial Revolution. If I could live through something like that... It would be amazing. But I need to be careful. I need to hold onto the little things, the things that made me a person, for as long as I can. I don't want to end up like Orochi Ko, dead inside, unable to see anything but his next kill, his next feed. He's the company hit-man, and he doesn't even talk anymore. I don't think he remembers how. That isn't living. That isn't what I want for my forever.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

My daughter Kari. She's 16 years old, and she's too smart for her own good. It took her an hour to figure out something was wrong with me after I picked her up at the airport, and maybe three days to figure out what it was. I didn't think I was that obvious. It wasn't like I was feeding in the hotel room! But I wasn't eating, or going to the bathroom, and I wouldn't go to the beach with her even though that was our favorite thing to do when she was little. After living with my corpse for three days, looking at the blank walls and the empty mirror frames in the bathroom, she guessed.

I couldn't deny it. She asked if it was the reason I left her and her mother. I couldn't deny that either. She asked if I was dangerous. I told her that I was, but never to her. That seemed to be enough. I don't know if she really understands, but she hasn't told my ex-wife, and she doesn't seem bothered by it. What am I supposed to do with her?

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

My days are spent in a basement hotel room. There's security, but it's just an average hotel, nothing special. I always worked nights, so no one even questions why I would want a room with no windows. It still feels like a prison to me. There's no bars, and I can come and go whenever I want. But I have no where to go, and without the company, no one will reissue my visa. Without that, I'd have to go underground. Literally. There has to be a way out...

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

Meetings, meetings, endless meetings. The company has always had dealings with the zaibatsus, but they don't want us to get too close. They don't want to risk us getting poached. Well, I'd do just about anything to get away from here, especially now. If the company finds out about Kari, if they get ahold of her somehow... They'll have me forever. I can't let that happen. I can't let them do anything to her. Sakurai, my sister, got me in touch with a few of the recruiters at Maeda. She's sad that I want to leave, but I think she understands. My situation isn't the same as hers.

mistaya fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Apr 13, 2014

Twibbit
Mar 7, 2013

Is your refrigerator running?


Kouhei Hirata

8 years ago Kouhei was your typical authority hating punk teen. He thought himself better than his peers and thought himself better. Then he met Ryuu Hashimoto, an enforcer for the Maeda group, though Kouhei did not know this at the time. He saw this 'old man' just leaning against the alley. Kouhei decided to try and start some poo poo. Mainly trying to criticize his entire existence while preaching how his generation is the future. Ryuu laughed for a good bit and then looked Kouhei straight in the face and asked, "Do you really think you could survive two nights in my world?" Kouhei stupidly answered yes without realizing just what he said yes to. "Well lets prove it then"

It took me awhile but I have certainly survived more than two nights, and I am better than ever. I will be better than all you other leaches before my final night is through, just you wait and watch.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

I was only embraced for about a week that night. I was not doing so well on getting the hunting thing down as Ryuu was the fly or die type teacher. I was hungry, starving, and failing to solve it. Then I bumped into one of my old classmates. Kotone asked me the more obvious questions on where have I been these last few days, if I was feeling well. Yeah that concern was the perfect opening to make my move.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Ryuu Hashimoto, My sire may be impulsive, but so am I. Unlike all the other bloodsuckers in our corner of the city, he has remained honest, well as honest as you can get when you have to tell the sheep you’re not a wolf anyways. He will call you out when you are acting like a moron instead of simply trying to take advantage of your eventual failure. If he does plan on taking advantage of your follies, he actually tells you ahead of time. Surprisingly straight forward.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

I dreamt of being the biggest and the baddest in the city, but it was always a more human understanding of the concept. There are vampires that think and act in ways that don’t even make sense. They do horrifying things for reasons I can’t comprehend. Take this old Nosferatu , Miho. Everything about her just seems wrong. Had a person’s hands broken because they delivered mail to one of her houses. What the hell.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

Haru, He was one of my best friends before all this. We would always goof off after school together. He is one of the few people I am willing to trust anymore. He caught me feeding off a stray dog one night so I just opened it all up to him. Spilled every detail I could. While he has outgrown the Bancho lifestyle and has entered the great dull world of normal work; he still is good to talk to. He keeps tabs on the other people I used to know and updated me on everything. You know the thing most people use Facebook for. It is a bit harrowing though watching him grow older while I am still in many ways the same teen.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

A nearby apartment complex has a surprisingly nice ground level lawn and garden. I use my ability to meld with the soil there to sleep most nights if I can help it. Else I sleep in whatever soil is convenient. One of the advantages is that during the day the groundskeeper was always rather territorial about people messing with his perfect lawn. Inadvertently keeping people away from my sleep.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

Ryuu apparently told them about me and inflated my resume so to speak. I think it is still part of his hosed up lesson he has for me. Though he did get it right that if you need someone who knows the layout of the streets, I am pretty good for that. And if the streets are too crowded, I can glide from roof to roof as well. I am basically the perfect messenger boy. ...yaaaay

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

E: Never mind, I'm not really feeling it.

Waffleman_ fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Apr 13, 2014

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

Fuzz posted:

Judging by the other apps, not a Daeva.

Yeah, if you get too many Daevas in a place, it's just gonna be a drama party. Speaking of, I wonder if I should change my clan to Ventrue. Still would have the same stat spread, but I'd have to swap out my disciplines. Dominate's cool, though.

Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
Okay, enough procrastinating. Time to start actually making a chara...or a background at least. WIP.



Kiyutera Kouki (Japanese order) (theme 1 / theme 2)

By virtue of being born in September 1945, Kiyutera Kouki was part of a new generation; one that by law would have no more connections with ideas of imperial reach or sub- and super-humanity. Unlike a lot of that new generation, Kouki took to the idea like a ring in a bell--he picked up conversational English at a young age and saw the omnipresent American occupation forces as less symbols of oppression and more walking candy and cigarette dispensers. And even after occupation turned into alliance to counterbalance the specter of the Soviet Union, he continued on with his moony love affair with western culture, choosing vests over kimonos, electric guitars over acoustic shamisens, men over women, and (after spending a college year in France in 1967-68 and souring on Americans) internationalist ideas over nationalist ones.

Which put him into rather stark conflict with most of the rest of his family, who'd all lived (and in at least one instance, died) through the Second World War, and had spent their formative years learning that...well, you know. After one Kiyutera clan gathering got more heated than usual, Kouki found himself thrown out of the family and otherwise disowned. So he carried out his small possessions, bought a train ticket, and rode to Tokyo. He arrived well after midnight on a more-or-less empty train, to a more-or-less empty station, and walked out of the station right into a more-or-less jam-packed nationalist protest. After stupidly saying that, no, he wasn't a nationalist, and he found their ideas stupid and repugnant, they responded as well as could be expected beat him down. Fatally. When the mob finally dispersed, he dragged himself back down to the station to curl up in a corner, bleed out messily, and wonder a bit at the idea that this would be his 25th birthday present. Then another train pulled in and out stepped another man. One who would lend a kind ear and a bit of time, and give him a very different 25th birthday present.

Since then, sipping blood from the odd dog or willing host from shadowy alleys or love hotels, Kouki has seen the Japanese economy fall and rise and fall again, watched the nationalist movement shrivel up as leftists and centrists took power, looked across the water at the fall of the Warsaw Pact, waved at the docks as JSDF soldiers actively deployed (on peacekeeping duties, but nonetheless), and watch the world in general violently lurch, with no idea where it will stand next. Also since then, he's "marveled" at how the new society he's a part of has been so tightly controlled by millennia old rules and century old patriarchs, even worse than the old Japanese culture. All these byzantine laws, all these power plays based on rings of conspiracy and subterfuge, for money and power...maybe that's why, for all their vaunted abilities and age, for all their claims of controlling humans and being super-human, they're scared of their own shadows.

If there's anything Kouki has learned from watching the world, it's that nothing ever has to be this way. Japan changed for the better by opening itself up and throwing down its walls. Twice. Why not the Kindred?

Especially now that he finds that he has to take care of a grand-niece...

Aspiration for later: reform vampire society--maybe (while we're in la la land) pave the way to a world where the Masquerade is unneeded

Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?
My lowest point would have to be my final day as a mortal. I was never on the best of terms with my family, but being disowned...still hurt a bit, somewhere. And then I walk out of a subway station and see people practically wearing rising sun hachimaki?! We were atomic bombed and still idiots like Mishima and Eto could still inspire this sort of bullshit. And kill anybody who disagreed. And I'd bet if he didn't live a five hour train ride away, my dear old father, Kiyutera Kazama, would have marched right alongside them. I had a chance to "visit" one night, just before sunrise. He still sleeps in the same bed, eats the same breakfast out of the same bowl his grandfather probably ate out of. It's like nothing's changed for the past 45 years for him. It's just...pathetic. Maybe sad is a better word.

Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.
Do you know the name Yuri Alexandrovich Kakarov? Or maybe Yori Kamada? Two names for the same person. He's my Sire, and if this world were better, you would. He's a kind man and he doesn't play the backstabbing game or hold grudges, in life or in undeath--heck, he served in the Russo-Japanese War on the Russian side, and he still chose Japan to emigrate to after the Bolsheviks took power. I know some Kindred who talk about him in condescending tones, like it's not natural for people to want to be treated kindly, and treat others kindly in turn. He's made a thing of Embracing unfortunate souls whom human society has left for dead--I'm just one of several, the middle of the pack--and he's a philanthropist in the human world too. If more of the zaibatsu types were like him we'd all be better off.

What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.
They say that power--actual, honest to god "do what I say" power--comes out of the barrel of a gun. And now I have the power of all the guns in the world. So much power...when I was still mortal, I met so many who would have killed for this, to remake the world, a better world, where gendarmes and soldiers couldn't shoot them down. But I can't use it for other people; the Beast only wants to secure itself and save its own skin. Like that bastard Takahashi Takeda, who holds his position in that House like a cockroach. He's not even very high up, practically the equivalent of a manager of salarymen, but he's so scared of losing what little power he has he's squirmed and sold out and...ugh! He's a self-serving jerk, let's just leave it at that.

Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?
I...had a brother growing up. And he had a granddaughter. Kiyutera Keiko. I guess my family might have had a thing for "K" names. If my family knew I was alive, she'd call me her great-uncle...and it turns out that she has the same taste in hosts and clubs that I do. And to quote the old movie, of all the neon clubs in all the districts in all of Japan, she had to walk into the one where her grandfather's dead brother was happily chatting up my boyfriend, Suzamiyo Kaito, during his, ah, work hours. And she actually had my picture scanned on her phone to confirm it. Sharp eyed girl. Naturally, Kaito was confused by this woman coming out of nowhere and knowing my full name and wondering what the hell. I had to buy a private hotel room and spend the rest of the night saying "it's not what you think!" to the both of them. She didn't buy it, I didn't sell it, he just got more confused. I never thought I'd have a connection back to my family again, much less find myself reconnecting to a grand-niece the same "age" as me because Kaito couldn't separate business from pleasure and double-booked!

Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
"Day to day"? Funny, very funny. It's no one person that keeps me safe, actually, but a historical...disagreement among peoples. The Chongryon is the local Korean support organization--specifically the North Koreans. But since the government doesn't recognize the Korea split, they're kinda taboo. Chongryons don't like to go among Japanese centers, and Japanese people don't like to poke around Chongryon areas. And since the organization has gone downhill, nobody's keeping that much of an eye on their property, so nobody will notice someone like me taking up residence in one of their long closed down schools. It's a better option than sleeping in the Kiyutera family grave...all those ashes, bleugh. Just because it's a disagreement among living people and not vampire politics doesn't mean I can't keep up with the times.

How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
I've had my disagreements with the Maedas in the past--they've seem awfully fast to enforce their own dated brand of culture and industry--but I guess I have to say they do respect force of will. One night I was haunting (ha!) my usual haunts looking for a good night and maybe a feed, when I came across this neonate curled on the pavement in an alley where the lights didn't land. He was surrounded by blood--smelled like his own--and was staring at me with these scared, confused eyes. It looked like whoever had Embraced him didn't even bother to explain to him what he'd become. So I did. I helped him up, brushed him off, explained that he was one of the Kindred now and that he needed to feed on actual, honest to god blood. Even found him a nice host to get him used to things. No, it wasn't anything sexual; he was freaking out enough as it was.

Well, after I walked him through it, the first thing he wanted to do was tell the whole world what he was. And as much as I sympathized, I figured that doing so now would only get him brushed off or involuntarily committed as insane...or worse, if the vampire authorities came to knock. So I told him, no, you can't do that. And he panicked and fled. His sire must've been a Gangrel, because he darted off really drat fast. I had to burn off half of my Vitae chasing him down across the rooftops, and the other half holding him down and "convincing" him that no, no, you can't just up and tell people you're a vampire, they'll never believe you! He stopped resisting after that, and I told him to find someone who'd take him in and give him a haven, and we parted ways...I don't want to say "amiably", but at least not actively hostile.

I was lucky--he'd kept up the chase so long that it was fifteen minutes to sunrise before I made it back to my own little slice of "heaven", the Beast demanding that I stop and suck someone dry to get back some precious drops of Vitae. I was about to tuck in and say good day when I found something in my usual sleeping spot: a blood pack and a folded rice paper. The note said something like "We just watched your show. Nice work stopping the neonate from breaching the Masquerade. We could use someone like you. Meet us at XXX on YYY. The Maeda Group. PS, enjoy our token of appreciation. PPS, if you don't show up, we'll get someone to drag your sorry rear end in."

Poor Alberto Carioca. He can't go home to Brazil now. I hope he's still alright.

Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Apr 17, 2014

Yamtaggler
Feb 6, 2011

My brother gave me half of a rock and told me to wait for you in the woods...
I made this character, I hope it's good. I'll probably change a lot of this once I wake up tomorrow, but for now this is Jacob Smith.




Jacob Smith

Jake's story starts a hell of a long way from Shibuya. Starts all the way out on a ranch somewhere no one goes in Texas. Learned a trade (cars) from his pa, worried his ma with his choice of friends. Typical stuff. Of course, If he'd stayed there, we wouldn't have a story. No, our boy Jake was some kind of Trouble, Drinkin', Fuckin', and Fightin' all across the Southern United States. Right up until he killed those poor fellas in the bar fight. Then his Rowdy nature was confined to Jefferson County State Penitentiary.

Prison was a new experience for Jake. He learned on the first day he was there that he wasn't the strongest man on the yard. He learned on the second day that the strongest man on the yard took a shiv the same way any of the other ones did. From then on, he trained, elevating his Barroom Brawling to an art. Of course, fighting's no good if you can't fight nobody, so he fought. Warden didn't take too kindly to this, but this was one of them new type of wardens. The kind who don't beat inmates, who try to find creative and positive outlets for their energies. You know,
pussies.

Well, it turns out that the Warden knew exactly the right outlet for Rowdy Jake's aggression: Dogs. The prison was trying a new program, where inmates trained stray and abandoned dogs for new masters, sometimes even as service animals. Jake had never been around dogs before, but something deep inside him clicked that day. After only a month, Jake was a model inmate. Another year, and he was out on good behavior, working as a mechanic in Dallas, training service dogs for a non-profit. Jake was content, but he wasn't happy. Until he met Sarah.

Sarah was a lovely young lady from Japan who lived in Jake's apartment complex, and she didn't have any idea how to get her dog to stop barking. A friend of a friend set her up with Jake for lessons, and the two were stupid for each other almost immediately. They fit together in a way that Jake didn't understand, but didn't complain about. Where Jake was Loud and Rowdy, Sarah was quiet and respectful. Yin and Yang, fit together like some kind of fairy tale. Then they made that decision that would change both of their lives, and most of Jake's Afterlife.

Sarah's parents lived in Tokyo, and were real traditional types. Jake knew he'd only get once chance to impress 'em, so he worked hard. Took a Japanese course at the community college, learned the right things to say, how to address them, the whole kit and caboodle. Sarah told him not to worry, told him he was scared over nothing. She spent the whole flight trying to reassure him. He was right to be nervous, but not for the reasons he was expecting.

In this Forest of Glass and Steel, our poor Jake stuck out like a sore thumb. His six-foot-four frame made him quite a spectacle, being led around by his tiny fiance. Eventually, they made their way to the home of Sarah's parents, and Jake found out he'd been worried over nothing. Sarah's parents hated her for abandoning her family, and honestly didn't give a rat's rear end who she married. They told her to go back to bumfuck nowhere and raise a bunch of horrible brats. All in the most infuriatingly polite way possible.

Sarah took it bad, but Jake took it worse. They went carousing to wash away their sadness, and Jake took a bit more washing than Sarah. By the time they stepped out of their last stop for the evening, she was having a hard time keeping the ground beneath her feet, and he was just pissed. That was when the local color showed up to harrass the tourists.

Somewhere during the slurred conversation between Sarah and the Toughs, a knife found it's way into her neck.
In the span of a heartbeat, Rowdy Jake came roaring back.

It was a hell of a fight, Jake would've done his prison mentors proud. Men were thrown through windows, skulls were broken on the pavement, blood ran hot through the streets. What seemed like hours, was actually closer to thirty minutes, and what Jake didn't realize was that much of that hot blood was his. In his blind fury, he could've taken ten of the bastards, hell, he took down twelve of 'em and was still swingin'. Unfortunately for him, the thirteenth fella had a gun.

That's where his Sire came in. Mariko Kimura watched the whole fight go down, and was impressed. And for Mariko, that meant something. She went to the broken and bleeding giant, and offered him a chance to live again. He saw her pupils contract into vertical slits in the flickering neon, andtold her to give her gift to Sarah, she deserved it more. Mariko laughed and said that no one deserved her gift, then asked him again.

For the life of him, Jake still doesn't know why he said yes.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

Don't much care to think 'bout the year after Mary bit me. I woke up in the woods, later I found out I was they were called Chichibu. She was nice enough to leave me a note, told me I was a vampire, I'd need blood, and to avoid the sun. Good advice, but I wish that she would've helped me out a bit more. I spent the whole year out there, learning the hard way. I got pretty drat good at catchin' deer and squirrels. Once a year had passed, Mary came back and told me I'd passed her little test, and she agreed that it was rear end in a top hat thing to do. Turns out her Sire had left her in these same woods a long time ago. I don't much care to think 'bout the year after Mary bit me.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Mary's the closest thing to a friend I've found among the dead, but that's not saying much. She answers a lot of my questions, and answers them honestly. Sometimes she just laughs, that's not quite as helpful. She always helps when I need it, but she doesn't always help when I want it. In return, I fix her car. She says she's been driving since cars were invented, but from the shape her car's in, I can tell you she certainly hasn't been driving well.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

Well, once Mary brought me in from the woods, she said she'd have to "Present me to her superiors", in a tone that told me all I need to know 'bout her feelings towards her "Superiors". Now, I speak pretty good Japanese these days, Mary says it's got somethin' to do with her blood pumpin' around in me, but back then I could ask for directions to the bathroom, and anyone speaking quick was bound to lose me. She was speaking with some fella who managed to be even greyer than the grey suit he was wearing, bigshot by the name of Kiyoshi Sugimoto. That fucker scared me shitless. I don't exactly know what Mary was saying, but I heard a lot of swearing. Then, for the first time since we walk in, he moves, and Mary stops mid-word. Not just talking, but moving. He looks at me, then asks me in perfect english "Do you want to make trouble for us, Jacob Smith?" I answer immediately, that I just want to live, I don't want no trouble. He looked at me like I was less a person, and more a pile of meat. "You may stay, but I don't think you'll be living anymore." Mary tells me that when you get older, like hundreds of years older, you start to lose interest in people except as a means to an end. I'd rather face my last sunrise than end up as cold as that corpse.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

That'd be little Junebug. After we left the Maeda building, Mary led me to the slums where I'd spend my days sleeping. She pointed at one particularly shabby apartment complex and said there was room set aside for me there, but the current tenants didn't know yet. I'd have to get rid of them, she said. When I asked how, she only laughed. I hate it when she does that. We came to some steps leading underground, to a little one-room shithole where a brother and his little sister were living. Thank god, Junebug wasn't there at the time. Mary saunters up to this fella, who is swearing too fast for me to catch, then she looks at me, smiles, and drags her fingernail across his cheek, and his blood rolls out. I forget what happens to Mary. I wish I could forget what happened to the brother. I learned, much later, that he was an rear end in a top hat, that he was trying to sell his 12-year old sister's body for drug money. I tell myself she's better off now, even with a monster like me. She's seen me slide into the dirt beneath the floorboards too many times to think I'm anything other than supernatural. Mary gives me some cash, not a lot, for fixing her car. I spend all of it on Junebug. I don't need food or books, but she needs a lot more than I can give her. I just hope that someday I can get her out of this shithole.

She's got Sarah's eyes...

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?
I learned a lot during my year in the woods. I learned how to sleep underground, away from the sunlight. I know this ratsnest is underground, but I tore up some of the floorboards. I just feel more comfortable in the dirt, I guess. Junebug used to watch me when I was asleep, but I put a stop to that right quick. She's too young to spend all day cooped up inside, staring at the floorboards. Now I give her what little spending money I have just before dawn and tell her to lock up behind her. She's always back by sunset, and I'm always glad to see her. It's too dangerous for a kid to be wandering around out there at night. I should know.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?
Mary works for the Maeda Group, and she said she was on the lookout for some "Big, Dumb Muscle." I reckon that describes me pretty well. So far she's only had me do heavy lifting, but she says she's heard of a gig that could end up paying off big time. Maybe I can convince the Maeda Group that I'm more than "Big, Dumb Muscle."

Yamtaggler fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Apr 16, 2014

Fuzz
Jun 2, 2003

Avatar brought to you by the TG Sanity fund
If we're posting themesongs, here's mine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkYgW3f3jI

:smugbert:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
"V-Yako", Fallen Songbird



Over a decade of grueling practice, shows, schedules, and and it only took a morning for it to be torn apart. Miyako had given up her childhood to be an idol. She had graduated directly from the idol group she had practically grown up with, ready to strike out as an independent artist... or, at least, under her own name. Independence is a relative thing when it comes to pop music.

Shimizu Junji had offered to meet her at a karaoke bar - "Who would suspect us there?", he said. It was a violation of her recording contract to have a relationship, after all, but she had hoped she could get away with more. After all, he was a pop sensation in his own right... which, unfortunately, made it doubly likely to leak. And it did. The photo of the kiss turned some of her fans to foes, and the online backlash was relentless in its cruelty. There were even threats on her and her family, but When Junji tried to call her, she just erased his messages. She just wanted to hide from it all, stewing... until the situation finally exploded.

She managed to post a video days later, a scathing rant that shocked fans and peers alike. In it, she lashed out at her fandom in a way that rarely had been seen in the Japanese pop music scene, calling her attackers a variety of choice insults, up to and including calling those who threatened their family shut-ins and cowards. In the end, she dared them to kill her, before the video quickly cut out. Though it was taken down pretty swiftly off of the more reputable streaming site, the internet had already preserved it for eternity. Before the video, her career had been in serious trouble - now, it was sunk. There was even talk in her family of having her committed to psychiatric care, but there would be no time for such talk to shift to action.

It was a few nights later that a killer did finally invade her family's home. Confronting Miyako in the dead of night, the killer asked if she really did, indeed, want to die. Or, the killer mentioned idly, she could have a new life. When Miyako asked what the killer meant, the killer laid it all out - vampirism, vampire society, the consquences of immortality - with the implicit warning that with that knowledge, she would have to die if she refused it. The killer needn't have worried. Miyako needed no threat to drive her to that decision. She was desperate for a second chance, to burn it all down and start anew.

Not that it was so easy, of course. The killer, Seon Seo-yeon, helped Miyako leave her home that night. Seon Seo-yeon was a fan, but had said the video was what drove her to choose Miyako. The idea of letting all of "Miya-hime's" embittered fans grow old and die while she lived on eternally was hilarious to Seo-yeon, to the point that Miyako actually found herself more worried than exultant. After all, Seo-yeon always carried a sort of vague threat about her, despite her friendly face.

Most didn't recognize her with her dyed hair and shadowy fashions, as she tore down her old self as best as she could and started anew. Granted, she knew enough about the music scene to fold a band together for their first show, pushing to open at one of Club Walpurgis's famous quarterly shows. Belle de Diablos - meant nothing, sounded cool - showed for the first time. By the end of the night, Seo-yeon sired her, and then immediately vanished thereafter. She preferred to listen from a distance, as she put it.

As a vampire, she simply threw down the gauntlet of blatancy. Nearly all think her to be an eccentric vampire poseur, that the fangs are prosthetic and the act elaborate. The gothloli trappings underpin the fakeness of it all, unlike fangs in a kimono or a suit. She pokes at the limits of the Masquerade, stopping short of blatant supernatural displays. But unlike other vampires, she need not lie about what she is, as long as nobody believes her. It's a dangerous game, but she spent her earlier years being a fake to be admire. Now she can be admired for what she is, and everybody else can be the fakes.

pre:
Name: Mizuno "V-Yako" Miyako	Clan: Daeva	Covenant: None (Maeda group)
Mask: Rebel			Dirge: Fandom Cult Leader

AspirationsGet Belle De Diablos a hit on the music charts.Expand her Feeding Ground and influence over Shibuya venues.
• (TBD)

Mental Attributes	Physical Attributes	Social Attributes

Int 2			Str 2			Pre 3
Wit 2			Dex 3			Man 3
Res 2			Sta 2			Com 3

Mental Skills		Physical Skills		Social Skills

Crafts 4 (Fashion)	Athletics 2		Expression 4 (Singing)
Occult 2		Brawl 2			Persuasion 2
Politics 1					Socialize 3
						Subterfuge 2 (Blatant Vampirism)

Touchstones		Disciplines		Merits

Kagome Sachie		Majesty 2		Contacts 2 (Musicians)
Belle de Diablos	Resilience 1		Enticing
						Fame 1
						Feeding Ground 1
						Hobbyist Clique (Expression)
						Professional Training 1 (Musician)
						Staff 1 (Persuasion)
						Striking Looks 2
						Touchstones 1

Willpower 5		Blood Potency 1		Size 5
Health 8		Speed 10		Blood ?

Notes: Professional Training covers Expression and Socialize, and provides two free 
Contacts. Hobbyist Clique covers Belle De Diablos, and Staff covers Kagome Sachie.
Feeding Ground covers a small block that includes the religious-themed Christon Cafe
and the grim little Club Wire.
• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up -leaving out in the cold?

Shimizu Junji didn't particularly care about the scandal, and still cared for her, but she blamed him anyway. If she had talked to him, maybe things wouldn't have boiled over, perhaps they could have sought a future together, but... ultimately, Miyako may have been the victim of that little play, she wasn't its hero, either.

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Seon Seo-yeon was her role model as a vampire, and her ability to act on her whims struck Miyako as vastly liberating. Even after her death, many Japanese vampires had dismissed her due to her Zainichi heritage, and Seo-yeon used that as a means to maintain her own independence. Few know that she's been allied with groups of Carthians outside the city, and serves as a lifelife to Carthians travelling to and from the city. She doesn't share Seo-yeon's love of taking a razor to somebody given sufficiently ironic pretense, but she does realize difference between a razor and a fang is simply a matter of intimacy.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

For a time, Miyako was at the top of the world, wealthy, famous, and loved, but becoming a vampire has thrown her down to the bottom. She's ambitious, inclined to climb up from the bottom, but the knowledge that she's near the bottom is one that vexes her severely. Still, the novelty of her new experience is still profound to her. However, she sees the webs of interdependence other Kindred form, pulling tight around them into stasis. Becoming somebody like Akiyama Iemasa, an elder of the Ume group who need not leave his quarters, who has servants serve his blood while he studies holy tomes and annotates them in his own blood... to be the spider caught in one's own web, to be eternally ineffectual... is perhaps her greatest concern.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

Miyako, in her new role as the lead singer of Belle de Diablos, is represented by Kagome Sachie. Though most people don't take Miyako seriously when she refers to herself as a vampire, Sachie has been able to spend enough time watching her habits to stop ignoring the facts. That being said, Sachie is a professional through and through and, surprisingly, doesn't think much of it as long as it doesn't affect their working relationship. Her fellow band members are used to her "eccentricity", though their songwriter and keyboardist has some suspicions and gut feelings he's never had the bravery to try and confirm.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

Her fellow band members - and a few club owners - are used to having her crash out during the day. She has an apartment, but it's mostly used for meetings, and only rarely for sleeping. She also has a habit of going home with strangers for a bite and crashing out there, for better or worse, using her wiles to ensure she can settle in until nighttime. It's a dangerous little game, but it does have the advantage of making her a moving target.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

Given her act, it was bound to attract vampiric attention. At first, it consisted of Yakuza showing up to her shows and providing "security" before moving in to try and have a "private chat" with her, one Sachie tried to interpose in. Miyako, sensing the beasts curling inside of some of the men, had to forcefully get Sachie to back down.

The Maeda brought her up on Masquerade violation, and she had a long talk with Matsuda Akira as she pointed out that her role actually protected the Masquerade. As somebody who made it seem like an act, part of an outrageous subculture, it marginalized people's suspicions. Despite her flagrancy, Miyako came into the argument well-armed. By the time morning came, they had agreed to let her keep up her facade, but she would sign up with their label, Apex Music, in exchange for a small feeding ground. It's a choice she would have been unhappy with, had it been a choice at all.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Apr 23, 2014

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010

Vicky Li
Theme - Faster


When Victoria Li was eighteen, her mother and father put an end to four years of begging, and let her go study in Japan.

Oh, she was interested in the culture, and the education. Of course that was true, and that was what made her father (a Japanese immigrant) agree in the end. But, even back then, that's not really why she was going. No, little Vicky Li wanted to be a karate master, and where else would you learn?

When she got to Shibuya, she got herself set up in a self-defense class almost before she was in school or a proper apartment. It was ... well, less than amazing.

She'd been in similar classes back Stateside. Just instructors who had the talent but no ambition teaching girls who just wanted to protect themselves walking home from night classes and boys who wanted to get in shape to impress those girls. And nobody ever really cut loose at the self-defense classes. They just swung at one another and made sure to stop before anyone ever landed a solid hit or really proved anything. That wasn't what Vicky wanted to do with her talent (and she had the talent, nobody disputed that).

For a while she actually got bored, and focused more on the business degree her father had actually sent her here to get than on her fighting. Her emails home got less exciting, and her parents got happier, and her life got dull. That was when she started to go out to the nightclubs - her martial artist's body, constantly trained and improved to the peak of physical excellence, earned her a trail of boyfriends across the different districts and a host of other convenient distractions, none of whom ever made it into her messages home.

And then Jun Kazuhiro came into her life like a hurricane of sweet-smelling wind.

He visited one of those 'silly little self-defense classes' one of the few nights she decided to come back. He was like something out of a goddamn anime, he was so pretty, and she was spellbound the moment he walked into the room. He was evidently important, because he gave a speech before the group sparred, and she couldn't for the life of her remember what it was he said, but she knew she would do anything to impress him, and she did, the only way she knew how.

He watched her destroy every other student in the place, roughly enough that the instructor banned her from his classes immediately afterwards, but when she left, Kazuhiro quite emphatically left with her. Vicky was already obsessed with the guy, but then he introduced her to bogu kumite, and she fell in love with him.

Normally, the practice is a form of full-contact karate training that enables the students to strike with full force without injuring one another, but a few enterprising individuals had adopted the concept into a series of underground fighting rings. The league is not exactly illegal, but thoroughly dishonorable, and few of its operators are eager to come under close scrutiny due to the number of injuries that result from a typical night of kumite.

Vicky shone. No more pulling punches. No more screwing around. No more shadowboxing. In the self-defense classes, they'd been people who knew some karate. Here, they were karatekas.

Kazuhiro's gamble on his new find paid off, and the money started to flow in, and Vicky's grades started to slump and her parents started to get worried and she felt alive, and if her father's disapproval and concern slipped any guilt into her heart, it melted away whenever she was with Kazuhiro. She was invincible.

Isuho Honda came to the bogu kumite ring uninvited one night, when Vicky was getting ready to fight Imikura Jiyo, an up-and-comer who had just barely made it into her bracket and everyone knew was getting cold feet as he realized how out of his league he was. He wanted to back out before he got hurt, but everyone knew (even if they didn't admit it to themselves) that there was yakuza money in the bogu kumite, so nobody ever backed out. There was a rule, rarely-used but legitimate, that any fighter could bring in another fighter to compete by proxy, but who the hell would step in for a loser like Jiyo, especially if it meant going up against Jun Kazuhiro's golden girl?

Isuho Honda did. Vicky found out later that he was Jiyo's master, who ran one of the truly old dojos, the real deal, and despite his student's desperate pleas for him not to get involved he had offered himself as a proxy, and what were the organizers going to do, turn down the chance to see one of Tokyo's most respected karatekas in their ring? Vicky wasn't worried. Honda was an old man and she was "Kazuhiro's Kamikaze", what could possibly happen?

As soon as the match started she knew she had made a mistake, and in less than twenty seconds he taught her why they called him Master Isuho.

He was the best practitioner she'd ever seen, and the fight entered ring legend, but in truth he wiped the floor with her, and for the first time there was something that could distract her from Kazuhiro.

She started going to Isuho's dojo, determined to understand how he had beaten her, and after a while she could go toe-to-toe with his other students, but she could never beat the old man himself. If Kazuhiro was a windstorm blowing through her life, Honda was a stone standing in its midst - but instead of bringing stability, she saw him as an obstacle. She could keep hitting him until the sun came up, and at the end it was like punching and kicking a wall - no, a wall actually would have taken some damage, the old man never even got a bruise. And he would argue with her for hours - indeed, he was happy to, and he started putting tea on in advance, knowing that she would want to stay after class and go at it some more with him, and her resentment slid off him like water off a stone. She had reached the limit of her own inherent abilities, Isuho said. Talent and fitness could not make her any greater a karateka, now she had to start to truly learn, to understand why to strike as well as how to do it.

He never budged, and even worse, he never validated her frustration by kicking her out of the dojo when she raged at him or roughed up his other students during kumite.

Maybe it would have been kinder if he had.

Isuho drove her to distraction, and Kazuhiro noticed. Maybe he didn't like seeing her so unhappy and confused, but more likely he couldn't abide her paying attention to anyone other than him, and one night, after her bouts in the ring were done with, he took her back to his apartment.

My meeting you at the self-defense course, he said, was no coincidence. We are connected, we two, by a red thread, a crimson strand of destiny stretching across the night sky, and that there exists no reality in which we would not come together. He asked her if she wanted to take hold of the thread, and bind them to each other for all time.

She wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then he told her that he could give her the power to beat Honda, and then she was lost.

Two months later, something that looked very much like Victoria Li walked into Isuho Honda's dojo. Half the students were disturbed by her manner, the other half wanted to screw her, but Master Isuho kept his counsel. He watched her put his best students down with a handful of blows apiece, and then, his expression thunderous, he stood to face her himself.

Isuho Honda lost that fight, he lost it badly. Vicky broke his left wrist, put a hairline fracture across his right hipbone, and all but destroyed his reputation. She stood over him triumphant in that moment, expecting him to finally admit that she was the greatest master of martial arts that had ever passed through Tokyo Metropolis.

He didn't. He just looked up at her, his eyes filled with tears, and he asked, "What has become of you?"

She's still not quite sure why she didn't kill him right there, but she fled the dojo, back to Kazuhiro's waiting arms, and her new existence truly began.

Vicky still fights in the ring, now all but unbeatable by any mortal challenger (most likely as Kazuhiro had planned all along, for he makes a good deal of money off her victories). She still piddles along on her business degree, because while very little fazes her anymore, something still haunting the back of her mind couldn't survive it if her mother and father found out what she is and how she lives now. And she still goes to Isuho Honda's dojo, because even after she wiped the floor with his students and injured him badly enough that he might not ever really fight again, he still makes a living, and he still won't ban her, and Vicky is determined to find out why, and to find a way to make him accept her as the greatest of all karateka. They still have their conversations after his classes are over, only now there are fewer one-sided arguments and more odd, allegorical conversations, in which Vicky tells him all about her life while telling him nothing about her unlife. He sits, and sips his tea, and he listens.

When she's not in the ring or at school, she uses her newfound physical prowess to do odd jobs for Kazuhiro's friends in Shibuya Ward. They're important people, she can tell. They have their fingers in everything. The jobs are almost certainly not legal, but they pay well enough, and she's good at them, and breaking the law doesn't really bother her much, especially not anymore.

It's better than actually finishing business school. And it's a lot better than taking any time to think about why Master Isuho is so sad when he looks at her, and what she may have given up in exchange for physical perfection and eternal life.



• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

After Kazu ... Embraced me, I was like a starving little kid for weeks. He had to teach me to feed myself, had to teach me to use the blood, had to teach me who the other important Kindred were so I didn't piss off the wrong person and get my head chopped off... I called in sick to school, but I was so scared, I didn't have time to email Mom and Dad. When I got back on the streets I found out that they were going berserk after not hearing from me for two months - I barely got to a computer in time to stop them flying over here to look for me. I told them the same crazy story I told the university, about too much schoolwork and having a nervous breakdown - I don't know if they believed me. They haven't told me to come home yet, but I know they don't really trust me like they used to...

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Kazu. Oh, he's incredible. He plans so far ahead about everything, he's so smart, he doesn't let anyone get ahead of him... You know that crap that the old masters say? What's the old line... "Karate is properly applied only in those rare situations in which one really must either down another or be downed by him." Yeah, that's it. Well, Kazuhiro is like that, but not stupid. He's been like this a lot longer than me, and I know he can fight, but he never has to. He's too good for that.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

What excites me about it? What doesn't? Well, okay. When I was being taught karate, I never understood why we had to hold back. I never understood what the point was of being good at something if you don't get to do it the best you can, and show people you're the best. The ring was great, but being a Kindred is like being in the ring all the time. I can make people like me and do what I want, and I have to to get the blood, so I just do it.

What scares me? Well. That thing is down there, in me now, and Kazu says it's bad when it comes out. But, really, what scares me is the old ones. I've met a couple of them, they're Kazu's friends, or business associates anyway. And they just seem... dead. There's this one lady, Saeko? Kazu and her are both "operators" for Maeda, I guess that's someone who takes care of business, gets rid of problems, keeps their fingers on the pulse. Anyway, she might as well be a loving porcelain statue. Walks and talks like one, too. She looks like ten million yen, she could have any man she wanted if she bothered to put some blood under her skin, but she just walks around like a - a robot! I hear she only drinks hospital blood. "Less risk." Less risk?!

I mean, I know we are dead, but I love what I do! And look at Kazu, he's taking this second chance and riding it straight into eternity! If you can't love what you do, what you are, then what's the point of even existing? If I ever even come close to ending up like that, dust me. Right on the spot.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

Master Isuho knows. Or, suspects something, anyway. He knows too much about the human body to believe that the girl who beat him was human. I should have killed him, or found some other way to keep him quiet, but...

...I can't. I need to find out. I need to show him.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

The Shibuya ring is under Dori - two of the restaurants lead down through the back. They've got rooms on and under the street, in case the karatekas need a place to stay between matches. The better fighters get rooms for longer, and I'm the best, and besides, Kazu has pull. I lock myself in the back when I come home in the morning - most of the fighters know me, and they know I work nights and I hate to be disturbed, and since Kazu tied my red thread people like to see me happy. There's also Katsuo, the guy who runs the ring. I don't know how much he knows about who we really are, but he works for Kazu, and he knows to watch my back.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

Well, I was doing a favor for Katsuo a few months back - a karateka skipped out on three fights in a row, and someone important had money tied up in him, so Katsuo needed someone to go find him and beat either some answers or a message into him. I couldn't figure out why someone would be dumb enough to duck a bogu kumite match, but when I got there the guy spilled almost immediately. It turned out somebody was leaning on people not to participate in anything Kazu was involved in. I had to turn on the Kindred charm, but eventually he dropped a name. Hototogisu.

I dropped Kazu's name at a place Maeda owns, and eventually got the info to someone important enough, and, well, I imagine it was pretty serious, because that was when I started to get the troubleshooting work.

---

Whew! That's a novel. Hope it's not overdetailed, I had a lot of fun writing it. I'd appreciate a look-over on the sheet, it's my first time making one for a White Wolf game. I can already see some cool synergy with a bunch of the other concepts, and I also notice that both Vicky and Makoto have a "Kaz" in their backgrounds! Perhaps they're the same person? I swear I didn't intend that. Maeda's martial bent also fits well with Vicky, I think.

also i rolled a 1 for starting vitae so :v:

TehWarsmith fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Apr 16, 2014

Vicissitude
Jan 26, 2004

You ever do the chicken dance at a wake? That really bothers people.
Derrick Boone



Boone is a vampire who was a man turned old before his time; He went to war and its horrors had absolutely no involvement in his prematurely aged, cantankerous nature.

Living in seaside Oregon during the early stages of WW2, Derrick had a little bit of involvement in the flurry of activity in building new ships after Pearl Harbor. That lasted right until his number came up for army service. Deployed in the Pacific theater in 1942, Boone saw action on many islands and learned several asian dialects in the course of his 2-year stint. His service ended the night a Japanese mortar landed on the other side of his foxhole, sparing him a grisly death, but opening up a steep drop into a small cavern. The thing in the shadows did not care for intruders.

The vampire was hideous and Boone said as much. It laughed at his bravado, but kept him as a source of information in the modern world for some time. The tramping of many booted feet had awakened it, it had said, and needed to get its head wrapped around the current climate in the south pacific. Once it had wrung as much information as it could from Derrick, it embraced him so it would have a new servant in this brave new world.

Sadly, the tunnels that his sire had long since hidden away in were found by Japanese forces and used for storage. When the US forces came through them to clean out any resistance remaining on the island, they came across Boone's new home. Luckily, instincts took over and he was able to remain hidden. Boone's sire couldn't help but lose a few precious seconds to amazement at the technology of modern warfare.

When WW2 ended, Boone returned to the US, moving around as much as he could and picking up various news updates and tidbits from the local supernaturals around the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, the run-in with his sire stirred up a lot of questions in his mind. Boone traveled to Asia and spent years studying history, philosophy and mythology, all of which were fascinatingly richer than his own culture. Despite his new worldly learning, Boone remains a curmudgeon. The kind of guy who's always neck deep in it, and always because of someone else's stupidity. Still, his familiarization with the locals earns him a lot more respect than most outsiders. Speaking fluent Japanese is a hell of a way to make an introduction.

• Tell about the time you hit rock bottom, the time where you were most open to the supernatural and the Embrace. At your lowest point, who did you end up leaving out in the cold?

Boone is "lucky" enough that his most vulnerable state came out of nowhere. There was no courtship, no half-glimpsed shadows following him from dark alleyways. He fell right into the nest and got caught by an elder recently awakened from the Requiem. As a dead man, Boone knew he could never go home. All there was for his family was a folded flag and a letter of condolence from the State Department. Why show up and cause more misery? Still, he had other people he could bother. Working down at the docks, you meet a lot of unsavory characters. They knew where to get things, who to talk to for night work that required a good deal of heavy lifting. That worked, for a while. Then the questions started to bubble in Boone's mind. He had to get answers. Shishi-do was a demon from the East. Where better to travel for answers?

• Who is the vampire you identify with the most? This may or may not be your sire, but this is the vampire you look at a model to compare other Kindred against.

Dracula, if Boone had to guess. Isn't he THE vampire? But then, he was a lord before his death. You don't really hear much about the vamps living on the streets, the ones who get by without the visions of servants long dead attending to their every need. But Dracula wasn't anything like what Boone is now. He can go unseen, crush brick in his hand, and all manner of powers to terrify the humans. Not that he's into that, but it's a useful tool if you need it. Boone's been quiet, keeps to himself. Even when researching his own condition, he never actively sought out other vampires to ask about being a vampire. Instinct is apparently supernatural as well as biological, so his needs were attended to, but beyond that it was all myth and speculation. The only supernatural creature he can respect is the Green Lady, and he's not so sure that she is what she claims to be.

• What is about the vampire curse that scares you? Excites you? Tell me about another Kindred in this city who exemplifies everything you're afraid to become.

Boone may not like people, but to have to prey on them to survive is a bit of a sore spot. He'd be happy if everyone on earth but him were to disappear, but he's not someone who'd be first in line to put it into effect. On the other hand, he can disappear or lift a motorcycle over his head. The blood makes for a powerful ally when you need it, and in a society of backstabbing bloodsuckers, you need it often. As for what he's afraid to become, there's a creepy vampire in Okinawa called Face-Jacket. The guy (?) likes to spy on crowds. If he sees a face he likes, he draws it on the walls of the sewer he stays in. Eventually, he... collects that face.

• Someone knows your secret, part of it at least. You either told them, or you allowed too much of nature to slip for them to ignore it. Who are they and why are they still part of your life?

There's plenty of folks back in LA who know Boone, though they're all 'in the life', so to speak. Very few mortals, though. A few of the more trustworthy gangbangers from the early days, but most of those are long gone. Here in Japan, he's once again gravitated toward the gangs. There's a group of bōsōzoku bikers who have made their territory near Boone's haven. Not all of them know what he is, but the gang's boss Toku knows that Boone is some kind of demon, or something else other than human. Despite this, they keep civil after Boone demonstrated that he can snap their baseball bats with his bare hands. Hell, they like him more now that he did it. As Boone plays the part of the troubleshooter in the city, he farms out a few jobs here and there when he needs errand boys or messenger girls during the daylight hours. There's a mutual respect there, and he's started to come to like them.

• Outside the protection of the zaibatsu, how do you survive your day to day hours? Who keeps you safe when you sleep, whether they know it or not?

Toku and his gang have a few of their new recruits keep an eye on Boone's building during the day, but they're young and more interested in other things. They don't know who lives there, but they act as a deterrent. If any of the other gangs decide to roll up on them, they scatter. But Toku is usually pretty good about protecting his turf. In exchange, Boone keeps them up to date on things that affect them and even finds a way to get some of them paid when he contracts out to them.

• How did you first come in contact with the Maeda Group? Who did you have to impress to get the zaibatsu to notice you?

After Boone arrived in Tokyo, he put out a few feelers. While none of the saibatsu groups would give him the time of day, occasionally someone would require an 'outside consultant'. Recently, Boone was asked to remove a fledgling vampire who was causing a stir in Shinjuku. Using his status as an outsider, it was fairly easy to provoke the fledgling into a duel. Boone got rather competent with using a sword in his time, but it's usually raw brute power over finesse in his case. The blood makes that sort of thing his go-to maneuver these nights. Still, it was a hard-pressed battle. The new kid knew his techniques for the puffed-up forgeries they were and was able to keep Boone on his toes. But in the end, Boone brought back the head of a problem. The man who had hired him was Maeda Keiji. It seems like after a few years of here-and-there contract work, they're sufficiently impressed with Boone's record of success.

Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Apr 17, 2014

Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
App is done! Could someone take another look at my sheet to make sure I didn't take a trap option or anything?

Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

Man, the week just caught up to me. I'm also surprised by the number of Daeva vampire apps here. You guys are great.

So FYI, I'm going to be gone for like, four days on vacation, possibly without internet. I decided I'm gonna save the questions I'm going to ask for after the picks and during the game itself. I'm enjoying the applications so far, but if anyone's still thinking to app though don't hesitate to do so! I'll be reading over everything again on the 21st and make my choice by then. :)

EDIT: I made a spreadsheet. Probably missed some of you making updates, but it should be more or less accurate.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q9rVs2LlyZrHdO4UdmhG_yTNqfE3Zzs951vw01AkVcE/edit#gid=0

Mitama fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Apr 16, 2014

TehWarsmith
Jul 3, 2010
One thing: I've noticed that a bunch of people are calculating their Defense wrong - the dalines sheet tells you that Defense is just the lower of Wits or Dexterity, but isn't updated to the God-Machine/Blood and Smoke rules and still has stuff from the original nWoD core book. Your Defense should be the lowest of Wits or Dexterity plus Athletics.

Fuzz
Jun 2, 2003

Avatar brought to you by the TG Sanity fund

TehWarsmith posted:

One thing: I've noticed that a bunch of people are calculating their Defense wrong - the dalines sheet tells you that Defense is just the lower of Wits or Dexterity, but isn't updated to the God-Machine/Blood and Smoke rules and still has stuff from the original nWoD core book. Your Defense should be the lowest of Wits or Dexterity plus Athletics.

Yeah, plus Celerity, if you have it. I need to fix up my sheet if I get in.

Clipperton
Dec 20, 2011
Grimey Drawer

TehWarsmith posted:

One thing: I've noticed that a bunch of people are calculating their Defense wrong - the dalines sheet tells you that Defense is just the lower of Wits or Dexterity, but isn't updated to the God-Machine/Blood and Smoke rules and still has stuff from the original nWoD core book. Your Defense should be the lowest of Wits or Dexterity plus Athletics.

Thanks for picking that up. Fixed!

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Mitama
Feb 28, 2011

I know some people are still working on apps, so fair warning:

  • Locked thread