About Ash Jackson
Unaligned Gangrel
Stats
Str 3, Dex 2, Sta 4 (5 buy, clan stamina)
Int 2, Wits 2, Res 3 (4 buy)
Pre 2, Man 1, Cmp 3 (3 buy)
Skills
Athletics 3 Brawl 4 Drive 1 Stealth 2 Survival 1 (11 buy)
Academics 1 Investigation 1 Computer 1 Science 2 Medicine 2 (7 buy)
Animal Ken 1 Intimidation 1 Streetwise 1 Subterfuge 1 (4 buy)
Specs: Brawl (Frenzy), Streetwise (Hobos), Athletics (Parkour)
Discipline: Protean 3
+meld with processed stone (3xp)
BP: 3 (1, 6 merits)
Humanity 5 (Gain 10xp)
Merits: Herd 1
Status: Gangrel 1 (2xp)
Status: City 2 (6xp)
John was a scientist doing very ethically questionable work with animals in 1982. He drew the ire of Wild Eye Jack. Jack didn’t like what John was doing. Decided to teach him a lesson, and do a little experiment of his own.
Jack said “You can’t turn anyone. You have to love ‘em, or hate ‘em. What I’m doing to you I wouldn’t do to anyone I love.”
Jack embraced John, and stuck him in an underground area. John was forced to feed off animals. He’s get maybe a dog or two at first. Eventually he was up to a bull or so a week. Everything ghouled where possible. Turned out doing that for a while - ten years - will make someone potent, fast. John got two potent for animals to work, and while Jack threw down a guy or two, it was easier just to lock the hatch, bury it and wait for John to go into torpor and eventually come out of it able to eat again.
Plans changed in 2012, however. During the war Jack decided he could use John as a weapon. He woke him up and gave him one chance to join up. Desperate for anything that got him out of his cell John joined.
John turned out to be a pretty good fighter (he’d been killing prey for years). First mission he frenzied on an old vampire, killed him, and came out covered in the guy’s ash. That little escapade got him a reputation as a crazy man, and a new name, Ash.
Ash did well enough during the war that Jack was prepared to acknowledge and emancipate him - people started calling him Jack’s Son. Ash didn’t really understand, and the title became a name. Ash Jackson.
Someone did try Jack Ash, but he beat them into torpor.
Ash wanted to see his friends and family again, but 1982 was thirty years ago. His little sister is a grandmother now.
His life used to revolve around his work, but the gangrel curse, combined with the mental degradation of living in a near-lightless fight pit cellar for ten years and capped off by twenty years of torpor dreams means he’ll never be a real scientist again. He knows how smart he used to be, and he knows how smart he is now. Only when he’s in frenzy does his mind move at the normal speed.
Wild Eye Jack let him go, but didn’t set him up. He’s got the clothes on his back - clothes he stole from a dead hobo. He’s too inhuman to hunt well socially, can’t feed from animals and while he has tried mugging as a hunting method he knows vamps that do that get crazy, fast.
Speaking of crazy, he thinks of his beast as a seperate individual living inside him - a Mr Hyde to his Dr Jekyll. When bad things happen the beast comes out, and he can feel terrible about it later. This means that sometimes even when he’s not in Frenzy, he acts like he is.
He managed to set up one con though. There’s a rare disease (ooc I made it up) that causes the bodies healing mechanism to shut down. People with it get hurt, they stay hurt for a long time. Ash worked out Vitae helps, and ghouling someone helps a lot. He got in touch with one poor, desperate couple with a kid that had it, pretending to be a scientist with an experimental and illegal cure. When they wouldn’t believe Ash as scientist he quickly covered with a “he hired me so no-one can turn him in.” The cure worked, he claimed he needed “dna-compatible blood stem-cells” and they bought it. Whole family donates blood, he takes it, ghouls the kid every month. This family talked to some other families they knew, and now he’s trading blood for “medicine” about once or twice a week. Not a lot, but it’s enough to stop him starving. Ash likes the idea he’s helping people, and he’s under no illusion about his ability to lie. What’s saving him is the families’ desperate need to believe in a miracle.
A Coterie means he can get people to help him feed. Maybe even be friends. Ash doesn’t really understand people anymore. Maybe they’ll just treat him like a big, loyal guard dog, but that’s enough.
Ash doesn’t look that impressive. He’s about five foot six and thin, with sharp features. Grey eyes, brown-black hair. He usually wears boots, gloves, a few layers of pants, a faded red cap and a thick woolen jacket. He had a backpack, but it was stolen while he was sleeping in the Earth. He doesn’t look like much... But the Blood in him is hard, and fast, and violent. He’s tough, he’s strong and when he’s in frenzy he’s death itself. His blood is potent, and on the verge of thickening again.
