Nasch the Circassian

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Howdy, faithful Kindred scholars. Tonight I have for you Nasch the Circassian. He’s got a few years under his belt, and he often finds his way into some high-profile trouble, but he has some blemishes in his history that a clever coterie might be able to work around or even remedy. In particular, I like that his involvement in the Anarch Revolt leaves so many unanswered questions. What really happened in the tomb? Could that possibly have been Set? What did Giangaleazzo see that made him honor the agreement? And why haven’t the Tremere called for reparation? Los of room to explore here, whether you’re an Anarch, True Sabbat, or anyone in a domain where turbulence can be traced back to Nasch.

Oh! And in case you missed it, the Children of the Revolution prestige print run Kickstarter is now active.

<1>Nasch, The Circassian

<n>A snorting mare, dark against the silver mountains, its hide limned auburn by the setting sun. The laughter of a sister teasing him near a muddy stream. The rich smell of his mother’s cooking accompanied by the distant sound of his grandfather’s pain. The sudden scream of an eagle just before it drops from the brilliant heavens like a javelin and in one brutal moment seizes and rends the snake that had been hiding so completely in the tall grass, gorging on the kill that is its rightful reward. These are the only memories that remain of his childhood, of the time before Egypt, before manhood, before the deathly chill of the long shadows of the Endless Night that engulfed him. These last remaining fragments, these momentary flashes of imagery and sensation are the last anchors of a vestigial sense of humanity that remains above all else his most treasured possession.

Nasch was born among the Bzhedugh Adyghes, one of the peoples known more popularly as the Circassians, especially in the Mamluk culture that dominated the Near East at the time of his birth. Like many Circassian boys, he was proud when his father arranged for him to travel to Egypt to serve in the sultan’s army, viewing his sale to the visiting merchant as a ticket to freedom, not slavery. The sights and sounds that greeted him in Cairo were beyond anything he had imagined and he quickly heeded the clarion of Islam and the seductively mysterious culture of the ancient land of the pharaohs.

The boy became the property of Kulayb al-Naqid, a powerful bureaucrat who spent whatever it took to ensure that his young warrior received the best martial training available. His bow, lance, mace, and sword were as extensions of his body and his horsemanship improved so much that his patron regularly hosted competitions to further enhance his standing in the sultanate’s administration by showing off his remarkable young charge.

Complementing Nasch’s military education was a more cerebral one that was even more a source of pride for the learned al-Naqid. The lad was given regular access to the personal and religious libraries of his master and his master’s network of friends, which included Islamic scholars as well as Christian and Jewish authorities. Nasch was captivated by what he read and proved a quick learner, mastering Arabic and a handful of other important scripts and tongues before he had reached majority. He was most fascinated by those texts that revealed the older history of Egypt, its rulers, and its gods, and he made a special effort to teach himself hieroglyphics in order to pluck from the ancient inscriptions the lost secrets of the pharaohs.

Upon reaching the age for battle, Nasch was granted his freedom and provided arms and armor in addition to a mount. This did not remove his obligation to al-Naqid, however. As was the Mamluk custom, Nasch remained bound to his former master by an oath of blood loyalty. This was not an issue for the Circassian at first, but in time the elder al-Naqid grew demanding and continued to treat Nasch as a trophy to parade before his friends as the aging bureaucrat struggled to maintain his station in a shifting political landscape. As Nasch increasingly resisted this treatment, al-Naqid began to spread rumors of his “son” that resulted in doors being closed to him that previously had been open. He found himself cut off from the scholarly works that had become his great passion and his contacts refused to see him, all on account of al-Naqid’s poisoned words.

Only one door remained open to the abandoned Mamluk. A Copt named Abul-Darda Hashim al-Musayyab, a rival of al-Naqid’s who had been working hard to undermine him in order to assume his influential position as a tax administrator, openly welcomed Nasch and supplied him the intellectual companionship he desperately sought. Al-Musayyab also quickly changed Nasch’s views on his obligation to his former master, convincing the young man that a father who does not treat his son with due respect is himself worth none. When al-Naqid learned of Nasch’s association with his enemy, he formally denounced him as a conspirator and traitor. The crafty Copt seized the opportunity his manipulation had provided, fanning the flames in Nasch’s heart and urging him to take action before al-Naqid went any further. So effective was al-Musayyab’s argument that when Nasch found himself standing over al-Naqid’s bloody corpse he was convinced that the idea had been his own.

Nasch’s story might have ended there, but two things worked in his favor to save him from punishment. First, the Mamluks were swiftly rising in power on account of the recent ascension of Baibars to the sultanate, the first of the new dynasty’s rulers after centuries of Ayyubid rule. Second, al-Musayyab was only the servant of Nasch’s true patron, the Ventrue elder Palamon.

A devout Copt who dedicated himself to the goal of purging Egypt of Islam and restoring it to its ancient glory, Palamon had watched Nasch for some time and saw in him the perfect childe. He had actually masterminded al-Naqid’s downfall with the assistance of “sympathetic parties” among the Followers of Set, with whom he had allied himself against the Muslim undead. It did not take long for Nasch to become convinced to swear a new blood oath to the passionate Ventrue and in 1263 he took an oath of fealty in the form of the Embrace. With his nights now freed of mortal concerns and the Followers of Set willing to share occult secrets with him that no mortal possessed, Nasch saw his sire as both his savior and a true father that deserved his eternal loyalty.

As much as he threw himself into his occult pursuits, Nasch also put substantial energy into mastering contemporary politics. Aided by his nascent mastery of Presence, a gift that seemed to come more naturally to him than his clan’s parallel affinity for Dominate, he proved a skilled and valuable asset that his sire fully exploited. This partnership proved a successful one and by the time Nasch reached his fiftieth *birthday* and was rewarded by being formally released by his sire, the pair had become quite accomplished. However, this did not last, for even as Nasch and his sire cultivated influence among key officials throughout Egypt and the empire’s Syrian territory, they remained wholly oblivious to the way they were being manipulated.

The Followers of Set who had allied themselves with Palamon were a very secretive cabal even among their fellow Setites, a group possessed of a secret that they shared with no one and would do anything to protect. Dubbing themselves the Coil of the Lion, these Serpernts were dedicated to no less a duty than protecting one of the clan’s holy sites suspected of being the tomb of the Antediluvian Set. They not only knew its location, but had been guarding it from discovery and intrusion for millennia, keeping their progenitor safe until the time had come for his return. This responsibility meant that despite their dark stewardship, they occasionally had to relocate the torpid form believed to be the Antediluvian in order to protect him. The time had again come nigh for this task and they used their Ventrue pawns to ensure that this could be accomplished as smoothly as possible.

Key to The Coil of the Lion’s plan was to create enough distraction among the region’s Kindred to focus their attention elsewhere when the move took place. The cult decided that a political and cultural scandal would serve this purpose well and the best way to accomplish this was to turn Nasch against his sire. Just as he had been receptive to the deceptive entreaties of al-Naqid, the young Ventrue was equally susceptible to the persuasions of the agents of the fork-tongued Setites. He began to see his sire as no different from al-Naqid, an exploitive master who only pretended respect, which was not wholly untrue. He slowly came to believe that his release from his sire’s authority was actually a ploy to make him more loyal to Palamon even as the elder took greater advantage of him, a thralldom under the guise of freedom. Ultimately, The Coil of the Lion succeeded in convincing Nasch that as a Mamluk and Circassian he would never be able to achieve parity with his sire or other Ventrue, that he would instead always been viewed as little more than a fancy slave.

By this time, Palamon, in large part due to the help of his favored childe, had achieved near-total control over the immediate advisors to Sultan al-Ashraf Sha’ban. With the backing of the Setites, Nasch made his move and lent his support to an uprising among the Mamluks that began in Syria and quickly spread to Egypt. The turmoil took Palamon, along with other Kindred, by surprise and though their eventual downfall was not an overnight affair, they were unable to regain their upper hand. Nasch’s mortal ally Barquq, a cunning Circassian like himself, was instrumental in the rebellion and, after nearly five years of political and military chaos, finally succeeded in seizing the sultanate for himself, thereby founding the Burji Mamluk dyansty.

Naturally, Palamon and the other Ventrue did not look kindly on Nasch’s betrayal. They invoke the Lextalionis and did their best to make unlife difficult for the traitorous ancilla. Despite his best efforts, were it not for his Setite patrons, Nasch knew he was doomed. It was during this tumultuous time that the Coil of the Lion made its near-fatal mistake. Sure of their hold over the ruined Ventrue, they grew careless and boasted about their true purpose to enflame the imagination of the Ventrue they considered their debtor. They underestimated his understanding of the old ways and when they demanded his assistance in helping them ensure the protection of some pilgrims to the necropolis of Saqqara, he knew it was his only opportunity to seize an advantage that he so desperately needed.

In the winter of 1381, with the eyes of local Kindred misdirected elsewhere, the Coil of the Lion undertook the dangerous journey they had planned for so long. When Nasch’s Mamluks attacked the small caravan the morning after their arrival in Saqqara, the Setite ghouls and mercenaries were unprepared and unable to defend their cargo. The raiders seized the opulent sarcophogus and all but two of the Setite escorts met Final Death, the survivors fleeing in snake form into the night-chilled sands. Their minions were slaughtered and all traces of the caravan were burned or secreted away inside desert-scourged tombs. They dragged this choicest prize into one such funereal chamber and guarded it until the sun set.

When Nasch arose and stood before the ebony coffin he was not sure exactly how to go about the deed. He had read and heard many different things about the Amaranth, but such forbidden whispers bore no specifics. What he was sure of was that no matter how things happened, he was facing an creature whispered fearfully, reverently to be nothing less than a god in the eyes of the Setites, and to come unprepared would unquestionably mean his demise. For this reason he had worked every minion, contact, and pawn he could, and all but emptied his treasury in order to obtain something that might help him survive and accomplish this task.

Nasch’s efforts paid off when he was able, a mere few weeks before the desert raid, to acquire a small sliver of ancient bone from a merchant who desperately craved the reward of “eternal life” in exchange for the relic. The merchant claimed that the bone was nothing less than a fragment of the forearm of Osiris, Set’s nemesis. Nasch relished the opportunity, having read in a collection of Gnostic apocrypha that “one of the betrayer’s get” might deal a grievous wound to “his thrice-damned progeny.” Although Nasch asked a handful of trusted conspirators to verify the assertion that the bone fragment was the real thing, he remained skeptical, but without other options and time running out he had little choice but to put his faith in the artifact.

When his thralls pried open the last seal and removed the startlingly plain inner lid that had concealed the face of Antediluvian, Nasch felt the world shift. The a susurration quickly grew into a clamor, the sound of a thousand serpents rending the air with their unearthly hissing as the chamber around him vanished into blackness. He found himself standing upon a dais in a vast, open temple situated on an otherwise empty expanse of desert that stretched into infinity. Before him lay the body of a man with the head of an unspeakable beast, no sarcophogus in sight, naked but for a simple loincloth. For a few moments Nasch surrendered to a fear that made even the Red Fear seem insignificant. He could not move and was sure that he was to meet Final Death, sure that this was Set, and that the Antediluvian would slake its thirst thirst on his vitae.

It was at that moment that Nasch recalled the memory of the eagle and the snake. Without permitting himself another thought, he leapt forward and sank his fangs into the dark god.

What happened next he cannot or will not permit himself to guess. To this night, Nasch recalls a distant memory of power, unimaginable power, surging through him, and of a tremendous roar that drowned out all other sensation. He knows, too, there was pain, as if the sun itself had swallowed him. And his body unconsciously quakes with a terror so all-encompassing that to this night all his other fears have lost their hold on him.

When Nasch awakened next he discovered that more than a decade had passed. He found himself in a monastery in Sicily. His servitors had arranged for his transport out of Egypt, but only one remained with him, and the man could provide few additional details about the fateful night in Saqqara. Nasch became convinced that the shard of Osiris had been real, for he could find no other explanation for his survival. At first he believed he had succeeded in committing diablerie, but this conviction did not last long. Strange visions began to haunt his dreams, visions of serpents consuming the world, writhing from the trees and walls, and worse. An unrelenting hissing plagued him when awake, a hallucination he struggled hard to master.

The most telling sign that whatever had transpired had failed was his own form. Upon arising from torpor, Nasch had become gaunt and reeked of the grave. Initially, he assumed this was normal after torpor and that he would soon regain his former appearance, but no amount of blood would reverse this change. He soon came to believe that rather than taking the vitae an Antediluvian, whatever ancient Kindred this truly was had instead performed some lesser Amaranth upon him, leaving him permanently weakened. In the vain hope of reversing his condition he engaged in an orgy of blood-drinking that exceeded the capacities of his monastic environs. Sure enough, word reached the ears of a nearby Lasombra elder who had barely survived the Burning Times and had no wish to see them rekindled on her doorstep. With no minions or moneys at his disposal, and not wishing to draw too much attention to himself, Nasch chose to heed her warning and he left the domain for Milan.

For the next few years, Nasch kept a low profile and played the genteel and unassuming Ventrue ancilla. Although outwardly loyal to his clan, his closest ties were to the Tremere. Soon after joining the city’s Kindred, he sought their counsel as to the existence some art or artifact that might be able to mute his presence so as to hide him from Set and his agents. The Malkavian Oracle at Milan sensed an aura of doom around him and made an effort to avoid him, refusing to share her auguries with him. The Nosferatu similarly had no interest in teaching their Discipline to the blighted Ventrue, but the Tremere had no such compunctions. In fact, on the contrary, the magus Marco Pessina was intrigued by the paranoid Blue Blood and promised to help in exchange for Nasch’s knowledge of the Followers of Set and their cyclopean rituals.

In 1402, Pessina completed a ritual that he said would answer the Ventrue’s prayers. According to Pessina, the Ritual of Concealing would diminish Nasch’s presence so greatly that no Kindred of the foul blood of the Followers of Set, not even the founder of the clan himself, would be able to detect him. The rite came with two caveats. First, the ritual’s power was contingent upon Nasch’s own behavior. The more he advertised his presence, the weaker the protection would be. Second, given the incredible strength of the blood magic — it is no mean feat to obscure one of the Damned from from a god — its efficacy would fade over time. The only way to replenish the ritual’s potency was for Nasch to enter torpor, during which time it would regain its original might.

As final payment for the Tremere’s efforts, Nasch had Pessina destroyed. He provided enough information to a Toreador neonate inspired by the recent rumblings of the soon-to-be Anarch Revolt as was necessary and let Kindred nature take its course. Just to be safe, Nasch then tipped off the Tremere of Milan to the jealous Toreador in their midst, “to avenge the death of Marco Pessina, who aided me when I needed it.”

This became Nasch’s modus operandi. When, over the years, he sought an advantage among his kind, he identified a downtrodden neonate or ancilla and convince the patsy to stand against one or more established Kindred presented an obstacle, even while openly defending the Traditions and declaring allegiance to the establishment. Some, many even, fell for these lies, aided as they were by vampiric charms, but more often those in power saw through his sham and sought his head for stirring up the Anarchs. He survived as long as he did in Milan only because of his continued alliance with the Tremere, who found it more strategically beneficial to look beyond his likely involvement with the diablerie of one of their own in order to gain as much additional information about Setite and Egyptian rituals as possible. One night, they figured, his worth would expire, and then so would he.

The Tremere did not have that chance, however — at least not yet. Regardless of the danger he might invite, Nasch has historically been unable to avoid the limelight. His relaince on the Discipline of Presence stirred up feelings of rebellion and immediate action in any who fell under its sway, particularly those weak-willed neonates who had become dangerously numerous over the centuries. Even when he eschewed the use of his Disciplines, it was usually too late, and in more than one daomain, the Anarchs had already taking to the streets shouting his name. Almost overnight, Milan became a battleground for those defending the Traditions and those howling for a new order and the blood of the defenders. Even as he was hailed as a hero by the Milanese Anarchs and their “patron saint,” a Lasombra named Giangaleazzo, Nasch became terrified that the Tremere ritual would be powerless to protect him from Setite vengeance. Even if it did, the Tremere would still have his head when they finally reached their tolerance of him, as Nasch was sure they would. Ironically, a third contingency proved to be a far more immediate threat.

The Anarchs were not the only ones who had seized power in Milan. The nascent Sabbat had converted many of the impressionable Anarchs to their cause, heeding the exhortations of Giangaleazzo, or taking the faith of the Sword of Cain under pain of martyrdom. Nasch did not escape the turning tides of Milanese politics and was brought before Giangaleazzo. Desperate, he played the only card he had. In a closed-door parlay with the Lasombra, Nasch traded his knowledge of the purported Setite Antediluvian’s tomb to the astonished vampire in exchange for his protection from the Sword of Caine. The Lasombra “saint” agreed and declared his safety in Milan, so long as the Archbishop himself was satisfied with the contents of the desert tomb.

Having secured his safety for a time, Nasch voluntarily entered torpor in order to recharge the Tremere Ritual of Concealment.  He woke decades later, with the Tremere absent from the City of the Boar. Surprised that he had been spared by both angry Usurpers and tempestuous Sabbat — and now fully protected by the ritual once again — Nasch skulked away from Milan.

Since the fifteenth century, Nasch has spent significant time in at least a score of cities, usually doing his best at first to not draw attention, but always finding himself unable to resist the tendencies that advertise his presence and force him to flee and again seek torpor. His corruptive influence is almost like a virus, and in each place his legacy is one of destabilizing sedition and open violence against the powers that be that often lasts for some time after his terrified exit from the storm he incited.

Tonight, Nasch still clings to those few memories he has of life before the nightmare began. The horse, his sister, his mother’s cooking. But the last one, the memory of the eagle, is increasingly replaced not by another recollection, but by a vision of the future. Instead of the eagle falling upon the snake, it is the snake that finds the eagle asleep in his aerie and with cold-blooded intent sinks its fangs into the unsuspecting raptor and crushes it with the strength of a vengeful god.

Sire: Palamon the Copt

Clan: Ventrue

Nature: Conniver

Demeanor: Eye of the Storm

Generation: 7th

Embrace: 1263

Apparent Age: Withered by time

Physical: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 5

Social: Charisma 6, Manipulation 5, Appearance 1

Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 5

Talents: Expression 4, Leadership 4, Subterfuge 5

Skills: Etiquette 2, Melee 3, Stealth 3, Survival 4

Knowledges: Academics 4 (Pharaonic History), Occult 5 (Egyptian rituals), Politics 4

Disciplines: Auspex 1, Dominate 4, Fortitude 5, Potence 4, Presence 6, Serpentis 1

Backgrounds: Contacts 2, Influence 4, Resources 3, Status (Anarchs) 3

Merits/Flaws: Language (Adyghe, Arabic, Aramaic, Coptic, Hebrew), Smell of the Grave

Virtues: Conscience 2, Self-Control 1, Courage 4

Morality: Humanity 3

Willpower: 8

Blood Pool/Max per Turn: 20/4

Image: Nasch appears taller than his entirely average frame on account of his unusually emaciated condition, a situation that also makes him seem greatly aged. His once-powerful muscles have winnowed to a wiry physique, contributing even more to his unsettling appearance. His dark hair is long and straggly, but otherwise he keeps himself clean-shaven, and the charnel accent that accompanies him completes the image of a monster. Only his deep brown eyes hint at his remaining humanity. Nasch typically dresses in clothing suitable for his environment, though perhaps a bit careworn. He is animated when speaking and unable to contain his passions, but he can swiftly transform into a creature of silent paranoia that is notably uncomfortable around others.

Roleplaying Hints: The Circassian is alternately terrified of the dreadful fate that he’s certain will soon be his — the one he knows he deserves — or manically focused on a scheme that will earn him just enough time to achieve his short-term goals before rebellion once again erupts around him. He is at constant war with himself, seeking to avoid attention for his own safety while at the same time craving the cruel pleasure that betrayal and unpheaval bring him. He is an awful creature, a liar for its own sake and satanically able with the habit.

Haven: Most of the time, Nasch’s haven is a private, secure home or small structure far from the path any Kindred would have reason to tread. He does not invite others into his domain, and is always prepared to relocate should it be discovered.

Influence: Among the Anarch Movement, Nasch is as much a figure of admiration as he reviled as a Jonah. While educated Anarchs respect him for his role in the Anarch Revolt, they also see him as the liar he is, knowing he has no loyalty to their sect above any other. Cagey Anarchs may try to exploit Nasch both as the inspiring figure his Presence projects, but also as a necessary sacrifice for the dominant sect if their revolution or subsequent barony fails. This ruse itself usually comes apart as those who would use Nasch fall under the sway of his Presence, as they almost always do. The Camarilla certainly have no love for the Ventrue traitor, but they have refrained from formally pursuing his destruction on account of… things certain Malkavians and Nosferatu whisper about the Circassian.

Mythic Tragedy: The Nabataean

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Here we see the Nabataean, one of the Children of the Revolution penned by Mummy developer C.A. Suleiman.

Thematically, I love this guy. He exudes a mythic feel that’s perfect for an elder vampire, and he does it without being an uber-character who can blow something into splinters by looking at it. He’s also tied very well to a modern world event that’s perfectly on target for Children of the Revolution. And he could easily show up in practically any chronicle, to be helped by characters or to be exploited by one of their nemeses. “Who’s this guy? Holy shit, he’s a two-thousand-year old victim of some kind of abusive clan bullshit. Hey, come over here and we’ll help you out. Now, can you do us a favor…?”

Mechanically, I think he’s almost there. I think one improvement would be to eliminate Amnesia in the form of a Flaw and replace it with a more exploratory treatment as a derangement. He’d still perform admirably in his role without that scurrilous Iron Will, too.

What do you think?

<1>The Nabataean

<n>One by one, we fall from Heaven into the depths of the past. This, our world, is ever upturned, so that yet some time we’ll last. Who are we?

— Riddle of the Sheik

All this grandeur, lost.

In the 363rd year of the Common Era, the hidden city of Petra (the biblical “Sela,” in what is now the nation of Jordan) was in the midst of its second bloom. The first came centuries before, when it blossomed into the premier stop along the trade routes between the East and Gaza, the most important port in the Levant, and the gateway to the markets of Greece, Egypt, Rome, and Syria. This important trade route was the family business and life’s blood of Petra’s inhabitants and civil overseers: the Nabataeans.

The intervening winter that allowed for this second spring came with the winds of change, blown from the west when Rome, which had been receiving tribute from Petra since the 1st century BC, invaded and claimed much of the  surrounding territory, including several precious trade routes. Petra’s decline was swift and sharp in the wake of Rome’s avarice, and yet drained of vitality though it was, the mountain city remained. When Emperor Trajan annexed and established it as the capitol of what he called the Arabia Petraea, Petra slowly began to see a new revival — one that would, in part, erase its cultural identity, but an architectural and economic revival all the same.

By the year 363, Petra was the center of a diocese under the auspices of Constantine’s dream, the Eastern Roman Empire. It had lost some of its luster from the glory days of the Nabataean kings, but the addition of Byzantine colonnades, finely carved chancels, and arrays of opus sectile mosaics certainly beautified the aging city….

…until the earthquake.

Records of the time indicate that the quake was felt as far away as Aqaba, and the devastation it leveled on Petra certainly reflected such magnitude. Like most earthquakes, it began at a tumultuous locus and concluded with an aftershock some hours later. It toppled temples, sent broken columns into the walls of the Royal Palace, and utterly demolished the city’s only theater. Over half the residents took the quake, which killed hundreds, as a sign from above and chose to abandon Petra, her short-lived Renaissance now at an end, forever.

<3>Shaking Heaven and Earth

The quake that rocked Palestine then remains an oft-discussed event. So great was its power that diviners and oracles, including some from as far back as the reign of Emperor Trajan, claimed to have foreseen the event. None of these prognosticators spoke in specifics, naturally, but the timing is certainly curious.

Just before the earthquake, in late 362, the Emperor Julian, “the Apostate,” had outlawed the teaching of Christianity, which had been the state religion for almost 30 years by then, throughout the breadth of the empire. Then, a month after the earthquake, Julian died at the Battle of Ctesiphon. Shortly after that, Julian’s successor Valentinian made his brother Valens the ruler in the east, and in so doing, created at last a permanent separation of the Roman and Byzantine Empires — an act that would ultimately precipitate the fall of both empires, according to some scholars.

Not every inhabitant of Petra felt so defeated. One man lived through the quake just the same as the others, but where they saw only ill-omen, he saw a need to pick up the pieces and soldier on. Like his father, and his father before him, the man worked the hydraulic engineering innovations that were the wonder of their place and time: conservation systems and dams to control the rush of winter waters that caused dangerous flash floods. He was a Nabataean, and his ties to the land and to Petra ran deeper than any Roman fear or Byzantine superstition. Knowing what a mass exodus would mean for Petra’s fortunes, he spoke out against her abandonment.

By that time, though, the word “Nabataean” had taken on pejorative connotations, such as “peasant,” “boor,” or even “bastard” in the very lands that had once comprised the Nabataean kingdom, a sad degradation of a people who had once been among the most tolerant and gifted of the ancient world. Although the man had done everything he could do to fit in and to be of use, including even converting to Christianity (as some Nabataeans had done, once Roman-occupied), to the ruling elite his word, was that of his people. And his people were “peasants.”

One powerful individual did take note of the man’s ardor and loyalty, however naïve or optimistic it was; he just didn’t do anything about it. This individual, one of the long-dead begotten of Cain, watched as the caravans filed along the city’s Colonnade Street, past her Nymphaeum and her fallen Temple of the Winged Lions, down her famous siq, and out her front gates. The city’s structure never lent itself to prolonged Kindred habitation, but it was as perfect a way station for them as it was for the kine, and it was in this capacity that the vampire was in Petra at the time.

This dead visitor, a scion of the King of Shadows, did not bring the Nabataean into the endless night. He merely took note of the mortal’s name, family line, and behavior before vanishing once more into darkness. In fact, one might say that his presence in Petra had been rooted in the same.

The Nabataean’s plea ignored, his city’s star would fade slowly over the next 300 years, as trade routes shifted away from Petra and support from the eastern empire waned. By the year 747, it was a backwater municipality in the growing Islamic Caliphate, its population dwindled from almost 40,000 during its heyday to fewer than 2,000 residents. But among those who yet remained was the last descendant of the Nabataean, who insured his line would keep faith with their land. This descendant, a humble laborer, eked out a living as best he could in Petra’s decline.

And then it happened again.

If the events of the year 363 were the beginning of the end for Petra, the earthquake of 747 was the final nail in her coffin. The city had been reusing materials for centuries by then, and what little foundation they provided was sorely outmatched by the power of the quake’s fury. It tore through not only what remained of Petra, but all the cities of the once-Nabataean Negev, leveling temples, collapsing homes, and swallowing tomb and soul alike.

And this time, the Nabataean was caught in the middle of it. When the quake started, he was working on the temple of Qasr el-Bint (“the daughter’s castle”), amending some of its masonry. Before he could even take a breath, the world was falling in all around him. In a last-ditch effort to find safety, he ran to the nearest aperture, and in a daze he thought brought on by the stress of the moment, he saw through the opening a beautiful white camel, smiling serenely beyond. Upon hearing a section of sandstone break loose overhead, he closed his eyes in preparation for death… but it took an unexpected aspect.

His eyes fluttered open and beheld a figure of nightmare, surely a djinn or one of the ghûl. Yet it stood with arms outstretched, an inscrutable look upon its weathered face, as if welcoming him back home. Looking up, the Nabataean saw the block of sandstone, suspended in mid-air… by shadows. At this, the mortal’s fragile consciousness gave out and he collapsed in a heap on the temple floor. When he awoke, he was no longer among the living, but the Damned.

Like his ancestors before him, the Nabataean had adopted the religion of his place and time; in this case, Islam. The Nabataean people, like other tribal Arabs, started out as fully polytheistic, offering their prayers to the likes of Al-Uzza and Al-Qaum, Dushares and Manawet. When the Israelites conquered them, Alexander of Judea forced mass conversions to Judaism, and so Nabataeans born in that place and time accepted that faith. Under the Romans, the Nabataeans converted first to the Hellenized incarnation of their former pantheon, with Venus and Mars in place of Al-Uzza and Al-Qaum, and later, under the Eastern Empire, to Christianity — until, of course, the coming of Islam. Indeed, adapting to survive in peace seemed to be the Nabataean way.

When the Nabataean discovered that his undying savior had not adapted as his ancestors did — had adopted neither the faith of his place and time, nor those faiths that had come before it — he was dumbfounded at his sire’s deed. He hadn’t been especially religious in life, but on finding out that beings such as this existed, his mind couldn’t help but frame the discussion in religious terms. After many nights, he mustered the courage to finally ask his sire why he had come to Petra in her decline, why he had saved a humble Muslim Nabataean only to damn him immediately thereafter.

“I have not slain you,” came the response. “I have preserved you.”

“But why? Why me?” said the Nabataean.

“Because one night, you might be the last of your kind.”

* * *

On his subsequent travels around the Levant, the Holy Land, and the Fertile Crescent, the Nabataean learned a great deal about not just one world, but two: the world of the living, and the secret world of the accursed dead who walked in its shadow. As sire and childe, the pair toured the courts of the Ashirra, the Islamic brotherhood of undead, and conversed with caliphs, supped with sultans, and interviewed with imams. The known world took them in, and they in turn took in the world. And through it all, the bond between the two Kindred grew.

As is often the case with the Damned, this very engagement was the very thing that spelled the end of their time together. In the early 11th Century, following the emergence of the so-called Taifa kingdoms in Al-Andalus, the pair ended up the honored guests of a fellow Lasombra named Bakr ibn Safwan al-Qushari, the self-proclaimed Sultan of Málaga. When the sultan asked them to pray with him, the Nabataean’s sire politely refused. The sultan, thinking him a fellow “person of the book” (i.e., a Christian or a Jew), offered him access to a local church or synagogue, instead. When he was again refused, the sultan realized that his guest was neither Muslim nor dhimmi (a non-Muslim freeman), but true infidel, and thus in need of some counsel.

So it was that the Cainite Sultan of Málaga challenged his clanmate and guest to a contest. Should the sultan lose, he would give up half his sultanate to form a new domain for his guest (who had, to that point, established no earthly domain of his own). If he won, his guest would agree to convert, if not to Islam than at least to another religion of the book. Thinking the contest a jest at worst and an evening’s entertainment at best, the sire agreed. The Nabataean no longer recalls the manner of the contest, only that his sire lost and that they both suspected deception. Both Kindred foolishly believed their aged host to be above cheating on such a trivial dalliance.

When called to make good on his loss, the Nabataean’s sire again politely declined, but made no mention of his host’s own bad faith in the process. When a Cainite guest breaks faith with a Cainite host, the results can be explosive, and this instance was no exception. Incensed, and feeling the honor of both clan and tradition slighted, the sultan brought the matter before the Amici Noctis, the quasi-secret internal tribunal of the Lasombra clan. Al-Qushari had been careful to cultivate alliances with both Muslim and Christian clanmates over the years, and his influence was heard and felt among those who sat in judgment of their nomadic clanmate. As such, their verdict was as clear as it was swiftly delivered. If the Nabataean’s sire would not make good and convert, then he would face the Final Death.

Knowing his sire would never convert to a faith he did not love, the Nabataean, who had stayed silent through the matter, made a bold and decisive move. He offered his own unlife in exchange. To his surprise, neither his sire nor the sultan objected, nor even reacted with especial dismay. The sultan accepted at once, and sent word to the tribunal that the sire’s verdict was to be voided, provided his Nabataean childe remained true to his word. After almost three centuries years together, sire and childe parted ways with nothing more than a lone knowing nod and a somber valediction.

Again the Nabataean prepared himself to meet death, as he had the night of his Embrace, and again was Death denied. The sultan, moved by the guileless integrity of his Muslim clanmate, though not moved enough to forgive the sire’s trespass entirely, opted to spare him the Final Death… in exchange for an eternity of nothingness. Al-Qushari drove a wooden stake through the Nabataean’s heart, boxed up his corpse, and kept it as the prize of his collection of treasures.

Before long, the sultan’s penchant for contest again had the better of him, and he was forced to forfeit the Nabataean as the culmination of a very heated exchange with a rival Christian Lasombra. Word of the “Nabataean trophy” spread like wildfire thereafter, and his body found itself passed from one undead curator to another, ever at the whim of vampires more seasoned and cruel than he. For a time, he was bound to the crypt of a qlipphothic sage, who unboxed him every few years to ask the same question: “What is your name?” When the Nabataean could no longer answer with certainty, his host sold him to yet another Kindred eager to possess the undying curio. The only constant in his indentured unlife was the ruling that bound him to coffin and clan, but it was that same ruling that prevented his soul from falling prey to the Amaranth or to the Final Death. After a few centuries, the Nabataean no longer knew whether he felt this to be a blessing or a curse.

When the Reconquista returned much of Al-Andalus to Christian (and more importantly, non-Lasombra) hands, the Nabataean returned once more to the Middle East, where he found himself the idle plaything of one Sheik al-Khali, called the Empty Prince. A man of infinite tales and riddles, the sheik’s favored form of interaction with his prize was to remove the stake and play tribal host, pretending that the Nabataean was an honored guest from afar. At the end of a long evening of heady drink and discussion, the Empty Prince set a riddle before his captive audience. Should the Nabataean guess correctly in time, he would win his freedom. If not, back to the box. Knowing his guest’s worldly experience had stopped abruptly at the turn of the millennium, the sheik’s riddles could be chosen accordingly, and thus, their outcome was never really in doubt.

By the end of World War II, the Nabataean had fallen into the possession of one Mirri al-Lam’a, childe of King Sharif and blood sister to the monarch of the Lasombra in North Africa. The Nabataean still doesn’t know how or why he ended up in her care, for she never unboxed and interacted with him the way the others had, she simply kept him stored in her cool cellar. But none of that mattered, anyway, since she was the last vampire to ever play host to his body.

Mirri al-Lam’a was the sole Lasombra resident (and de facto Prince) of the town of Sirte, Libya. Yet even as Sirte grew under the auspices of its prodigal son, Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi, the city’s Kindred activity remained constrained, as though its most tenured resident sought actively to avoid others of her kind. When the Arab Spring finally arrived at Qaddafi’s doorstep in October of 2011, the resulting hostilities made a wet, smoking ruin of Sirte, as well as Qaddafi.

What no one knows is that the Arab Spring accomplished an important Cainite event at the same time: the release of the Nabataean, after 1,000 long years of nightmares both real and imagined.

He awoke to find himself submerged. The siege of Sirte was accompanied by not only shelling and gun battles in the streets, but also flooding. And while the sub-basement that was his resting place had been secured against intrusion and sunlight, it hadn’t been entirely waterproof. With his stake dislodged and his host nowhere to be found, the Nabataean was on his own for the first time in a millennium. Were it not for the water everywhere and his ability to take his rest where he may, he almost certainly would have either met the sun or lost himself to frenzy.

Since his rude awakening, the Nabataean finds the world a stark and disorientating place. His unspeakably long torpor didn’t drive him mad, but it did strip him of many of his memories, much compassion, and even his identity, including his own mortal name. His first act of volition was to leave Sirte, which was still a ruin by the time he escaped the tomb that had been his most recent home. As if by instinct, he followed his memory of self east, heading back to the ruins of Petra.

Along the way, he stopped in Egypt and watched the fallout of the Arab Spring take hold there. He’d been to Egypt before, with his sire, but the place was of course unrecognizable to him now. After a run-in with a nomadic Sabbat pack (of whom he made dizzyingly short work), he followed the political ghibli once more, crossing the border first into Sinai and thence into Palestine, where he gazed in grim understanding at the familiar face of oppression and the loss of self-determination. When he arrived in Petra, his fear that it’d be nothing more than historical curio was confirmed.

As of tonight, only one purpose drives the Nabataean. He seeks to reconnect with his lost sire. Centuries of fitful sleep have robbed him of his certitude, but something tells him that his sire is yet undead, and if he can find him, maybe he can assemble the pieces of his past and move forward. With no contacts and nowhere concrete to start, he is reduced to wandering lands he once knew, now unfamiliar to him, alone and bereft of the guidance of even his own god. He wanders now, as in nights of old — wanders and wonders if he is indeed the last of his kind.

Sire: Antipater of the Hoof

Clan: Lasombra

Nature: Idealist

Demeanor: Martyr

Generation: 7th

Embrace: 747 CE

Apparent Age: late teens/early 20s

Physical: Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Stamina 5

Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 3

Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 5

Talents: Alertness 4, Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Brawl 4, Subterfuge 2

Skills: Etiquette 4, Melee 3, Stealth 2, Survival 5

Knowledges: Academics 1, Craft 4, Investigation 3, Occult 3

Disciplines: Auspex 2, Fortitude 3, Obtenebration 4, Potence 4, Protean 3

Backgrounds: Mentor 4 (though the Nabataean cannot again call upon this mentorship, yet), Status 1 (Lasombra)

Merits/Flaws: Code of Honor, Iron Will, Language (Arabic, Aramaic) / Amnesia

Virtues: Conscience 1, Self-Control 5, Courage 5

Morality: Humanity 7 (treat as Humanity 5 until the Nabataean has an epiphany that returns his forgotten Humanity to him)

Willpower: 8

Blood Pool/Max per Turn: 20/4

Image: The Nabataean is handsome but unremarkable at first glance, an Arab of indeterminable extraction, standing just under 5’10” and possessed of a mason’s hands and upper body build. He does claim one physical curiosity among his kind, however. Like a mortal who went for decades without exposing his body to very much weather, pressure, or sun, the Nabataean’s skin is incredibly life-like for a vampire of his advanced age. This absence of the Cainite’s trademark pallid cast has already proven fatal to younger, cocksure vampires who thought him an easy mark. While he’s acquired enough contemporary clothing to get by without drawing undue attention, it’s clear to any discerning eye that the Nabataean is quite literally a man out of time.

Roleplaying Hints: The Nabataean can’t quite relate to the people around him, yet, and he’s still in the process of rediscovering humanity in toto, so that he can rediscover his own humanity. It’s all coming back — slowly — but until he gets his bearings, the Nabataean will have to walk a fine line between the poles of his own being, between way too little and way too much. And when one is an ancient nocturnal predator, those kinds of growing pains can be quite painful, indeed, especially to those who would think to prey upon him.

Haven: The Nabataean learned from his sire the Gangrel trick of taking one’s rest in the cold ground, and like a feral animal, he retreats into this mindset with the dawn of each new day. While he’s certainly capable of finding and establishing a true haven of his own, the concept simply isn’t on his mind for the time being. All he wants is to move, as he did in the old nights, and until he finds either his sire or a suitable source of answers, that’s unlikely to change.

Influence: If his sire is indeed still undead, he would be quite an influential figure in his own right come the modern nights, but the Nabataean can’t access any such influence, of course. Given his age and physical capabilities, he could easily become an influential member of either the Camarilla or the Sabbat, but thus far his understanding of both sects is greatly limited, and such aspirations aren’t even a concern to him for the time being. Once he acclimates, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with, but until that time his main concern is finding his sire — and his place.

 

ChilRev: Azrael

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Setites in the domains of the einherjar.

Below, you’ll find Azrael, a black metal musician whose concept came directly from the comments section of previous blog posts (thanks, Paul Smith!). Eddy took the core concept and cleaned it up a bit for publication, then I went through and made a few adjustments to take into account the greater directions of the book.

Originally, Azrael was a Brujah. As you might suspect, though, Children of the Revolution has a great many Brujah, so part of my development work has been to consider the individual concepts and see if we can adjust those to give a greater spread of clan perspectives. Azrael became a Setite, in fact, because it was a good fit for the geographical location in which his background was built. The idea that the Setites have some of their power in the Scandinavian countries has been a part of the clan lore since the Revised era, and the Followers of Set’s serpent iconography lends itself well to the idea of Jormungandr encircling the world.

In the end, the cool character concept meshed well with the clan presence in the setting and resulted in a guy I think you’ll find unique.

<1>Azrael

<n>The easy definition of “black metal” is a genre of heavy metal popularized by a fast tempo, screaming vocals, distorted guitar, and a strong DIY aesthetic. But the roots of the movement are much more ideological — sincere Satanism, neo-Nazi ideology, and outright aggression against organized Christianity. Black metal is angry at anything and everything, and Norway in the early 1990s was the center of this passionate revolution against the trappings of so-called “morality.” And Azrael was right in the middle of it all.

He was born in 1970 as Sven Fortinbras, to poor Norwegian parents in Bergen. An exceptionally intelligent child, Sven grew up watching his family work hard to earn whatever money they could to get by. Day after day his mother and father would come home, bone-weary after another day of back-breaking work, only to have a small dinner of cheap, easily prepared food. Every night they prayed to God, thanking them for what little they had. It was a subsistence life, Sven realized as an early teenager, an unexamined state little more than animal instinct.

Azrael’s disgust with the situation he and his family were endured grew year after year. He hated the government that allowed poverty, hated the world that created such a situation, and hated the God who got all the credit for the things his parents labored to earn. School offered him only more of the same, so he became quiet and insular, losing himself in his love of heavy metal and reading book after book on paganism, particularly those about the old Norse pantheon. He taught himself how to play the guitar, frequently trying new sounds and structures that better reflected the fury trapped within him, a fury so intense he couldn’t even articulate it.

When he was 20 he left Bergen for Oslo, hoping to find others who understood and shared his anger. For a year he ended up holding the same kinds of shit jobs his parents meekly performed, and he was barely able to make do. A co-worker and fellow metalhead introduced him to black metal bands like Mayhem and Burzum, and the music’s aggressive individuality, anti-authoritarian stance, and burning hatred for Christianity spoke to him. He bought every album, demo, and single he could with what little money he could scrape together, and made copies of whatever tapes he couldn’t afford.

Then he heard about a new record shop called Helvete, which was backed by the guitarist of Mayhem, Euronymous. He started hanging out there, calling himself “Azrael,” and quickly earned the attention of the other black metal musicians who hung out there. He became part of the “Black Circle” that met in Helvete’s basement, surrounded by black walls, medieval weapons, cheaply produced posters, and plastic tombstones. They screamed, fought, drank, laughed, intensely worshipped Satan (not like those LaVeyan pussies), and plotted the destruction of everything and everyone, while Azrael listened and learned.

His sincere passion, sharp wit, and strangely quiet nature drew the attention of Brynjar, a Setite of the Old Norse strain and a bitter enemy of the Oslo Camarilla. Brynjar was part of a defunct Norwegian punk band in the 70s before his Embrace, and he had been slumming in the black metal scene because it reminded him a little of his mortal days. He paid attention to Azrael, surprised and attracted to his honest and intelligent charisma. Brynjar gave Azrael the Embrace after one of the Black Circle meetings, and Azrael became an enthusiastic member of the Cult of Jormungand temple of Setites.

As the neonate was learning about his transition into the ranks of the Damned, things in Helvete were getting out of control. One member of the Black Circle committed suicide, and a second took pictures of the corpse and used it for an album cover. A third had been bragging about murdering a gay man for propositioning him in a forest just outside Lillehammer. Unlike the rest of the community, who tried to act like it was cool but were secretly shocked by it all, Azrael found himself unfazed by it all, and he was more moved by his apathy than by the grisliness of the scene. He was a vampire now, and suicide and murder were pedestrian compared to the unholy thing he had become.

What really got his attention were the plans that some of the more extreme musicians made to burn down various churches in Norway as a statement. He quickly got involved, excited at the prospect of doing something tangible against a God he hated so much. It wasn’t until the arsons were national news before Brynjar even realized Azrael was involved, but word quickly spread to the rest of Kindred society. Before Brynjar could even get a chance to talk to Azrael, the Malkavian Primogen demanded that Azrael be brought before the a Camarilla Conclave to answer for the arsons. Brynjar, unwilling to suffer a staking for his reckless childe’s zeal, tricked Azrael into heeding the Prince’s demand for satisfaction, claiming that he was to receive the Cult of Jormungand’s foulest rites of initiation.

Azrael arrived painted in his stage makeup and dressed like a Satanic Viking right off of an album cover, and it was that look that was etched into the minds of the assembled Kindred of the Ivory Tower as the Malkavian Primogen congratulated him for his good work. It turned out that one of the old churches that was torched was the safe house for the Oslo Society of Leopold, ridding the local Camarilla of a number of nascent hunters in their midst. Azrael was quick to accept credit for the deed, and despite being a fledgling and a Setite, he was given a position of minor power as a Hound of the Sheriff. Brynjar tried to convince Azrael that this was a trap, that he was just working for another authoritarian figure like the ones he always rebelled against, but the fledgling was wickedly giddy with power. He felt like he had a mandate to take the war against Christianity in the name of the Camarilla and the Setite temple, that he had achieved what others of his clan had failed to accomplish, and that he was naturally superior to the lowly sire who had made him. Azrael scoffed at Brynjar’s advice, and Brynjar told his childe to go fuck himself before leaving Oslo to its war with the hunters.

However, the “war” was short-lived. The Society of Leopold was not destroyed by the arson, merely wounded — and now convinced of its righteousness. They pulled rallied their hallowed slayers and struck back against the Damned. A week of strategic strikes rocked the Camarilla as Kindred after Kindred was staked and put to the torch, including the Prince. The surviving Kindred blamed their newly promoted fledgling, cursing him for the very thing they rewarded him for weeks earlier. He was banished from Oslo. Azrael finally saw the Malkavian Primogen’s Jyhad ruse that Brynjar tried to warn him about, and with his middle finger firmly in the air, he left Norway under exile and threat of Lextalionis.

His brief career in Kindred politics in shambles, Azrael decided to return to his first love and form a band. Abandoning the Satanic trappings of the Black Circle, he focused on Norway’s pagan past. His band Ynglinga kept the black metal sound and stage theatrics of his former inspirations as well as an indelible enmity toward organized Christianity, but as he moved further and further away from Scandinavia, his style became more and more distinct. After a couple of years, he eventually ended up on the outs with his former idols, who regularly threatened his life in letters and interviews over his perceived abandonment of the Dark Lord Satan. A spate of murders and suicides among their ranks have never been officially tied to Azrael, but he gleefully claimed credit and threatened more of the same. As the millennium drew to a close, Ynglinga earned the attention of a record label in New York looking for a band that could provide the black metal sound without all the negative publicity of being Satanists. Realizing that Scandinavia was becoming too tense for him, Azrael agreed, and Ynglinga made the trans-Atlantic trip to North America.

Since then, Azrael has supplemented his band and his music career with the occasional bit of mercenary work among Kindred society, though he refuses to knuckle under to any sect. The Setites of New York find him alienating and disgusting, far from the more traditional Serpent backgrounds and Egyptian-influenced temples of the main branch of the clan. Azrael has been known to work for the Camarilla and the Anarchs, and even a short term of prestation with the New York Giovanni, though the two ended up on hostile terms. All the while wearing his stylized makeup and “gothic Viking” outfit, he has rapidly gained a name among the Damned and the black metal subculture. The only sect he won’t work for is the Sword of Caine, but he refuses to explain why. Some Kindred hadflies speculate that the Sabbat’s Caine-revering form of Christianity is too repulsive to him. Further, Azrael’s role in the murder of members of the Society of Leopold has made him an enemy to the rest of the Inquisition, and more than once, he’s used his band’s touring schedule as an excuse to skip town before the hunters have caught up to him.

In recent nights, Azrael has disappeared. Rumors run rampant as to what happened to him. Some theorize that the Inquisition finally got back at him, while others claim the Sabbat have hunted him for some crime against them. Still others believe that he has returned to Norway and subverted the Cult of Jormungand. A few suggest that he’s just tired of all of the bullshit within the Jyhad and he’s lying low to work on his next album. Whatever the reason, Azrael has captured the imagination (and paranoia) of the Kindred populace, and the most curious won’t be comfortable until know for certain what he’s planning.

<s>Sire: Brynjar

Clan: Followers of Set

Nature: Visionary

Demeanor: Monster

Generation: 12th

Embrace: 1992

Apparent Age: Early 20s

Physical: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3

Social: Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2

Mental: Perception 2, Intelligence 3, Wits 2

Talents: Brawl 1, Expression 3, Intimidation 3, Streetwise 2

Skills: Drive 2, Firearms 3, Melee 3, Performance (Black Metal) 4, Stealth 2, Survival 1

Knowledges: Occult 4, Investigation 1

Disciplines: Presence 3, Serpentis 1

Background: Allies (band and groupies) 3, Fame (black metal guitarist) 2, Resources 2, Retainers (road crew, record label) 2

Virtues: Conscience 1, Self-Control 4, Courage 3

Morality: Humanity 5

Willpower: 6

Blood Pool/Max per Turn: 11/1

<n>Image: Azrael is larger than life in just about every way. He is close to seven feet tall and he wears thick, bulky boots that make him even taller. His long, blond hair is regularly died raven black, and hangs over his face like a death-shroud.

Whether on stage or mingling in Kindred society, Azrael looks like an unholy cross between a goth biker and a modern Viking: long, black leather coats, black and silver furs around his shoulders, white shoe-polished logos on the back and sleeves, and lots of morbid silver jewelry. He has polished stainless steel studs through his ears, eyebrows, nose, and lip. Even his gloves have pointed silver spikes on the knuckles, and his guitars are often solid black with white and silver accents. Every inch of remaining visible skin is painted to make him look (even more) like a walking corpse, but as time goes on, he finds he needs the makeup less and less.

Outside of “the uniform,” Azrael looks much less intimidating. He generally keeps to T-shirts and jeans over heavy-duty work boots, and the amount of silver jewelry dwindles to a handful of rings and a necklace, all displaying some element of his Norse faith. Those familiar with his ostentatious appearance are often surprised as how quickly and carefully he moves. He is a big man in a world just a little too small for him, and he has the studied movements of someone who has spent decades making sure he doesn’t accidentally run into or break things.

Roleplaying Hints: Azrael is bizarre, opinionated, and divisive. He treats his band and his fans like worshippers, all praying to the altar of Fuck Authority. While he is still very young for a Kindred, his fanaticism and lack of fear of Final Death propel him into actions that other Kindred find incomprehensible. His actions make perfect sense to him, but between his self-constructed belief system and his Embrace in an extremely violent and chaotic subculture (as well as a dose of paranoia), it’s not surprising that his actions seem manic to the more stolid vampires around him.

Those who know of Azrael only by reputation or through his stage persona are often caught off-guard by how soft-spoken he is in person. Far from the stereotype of the loud, profanity-spewing, renegade fledgling, he is quiet and thoughtful, often pausing as if considering each thought. On the other hand, he doesn’t see the point in saying anything but what’s on his mind, and the opinions he shares are often just a hostile as any vitriol-laden rant.

Despite (or perhaps because of) his revolutionary and borderline sociopathic opinions, he is surprisingly humble. He doesn’t think of himself as the leader of Ynglinga but rather the first among peers. In his mind, everyone in the longboat is pulling at the oars — he’s just the one counting out the strokes. His natural inclination toward pure democracy makes him particularly attractive to the Anarchs (and dangerous to the other sects), but Azrael doesn’t consider it to be any sort of radical governmental structure. It’s just how he does things, and he’s often disappointed and angry when others don’t see it that way.

Haven: Due to his constant touring and escapes, Azrael has a number of small, improvised bolt-holes throughout North America. Many motel rooms and truck stops that end up “destroyed” by the band are actually hastily secured havens used to keep sunlight and hunters at bay. Azrael does have a few safe houses scattered across the country that he uses for storage or a more secure place to hide when necessary. Overall, though, he tries to stay as mobile as possible.

Influence: As his fame continues to become more and more cultic, various elders are forced to decide if Azrael is a pawn to court or an enemy to crush. They would find either option difficult: So far, Azrael hasn’t found much need for sects, and whether due to beginner’s luck or divine providence, he’s managed to come out unscarred by much of the Jyhad. With the adoration of the Anarchs, the concern of the more orderly sects, and the pragmatic manipulations of the independent clans, though, someone is going to take a swing at Azrael, and soon.

Assuming the Society of Leopold doesn’t get to him first, of course.

ChilRev: Siring in “Interesting Times”

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"Um... nothing. I was just... look, I have to go."

A little more of the work in progress, this time from the introduction that looks at clan culture as it relates to Embraces in times of revolution.

Assamites

The Assamites play both sides of Revolution to the hilt. Some of their most lucrative contracts for assassination come in domains in the midst of rebellion, power struggles, or other dangerous detentes among powerful but vicious Kindred. At the same time, in domains where Assamites hold sway, the Path of Blood and the codes of Haqim make for an orderly society, at least to outsiders’ view. Internally, the Clan of Assassins is as rife with schism as any other, but the clan practices a philosophy that places common external enemies before enemies within the Assamite order itself.

The result is that most Assamites are drawn more from revolutions in the mortal world than they are in the midst of turbulent Kindred events. The Assamite Embrace is rarely one given in haste or without consideration, and many Assassin sires watch their potential childer for years if not decades before performing the act. Even when great events shake the foundation of Kindred society, the response of the Assamites is more often to vanish into the shadows and formulate a plan than to throw cannon fodder in front of the problem. This pragmatism surprises few who know the ways of the Assassins.

One notable exception colors the history of Assamite stoicism in the face of upheaval. After the Convention of Thorns, when the Assamites deliberately placed themselves outside the Camarilla, a period of open war between the Assassins’ Clan and the Ivory Tower began, and lasted for almost a decade. During this period, the Assamites performed the Embrace with uncharacteristic profligacy. To hear them tell it, they had no choice: The combined might of seven clans had been turned against them, and the only thing saving them from extinction was the ability to induct new members into Haqim’s brood. Comparatively few of the Assamites Embraced between 1493 and the early 16th century still exist, having succumbed to torpor or meeting Final Death during this wartime, but those who do survive have been tempered in the flames of the single most defining conflict in the clan’s history — which, when discussing the Assassins, speaks greatly to these vampires’ acumen, guile, and tenacity.

Lasombra

As is ever the way, those who wield power are loath to share it, and this adage is certainly true when the Lasombra are involved. The Keepers have a long and aristocratic history, and very few mortal movements culminate in the restoration of aristocracies to power, especially in these preposterously democratic modern nights. Thus, when a Lasombra aligns himself with a rebellious movement, he does so with much to gain. When a Lasombra Embraces a childe during a time of tumult, she does so in order to fortify her own position. Case in point: The Sabbat. Who would have guessed that the Keepers would be one of two nominal leaders of such a movement? But when the fire in the Kindred blood rose, the Lasombra saw their opportunity and, striking down their own leader, placed themselves at the forefront of revolutionary thought and action…

…Into which they promptly installed themselves as an aristocracy.

The Lasombra character is one of individuality and sufficiency, however, and the revolutions that call to them are much less of the bomb-tossing and beheading ilk, and much more of the kind that subtly but significantly change behavior. During the Age of Exploration, much Lasombra money, influence, and childer poured into the New World. (Even tonight, the “privateer spirit” still holds sway among certain Keepers.) When the Sabbat was on the ropes in the New World, Lasombra interests found a home for it in Mexico. Lasombra clergymen leveraged the weight of their prayers in numerous wars and schisms during the Dark Ages, and among certain Kindred historians, no small activity during the Burning Times did so as a result of Lasombra “suggestion.” Although the Keepers have no great facility with Eastern culture or philosophy, the Chinese principle of weiji has its adherents among many Lasombra seeking to sire: that crisis or instability often carries opportunity in its wake. In a clan that reveres lineage and accomplishment as much as the Lasombra do, a Cainite’s legacy may be greatly augmented by an equally meritorious childe.

And if that childe must spill blood to realize her potential, well, the Lasombra see no reason to apologize for being vampires.

ChilRev: Lados

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Okay, friends, let’s take a look at the first vampire to emerge from the fires of the revolution. In this case, we have a Greek general who made his fortune in the wars of the diadochi, after the fall of Alexander the Great, whose empire spanned “the known world” and whose death left a power vacuum so immense that the struggle to succeed him lasted almost 50 years.

What I think this character does well is show that you don’t have to have all your Traits pegged to be really, really old (in Kindred terms and historical terms). Here’s a Kindred who had accomplished much, mostly by dint of being clever as opposed to having giant dice pools. This is a good example of having a character who is as much defined by his shortcomings as his strengths. At the same time, though, he’s not a wretched or feeble figure. He knows he’s in Hell and he’s going to make what he can of it.

Without further ado, then, here’s Lados.

<1>Lados, the Lion of Bactria

<n>Lados surveyed the battlefield. Hundreds — thousands — of his brothers and countrymen lay broken and bloody, brought low by the ambitions of his fellow generals. After the death of Alexander, the outlying empire had plunged into kinslaying anarchy, with each of the diadochi trying to claim for himself a place where he might best reap the rewards of Alexander’s ambition. The roll of the vying competitors read like a veritable who’s who of the empire: Antipater, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Leonnatus. Among them stood an ambitious but lowborn peltast who had a mind for fighting and a tongue for praise. And with both these charms, Lados climbed the ranks of the Greek military and seized a position among the other jackal-princes surrounding the carcass of Alexander.

Kindred society at this time was as factionalized as the world of mortal cultures. Greece belonged very much to the Brujah at their zenith, with the backing of a few enlightened Ventrue. Persia was the domain of the Toreador, interspersed with Ravnos ghûls both noble and common and the indigenous Tzimisce of the paynim domains. The shattered remains of Samiel’s brood held their territories against the barbarians even further east and the fierce Gangrel of the northeastern steppes. Amid these clashing bloodlines and warring cultures the Clan of the Moon, landless, unwelcome, had to make what it could of a world united under the banner of a fair-faced mortal son of a conquering Macedonian horse-king.

Thus, under a moonless sky, a philosopher crept into the fortress of Lamia and brought the soldier Lados into a world of eternal night. This philosopher, a Malkavian of unremembered name, sought to make the Regent of Athens his catspaw by Embracing his trusted advisors. Lados, he whispered into the fear-blanched face of his progeny, belonged to the night. It was then that Lados first knew fear. His was a fearful death away from the known violence of the battlefield, and a vile rebirth amid the blood and shit and ruin of his mortal corpse. The depth of his isolation gripped him in that long, terrible first night of being a vampire, and his sire probed this wound with malice and Dementation. Over a year passed, in which the mad prophet tormented his childe with extended bouts of abandonment that resulted in Lados being paralyzed by fear when left on his own.

So it was that Lados returned to Lamia by way of Athens, there finding the remains of his army out of shape and of dwindling ability and number. His lieutenants had all but exhausted the once-considerable war chest, preferring idle (if frugal) pleasures over the peril of the battlefield. What choice did Lados have? If he admonished his soldiers, they would leave. Reconnecting himself with Antipater’s court, the Malkavian set himself up as a dependable but uninspired shadow of himself, the better that the Regent might overlook him while still giving him access to the wealth and influence of the Empire.

Politics can be ugly, however, and the Hellenistic Brujah resented the intrusion of “outsiders” into their domains. A league of Brujah nobles and generals took notice of Lados and planned to make an example of him. And though Lados had been fractured by the Malkavian Embrace, he was certainly no fool. The new retinue with which he had surrounded himself included no few Brujah spies, but also included a number of loyal thralls and lovers. When word of the planned action against him reached his ears, Lados turned the intrigues of the Greek Kindred against their architects.

Pledging a boon to one of the Kali-venerating Tzimisce of Bactria, Lados had one of his slaves flesh- and bonecrafted into an icon of himself. Through an extended regimen of both Dominate personality subjugation and the sensory sensitivity of Auspex, Lados convinced his slave that he was the body and true Lados the mind, a dualistic creature destined for divinity. Where Lados the Kindred traveled in thought, Lados the thrall followed in body. Hiding himself beneath a cenotaph to Alexander, the Malkavian used his slave to expose his rival Kindred as demon-worshippers and Persian spies, orchestrators of a blood-cult bent on the subjugation of the empire and the regicide of Antipater. The Regent himself, no stranger to the subtle treacheries of the wars of the diadochi believed his “faithful general” — especially when the slumbering forms of the betrayers were dragged into the sunlight and burst into flame — making a place for Lados in the vacuum left by the sudden paucity of the Brujah and their agents at court.

The Kindred Lados far outlasted Antipater, and reinvented his ghoul in the image of a descendant of the great family of Lados every several decades, to keep the suspicions of the courts allayed. Under the Seleucids, Lados and his slave brought a number of satraps under their sway, both through pledges of military support and through the damning power of the Blood. Indeed, Bactria was almost more Greek than Persian under Seleucid rule, which suited Lados admirably. For over two centuries the family of Lados — just himself and his identical ghoul with the occasional mortal lover who served as wife and later matron to the family before the Malkavian began the cycle anew — enjoyed power and prestige in the presence of kings. Cainite Princes rose and fell, and other Kindred looked to Lados as a model of how to dwell in the shadows, taking what one wanted without risking one’s unlife.

With so much time and comfort, Lados lost interest in the arts of war, and his armies transitioned from elites of the philosopher-kings to mercenary phalangites who raised their pikes only for pay to foul-tempered Yavanas who lived only to bully their pay from petty lords and drink their wages in wine.

Every general eventually faces his downfall, and for Lados, this came in the form of invasion. The armies of Rajuvula marauded into what was by then the Punjab. Lados had grown lazy and complacent, embracing the decadence of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, unwilling to concern himself with the discipline of his soldiers or the tactics of the menacing Scythians. As the armies of Stratos took the field against those of Rajuvula, Lados found his forces in the unenviable tactical position of the fore. Scythian arrows perforated his lines and panic set in among his slovenly troops. The Malkavian bellowed a desperate and wrathful advance — but found himself spitted on a spear wielded by Jaxartes, a riverfolk hoplite from the times of Alexander and one of the scheming Brujah Lados thought he had ruined in his purge of Antipater’s courts. Indeed, Lados had ruined Jaxartes, who fled eastward and hid among the debased, evil Toreador of Persia. With Rose Clan patronage, Jaxartes was one of the instruments of vengeance of the Parthian Kindred, who resented the legacy of Alexander and the fall of the Achaemenids, and who spared no opportunity to strike back at the crumbling Greek domains. Staked on his slayer’s assegai, the world went dark for Lados, who was stomped, torpid, into the bloody mud outside Sagala. There, he spent almost two thousand years in a dreamless sleep, stirring beneath the earth only when the madness in his blood forced a defiant twitch.

A titan’s roar awakened the slumbering Malkavian, who had by then spent centuries tumbling through the nightmares of starvation made all the more harrowing by the curse of his clan. The titan — a smoke-belching metal monstrosity birthed from the loins of the gorgon herself — gouged Lados from the ground and spat him down, where her foul minions prodded him and gibbered in some debased form of the Empire’s enemy tongue. The savagery of the fire in his deathless Blood ignited and, freshly torn from torpor, Lados entered a frenzy as much from fear as from rage. When the low men who had woken him lay in tatters and the titan slumped lifelessly in the shadow cast by the moon, Lados calmed, gathered his wits, and walked back into the city once held by his patron-king.

No stranger to the depredations of the Malkavian mind, Lados thought himself in the throes of a fit, but the insanity refused to relent. The stone castles and metal spires surrounding him, and the million-plus desperate, filthy, beating mortal hearts surrounding him would not disperse. This was no dream. The titan had woken Lados from his troubled torpor only to throw him into the jaws of the Ancients. The madness of the earth and sky assailed him. These must be the End Times.

And yet… they weren’t. This madness that surrounded him, that must have leached from his mind into the domains of untold years before, teetered on the brink of world-ruin without plunging. Bit by bit, in the two decades since his emergence from torpor, Lados has gathered and synthesized what fragments he can of this inchoate time. Its veneration of metal and speed, it hypocrisies and its wealth and licentiousness and its thinking machines — these all elude Lados just enough to keep him forever on edge and occasionally beyond it. Oddly, he finds himself most comfortable with other Kindred, even when he knows they may oppose or betray him. At least, in his mind, their evil and frailties are understandable. The world-machine of the hateful demiurges, however, truly vexes him. Only in the unchanging culture of these Damned, whether they call it a “Camarilla” or “Sabbat,” does Lados find constancy.

How long can the world balance on the razor’s edge, on the scales of Themis, before it collapses into Typhon’s gorge? How long until the blood-gods erupt from Haidou and drag their progeny, burning, into Tartarus? And how much of his own private empire can Lados rebuild before then? Enough to make the scorched husk of the world his final, solitudinous tomb?

Sire: Lykia (unconfirmed)
Clan: Malkavian
Nature: Conniver
Demeanor: Conformist
Generation: 8th
Embrace: 322 BC
Apparent Age: late 30s
Physical: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4
Social: Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2
Mental: Perception 2, Intelligence 3, Wits 3
Talents: Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Leadership 4, Subterfuge 3
Skills: Etiquette 2, Melee 4, Survival 3
Knowledges: Academics 3, Finance 2, Investigation 3
Disciplines: Auspex 3, Dementation 4, Dominate 4
Background: Allies (mortal family) 2, Resources 3 (non-renewing remains of the war chest)
Virtues: Conscience 2, Self-Control 4, Courage 4
Morality: Humanity 5
Willpower: 6
Blood Pool/Max per Turn: 15/3

Image: Lados has the classical build and striking features of antiquity. He is short by modern standards, with remarkably bronze skin that looks almost stony with the pallor of the Embrace. Lados still doesn’t have a solid grasp of modern style, and his clothing seems anachronistic if not outright bizarre as he find the pulse of the modern world.

Roleplaying Hints: Lados moves with the efficiency and authority of a military leader. He is accustomed to being heeded, so these millennia after his apex, he doesn’t understand how so many of the common folk seem to be so willful, and his interactions with modern people tend to be terse or even hostile. As well, with Kindred society having forgotten him, Lados often oversteps himself, not realizing that the Status he enjoyed in the courts of the Indo-Greek kings has left him. He is used to being granted an audience with Princes upon demand… which, with no current Status to speak of, typically isn’t how it works anymore.

Haven: The types of havens Lados seeks lie close to the territories where esteemed Kindred of power reside. Although he has fallen from favor, he seeks to introduce himself back into the society of the august undead, in whichever domain he may currently reside. Wherever he finds himself, he establishes a haven with a collection of artifacts from Antiquity that will soon be that darling of the Harpies in any domain that considers itself refined.

Influence: Over the millennia, Lados’ influence has waned and vanished, leaving him wholly alone in the modern nights with the exception of a handful of his mortal descendants, whose connection to the Malkavian is tenuous but reinforced by Dominate and frequent exposure to vitae. It has not always been thus, however, and Lados seeks to make powerful contacts in any domain where he settles, starting at the low end of the Status ladder, if need be, and clawing his way to the top. Despite his shattered mind and mad lineage, Lados recognizes that he is a stranger in a strange time, and unlike many modern Kindred, he doesn’t cast aside those who aid him as soon as they have no immediate use to him. He greatly fears once again succumbing to the cold nightmare of torpor, so he tries to stay on good terms with as many of the Kindred who have shown him favor as possible, in the interests of making as few enemies as possible.

Derangement: With his recent emergence from torpor, Lados is obsessed with the unknown number of Kindred he worries may have met a fate similar to his. In his mind, every stretch of land is the tomb of a ravenous Kindred, and on the fast-approaching night of Gehenna, the earth-sea will roil with the Damned, boiling up bloodthirsty vampires who will consume the world and then be consumed by their hellish progenitors. Indeed, the (comparatively) trusting nature Lados displays toward other Kindred he meets is justified by the fact that they’re lucid and at least a known quantity, unlike the monsters who will pry themselves up from their unmarked tombs and devour the land and everything upon it. In most cases, Lados is actually remarkably calm for a Malkavian, displaying only a mild paranoia that isn’t actually out of place in the world of the undead. When the true gravity of his fear grasps him, however, he is inconsolable, racked by fear and the agonies of knowing that he walks upon a landscape made of millions of fallen men and vampires who await only the cue of the End Times to become the pave-stones on the road to Hell itself. Lados is nigh upon fearless in the face of threats he can understand, a soldier tempered by war and savagery, but the horrors of his imagination reduce him to little more than a quivering invalid when confronted with the the terrifying loneliness of the final night.

ChilRev: What’s Next?

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We’ve had the outline for Children of the Revolution up for about a week now, and we’re seeing some good submission material. I always expected some good ideas to come from the V20 Open Dev crowd, but I’d like to congratulate you guys on the quality of the writing in the submissions, too! Usually, an Internet open call results in an avalanche of long-tailed crazytalk and semi-literate nonsense (some of which you may have read when it was released under the title of Twilight). This time, though, the responses have been of a remarkably high quality, so I really want to make a point of mentioning that. You guys are making my job easy… at least for now.

Hello, ladies. Who wants to be a vampire?

One of the places I’d like the submissions to steer, now that I’ve praised those of you who have put forth suggestions, is to place a little more focus on the “revolution” aspect of “Children of the Revolution.” We have several insightful character concepts, but I feel like we’re a little thin on tying these characters to times of rebellion, building order from chaos (or thriving amid the chaos), or other demonstrations of how the Kindred’s outlook was shaped by the revolution in question. Given that the tumult of society is the underlying theme of this title, it must feature prominently in the backstory, motivation, and outlook of each of the characters.

It also bears repeating: Marquis-de-Carabas asked if modern revolutions were fair game for character backgrounds. Very much so! The V20 project has made specific efforts to update Vampire into a “constant now,” and since that now is, well, now, it can certainly fit a Kindred’s situation and then seamlessly blend into the role of history as more time passes between the time the book is published and some undefined point in the future.

Whoah. All this talk about time and liquid now has my head swimming like a Cultist of Ecstasy.

So what’s next for the Children of the Revolution project? This week’s plan is to have the first character fleshed out and developed, which I plan to have done tomorrow. From there, we’ll move forward with other characters. If we’re at a place with the first character that feels right, I’ll pass it on to Richard Thomas, who can begin his art direction process. That’s one of the interesting aspects about working on this book, too. Because of its folio-type arrangement, there are no real traditional chapters sorting the content topically. If you have a handy copy of Children of the Inquisition or Kindred Most Wanted, you’ll see a similar format: The artwork focuses on the individual unique character, as opposed to the more general informational construct of the chapter.

Children of the Revolution Outline

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Children of the Revolution is a rogue’s gallery of those Embraced “in interesting times,” to use a euphemism. In times of upheaval and turmoil those who join the ranks of the Damned can’t help but be shaped by the chaotic events around them. The transformational disruption that occurs in the world remains indelibly with the Kindred Embraced in that moment, marking him as an agent of change among Kindred society in some capacity.

One example might be the Anarch Tyler from Chicago by Night, Embraced in the throes of active rebellion and forever characterized by her opposition to tyranny. The Lasombra Gratiano, Embraced by his clan’s progenitor, committed diablerie on that sire, forming the Sabbat in the crucible of that betrayal’s aftermath. The inscrutable Inconnu Dracula, playing one sect against the other while defending his homeland against the Turk incursions. All of these are excellent examples of the sorts of Kindred who could be considered “children of the revolution.”

Now it’s your turn. Examine an old chronicle of yours or describe a favored character’s backstory. Show us, in practice, the vampires who emerge from the interesting times of your chronicles or in your consideration of the World of Darkness. Delve into the secret history of Vampire, into the War of Ages and among the bloody annals of the Jyhad. What events in Kindred or mortal history shaped the vampire you propose?

Here’s how this is going to work. Propose a concept here on the Children of the Revolution Concepts page. We’ll go through the proposals and single some out, whereupon we’ll collaboratively craft the details and hang some flesh on these Kindred’s bones. As part of the Open Development process, we’ll be looking for your input on the most exciting periods of upheaval in World of Darkness history as well as ways to represent those events in the form of individual characters. Any feedback will help, whether you want to craft a loose idea or a paragraph of history or even a complete writeup. I make no promises that something written will be used, and ultimately this is going to be collected, polished, and probably rewritten. We’ll give proper credit where it’s due and ample opportunities for player feedback.

As character writeups approach completion, I’ll post them like I’ve done for chapters and excerpts previously in the Open Development process where the group’s collective eyes can consider them and offer more input. When we’ve finally hit or project scope size (about 60,000 words), we’ll send the thing off to the editor and get it assembled in layout.

Here are some guidelines as to what I’m looking for, conceptually and practically.

Be dynamic: These are the Children of the Revolution, vampires whose Embrace came in times of tumult. That can be upheaval in the mortal world, a disruptive event in Kindred history, or any creatively defined situation that changed the course of history forever afterward. Whereas many Kindred, especially Elders, are static and slow to change their ways, the Children of the Revolution are better able to adapt to — and even create — the moments that affect the flow of Kindred culture.

Be concise: Sixty thousand words sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. I think the individual writeups here would fall between 2,000 and 6,000 words each, including Traits. We’ll hit the high notes for the character, gild the concept with moody, exciting details, define the character in game terms, and then move on to the next.

Leave stones unturned: You don’t have to exhaustively define every detail in your Kindred’s tale. In fact, you shouldn’t. Leave a few gaps so that Storytellers can fit the character into their chronicles readily, and leave enough questions so that the character still has some issues to resolve in troupes’ chronicles. When you’re done describing the character, the Storyteller’s response shouldn’t be, “Well, that’s all wrapped up, then.” It should be “Aha, I can use this vampire in the troupe’s nightclub/ Sabbat war/ mystic artifact search/ whatever.”

Hooks: This is a game book, so the character you introduce should have plenty of opportunity for introduction into chronicles. Give us an interesting backstory, but give us a broad variety of ways to introduce the character into the stories we’re telling. The characters in Children of the Revolution shouldn’t be tableaux, they should be plug-and-play, ready for story sessions.

Invoke the Kindred condition: Remember that these characters are vampires, and their wants and needs as well as the circumstances of their Embraces need to play an important role in the character’s story. Why does this vampire do what she does? Why does she want what she wants and how does her being a vampire shape that agenda?

Plan for a complete Trait block: Again, this is a game book, so give us the systems descriptions we need to introduce these characters into our chronicles. Know where to leave things unsaid and where to call out a new combo Discipline in a sidebar, for example. That said, you don’t need a new combo Discipline to make the character interesting.

More isn’t necessarily better: Super-badasses with every score at generational max need not apply. Whether your Kindred is set up to be a protagonist or antagonist, take advantage of the idea of primary, secondary, and tertiary realms of competence. All-fives doesn’t make for an interesting character, it just makes for big dice pools, and if a character is great at everything, he doesn’t have a flaw or weakness for enterprising players’ characters to discover and exploit (or protect…).

Use V20 as the operative edition: Just so it’s said. We didn’t make a huge volume of changes, but bear in mind how the Disciplines have been cleaned up, how we present the setting, and the minor systems tuning.

You get the picture. Cool character, functioning systems, ways to drop them into chronicles with a minimum of fuss. Okay? Whaddya got?