Bloody Snowflakes: A VTM20 Chronicle (Inactive)

Game Master Ridge

That cap in mind, 21 Freebies on 3 Discipline dots and 7 on Will and Occult sounds fine to me.

Alright, I am going to be unconventional and go with Vitreous as my Primary and Ash as my secondary. If I get Sepulchre via RP so be it!

I think I want my interactions with Ghosts to be less, I compel you and more conversational "how can I work with you" anyway.

Also, I am justifying the Ash path dot through a Diablerie in the background so at least there is a fig leaf for why I would be having two dots without the Primary Path at 3.

My initial XP expenditures will explore increasing Necromancy not for a greater understanding of Death cause honestly the PC could give a rats ass and more about using it to interact with the dead to gain information and a better understanding of the history of a location.

Looking forward to this one! Thanks again for running it, Vampire is by far and away my favorite game to play.

Oh, and you're welcome, of course. Hope I can do half as well as you do :)

Worry not! My game is great because the PCs make it great. You'll have me, Mordred, Talomyr, Edelsmirge and Samnell. Some of the best people on the boards in the game so it'll be bound to be awesome!

And you are right, I do have excellent players *G*

Arthur Carter
Concept - Demented Indiana Jones

Arthur was born in Kensington England to Martha and Roger Carter, the older brother of the man who would one day be world famous as an Egyptologist. In his youth, Arthur was considered callous to the extreme, a slight boy with a keen intellect he had the knack for manipulating those around him even where they were more powerful of build. There was always something a bit, off, about Arthur and children seemed to know better than to cross him (Eerie Presence).

As the Great War loomed, the studies of Arthur were interrupted by the call of all young men to Europe to defeat the menace of the Huns. Arthur took the opportunity to push for a position on the Battlefield as a Medic rather than as a foot soldier. The influence of his Uncle enabled him to pull just enough strings to get the job done.

The Oxford Medical school breathed a sigh of relief as Arthur was sent off to the War, normally a young man of his talents would not have been sent to the front lines but behind the scenes string were pulled to get him into the War! His direct advisor, perhaps the only mortal man who truly understood Arthur, wrote in his report that Arthur would more likely use his skills to replicate the works of Jack the Ripper then well anyone else really.

Perhaps they thought the War would either kill or humanize Arthur, it did neither. Oh there is no doubt that Arthur suffered from “shell shock” but his unique personality seemed to relegate the terrors that shocked soldiers into daytime difficulties to his dreams only (Nightmares).

By the end of the Great War, Arthur became a modestly successful physician. He lost many of his patients on the battlefield, this was attributed to their wounds rather than the truth of the matter, that Arthur murdered them to gain a better understanding of death and the effects of certain experiments upon them. His goal was to keep them hovering on death’s door as if frozen in time. Arthur generally experimented with those who would have soon died anyway having had a knack for recognizing which wounds were recoverable versus which would be fatal.

He won numerous awards for his calmness of heart and mind in the worst of situations. The men that served near him though knew that the man was cold blooded and despite being respected, he was feared by his peers.

Death interested Arthur at this time and once discharged, he wrote to his Uncle in Egypt requesting a position with him investigating the mysteries of the past. The medical world held no more interest for Arthur. Howard Carter agreed to bring his young nephew, a War hero, near physician, and brilliant young analytical mind to the dig site in the Valley of the Kings.

By 1922 the excavation was successful and Howard and Arthur finally gazed upon the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The find was accompanied by great drama as many involved in the excavation began to perish, in fact, Arthur made sure a few perished to increase the publicity of the event and to weigh whether superstitions could override scientific judgment, it did. Soon after the discovery, Arthur’s Uncle retired and the creepy young man was soon thrown off of the dig. Or at least that was the story that was told as to why he disappeared.

The truth is that Arthur never died. Arthur became an immortal. In the year 1924 Howard and Arthur working late together one night discovered something, something that would have put the discovery of Tut to shame. They discovered that “Mummies” who referred to themselves as the Undying, did indeed exist. All of the Occult that Arthur studied could not have prepared him for this revelation. Even faced with such a creature who had been trapped in a tomb for Millennia, the man’s pulse did not race. The creature recognized the stone cold ice water in the young man’s veins and knew that the young man would make an excellent servant in the land of the Living.

Howard was forced into retirement and pushed out of Egypt, no doubt the Undying, who refused to give his True Name, had altered the old man’s memories to forget not only what he saw, but that his nephew existed.

The Undying, King Fethas as he asked Arthur to address him was not in the crypt for Millennia as Arthur has postulated, just for a mere set of decades. Fethas was allied with an ancient eastern death cult, the Tal’Mahe’Ra and Fethas knew that Arthur would be a useful addition. The man whose mind could block out the horror of the Great War and bring the horror of his own evil core to those halpless victims had found a true home.

Even his first step into the Shadowlands did not disturb Arthur, Enoch was a greater find than uncovering the Tombs of the Pharaoh’s could ever have been. By 1925 the aide to the Undying became a Ghoul in the service of the Hand. The True Brujah member Taslynn Kincaid selected him for his cold detachment from the world and the underworld around him.

By 1935, Arthur was given the greatest gift of all, that of Immortality by a scholar warrior who had lived ages that Arthur had only read about as a child. After another decade of serving in a Kamut, the Hand determined that Arthur, who began to ask questions that disturbed the Liches, should rejoin the land of the living. With Fethas once more interred in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, his new life cut short by a pack of werewolves no less, Arhur’s sire was simply not influential enough to keep him assigned to Enoch.

Arthur’s assignment disturbed him greatly, he was to become a Prince in a Camarilla city! The same city as his birth, Kensington. It seemed that the Prince of that city died in the bombing raids of the Germans and being familiar with the city, Arthur was selected to be placed into the city as a double agent in Mithras’ domain no less!

Arthur’s reign at first was peaceful, as a long lost childe of the Prince, the few Kindred of the city were happy to maintain stability of rule and the Primogen, small as it was, was given great leeway by Arthur who was clearly more interested in being a scholar than leader. Indeed, Arthur was busy experimenting, experimenting with a power gifted to him by one of his Nagaraja allies, the Ash Path of Necromancy. His interest in the Underworld and by promising a favor from Fethas when he woke, gained Arthur access to the underworld!

The problem came with the arrival of Gina Giovanni (Enemy 1). Arthur welcomed her into the city and due to his lack of political savvy attempted to befriend her in the name of securing more access to Necromantic powers. Gina did not share the enthusiasm for sharing that Arthur encouraged. By 1955 once she was truly convinced that Arthur did indeed have some rudimentary powers of Necromancy, she used her ties to the Primogen to have Arthur deposed as a spy from across the Iron Curtain, she claimed that Arthur was never a Childe of the Prince and was in fact a spy sent by the Brujah Council of the USSR!

Unable to prove his lineage, Arthur was forced to concede his seat. However, he had gained some insight into Mithras’ Court during his decade as a Prince so the True Hand extracted him. Still, the Hand dislikes failure and punished Arthur by placing him into Torpor.

For over 30 years, Arthur was so punished, it was only the rise of Fethas from his sleep that Arthur was reactivated once more. Serving one of the Liches in research and politics Arthur was once more serving in Enoch. Still the same problem arose once more, Arthur believed that the Aralu should be woken! Not only to learn what they actually wanted but to prove whether they were alive or even in their crypts at all! Fethas this time saved Arthur by banishing him from Enoch for suggesting such blasphemies. This was the better result from what the Liches had I mind so Arthur accepted his fate.

This time though he was assigned to the Sabbat of Mexico City in the early 90’s and quickly rose through the ranks to become an advisor to Melinda Galbraith as Brujah Antitribu. Indeed, by now his Mastery over Temporsis allowed him to duplicate the abilities of his lesser cousins. He was always a bit out of place as if too old to understand the modern world around him (Anachronism).

As in life, in death Arthur was intensely curious and began to participate in archaeological digs in Mexico and South America. Over the next decade he delved into the mysteries of death of the west just as in life he delved into the mysteries of death of the east.

By the early 2000’s being freed from the Regent as she had been slain, he was one of the Sabbat that uncovered the existence of the Harbinger’s of Skulls. He was unable to leverage that credit to gain further power in the Sabbat or to gain further knowledge in Necromancy. In fact, his Necromancy had to be limited as to not around questions by the Sabbat. It was bad enough he was a Pack Priest that never participated in the Vaulderie!

Then it happened, the “True” Hand went silent, months went by with no contact until finally Arthur’s Nagaraja ally turned up in Machu Picchu with a story to tell. The Hand was no more! A roiling storm in the Shadowlands had overtaken Enoch and if any were still inexistence none knew. That meant that few knew who Arthur truly was! He of course took full opportunity of the situation and utilized his own powers to stake and diablerize the Nagaraja, wiping out two problems, having to convince someone to teach him Necromancy and two destroying one of the beings who knew who Arthur truly was.

When plans were drawn up to overtake Atlanta from the Camarilla, Arthur forced his way onto the planning council. During the chaos of the attacks, he faked his own death and left the Sabbat to become an independent Kindred. Arthur began to roam the small towns and large towns of the south interacting with the spirit world almost as much as he did the living world!

Then another opportunity presented itself, Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the southern United States. The city of Perle Perdu changed hands. With the existence of the True Brujah having become less rumor and more certain with the destruction of the Black Hand that sheltered them, many had to out themselves and the Bloodline has started to slowly become known. Arthur knew that it was the place to which he should settle down. In addition, Arthur believes that he has a built in food source there, it seems that the descendants of his Mortal Family have set roots in the city, why can’t Arthur be a long lost child of, well, himself!

First though, to present himself to the Prince…

Long term goals, settle into a location and increase his own personal power and understanding of the world around him both seen and unseen. Then, if he can impart such Wisdom on others, so much the better!

Nature - Chameleon Gen - 8th Generation
Demeanor - Guru Clan - True Brujah

Strength 1
Dexterity 2
Constitution 3

Charisma 2
Manipulation 4
Charisma 2

Perception 3
Intelligence 5
Wits 2

Talents:
Alertness - 3
Athletics - 1
Awareness - 3
Brawl -
Empathy -
Expression -
Intimidation - 1
Leadership - 2

Subterfuge - 3
Hobby Skill -

Skills:
Animal Ken -
Crafts -
Ride -
Etiquette -
Archery -
Larceny -
Melee - 3
Performance -
Stealth - 3
Survival - 3
Professional Skill -

Knowledge:
Hearth Wisdom -
Finance -
Investigation -
Law -
Medicine - 2
Occult - 5
Politics -
Seneschal -
Theology -
Expert Knowledge -

Conscience 1
Self-Control 4
Courage 5

Path of Scorched Heart 5
Willpower 8

Backgrounds:
Generation 5
Contacts 1

Temporsis 5
Ash Path 1
Vitreous Path 1

Freebies: 21
Flaws Bonus 7
28
Ocult 4 & 5 -4
Willpower -3
Temporsis (5th Dot) -7
Ash Path (1st Dot) -7
Vitreous Path (1st Dot) -7
0

Flaws:
Smell of the Grave 1
Nightmares (the Great War) 1
Eerie Presence 2
Anachronism 2
Enemy 1
7

That's my biggest concern.

Your flaws seemed designed to piss off or terrify mortals . This might be what you're going for, but just making sure on that. Most successful sociopaths are likable, and well, with mortals he surely won't be. :)

Of course, with Temporis as powerful as he'll have he might have no trouble just putting folks in status and keeping them like sealed gatorade.

I'm not sure how well he'll get along with the other PCs when they must team up but I'll try to find common causes.

I think the fast track to beast town is the only thing that really worries me.

As a result, Simon learned to thrive under pressure and how to kick back and let loose. His frustrations with parental expectations transferred easily into rage against the many injustices of America in the 1990s. He settled naturally into the Goth subculture. The music didn’t do much for him, but he enjoyed the aesthetics. By the time he was fourteen he went to school with a face painted white, purple lipstick, and dyed black hair. He wore a dog collar and had piercings.

And Simon rarely missed a protest. The cause always mattered, but he would protest as much in solidarity with others as for issues dearest to his own heart. He nurtured dreams of becoming an activist or living on a radical commune. He rejected science as a tool of the white supremacist capitalist world order and embraced paganism, happily declaring himself a witch. He and his small coven cobbled together a religion equal parts drugs, sex, and what they could find in the New Age section of the bookstore. When the other kids started calling the group gay, -Simon was, some of the others were not- he took the heat by burning through three printer cartridges to stick a coming out letter in every locker in the school. If anyone wanted to prove it, they just had to come and ask for a kiss; guys only.

Simon got zero kisses and many beatings out of that. His parents pleaded with him to take self-defense classes. He suggested joining wrestling instead because that was where all the totally straight guys were; he knew because half of them had punched him at least once. They were not amused, which made him actually consider it. A goth wrestler would mess with a lot of heads...and some of those guys were kind of cute, in a braindead way.

The wrestling coach took one look at Simon and told him off. He put on his reasonable adult face when Simon didn’t immediately leave and told him that even if he was serious, the other boys would murder him. He would not get out of the locker room with all his pieces. Simon laughed. The coach slammed him against the wall and made it clear that he was serious. That only made Simon insist and start threatening to call the ACLU. The longer the conversation went on the more committed Simon became to what had started as a pure joke.

The coach made Simon watch a solid week of practices in all their mind-numbing glory. It looked dull and hard, but not impossible. He could see ways that the wrestlers could hurt him, but Simon already got enough pain from those guys that he wasn’t afraid of it and he still didn’t believe they would literally kill him. He was mostly right; it took a week before an “accident” broke his nose, the two bones of his lower arm just above the wrist, and laid his left hand back on top of the broken arm bones.

That put an end to Simon’s season. He burned with rage for months, but he grimly attended every practice anyway. He sat and watched. Sometimes Coach had him haul equipment or keep records. He glared hatred at the wrestlers, especially the one who broke his bones, and they teased him. He went to their meets, dressed in team colors and sitting on the bench like one of the guys. They always left plenty of space open around him. When “his” team competed, Simon shouted encouragement like the rest but with considerably more aggression. He took care to keep within the bounds of good sportsmanship and say things that mostly sounded like they were directed toward his teammates. The only thing Simon’s friends and the wrestlers agreed on was how nuts he had to be to keep up with this.

Simon’s cast outlasted the season. Until then, no one laid a hand on him. Soon afterwards, the wrestlers descended on him again. They were careful not to break any more bones, but Simon went home with a solid bruising. After that they largely left him alone, sure that Simon would never have anything to do with them again.

The plan had been to do just that. Simon had proved his point and the wrestlers seemed to have let up. He could beat him up if they wanted to, but Simon didn’t take it and crawl away. But the hole in Simon’s schedule never quite seemed to fill up like it should have. More time for his friends was very welcome, and they spent a lot of time making fun of the wrestlers, but Simon did the math and realized that wrestling ate up four or five hours six days of most weeks. What had he done with all that beforehand?

In the Spring, Simon went out for track. He decided to specialize in long distance running on the theory that it would eat up more of his empty time. Though only a middling runner, he honestly enjoyed it. The other boys kept their distance, and Simon was required to change separately from them, but he settled into a reasonably comfortable situation. His burning determination won grudging respect and a few tentative friendships.

Junior year came around. His parents and friends tried to talk him out of it, but Simon went right back to wrestling. He worked hard, building on a training regime he picked up from books and practiced over the summer. When he showed up for his first practice, he brought a pin with him and dropped it as soon as he had everyone’s attention. It turned out you couldn’t hear a pin drop on a wrestling mat.

This time around, Simon was aggressive. He worked hard from the start, visibly pushing himself. The wrestlers insulted him and were frequently much rougher than justified, but Simon rolled with it. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about how his bones got broken in the last year and knew better how to avoid it now. He survived up through the first meet. The day before it, he challenged the boy slated to wrestle their weight class. The rules said that if you could beat the scheduled wrestler in two falls of three, Coach had to give you a chance at competition. Simon did.

Stony silence greeted him again. His opponent, Rory, tried to be a good sport about it and shrug things off. Simon proved his point. He could do this. Maybe he didn’t deserve everything they dealt out. We even?

No, they were not even. If he wanted his spot back, he needed to win a wrestle-off. Then Simon started parroting back all the things they had told him the year before: You work hard. You earn everything in here. Or is that all a bunch of crap? Rory appealed to Coach and Coach pulled Simon aside. Was he actually serious about this? Did he realize that Rory was going to be on his tail for the rest of the season if he insisted? Yes to both.

Simon narrowly lost his first proper match, which prompted much teasing. Rory challenged him the day after and lost. Then he did again the next week and won. Simon challenged him right back. They spent the season locked in a bitter rivalry. Rory wrestled at the next meet, but then Simon was back on top and remained there. He finished his season with one more competition win than losses.

Slowly, it made a difference. The guys still wrestled harder against him than anyone, but the teasing dwindled to nothing. The same sort of grudging respect as Simon got in track appeared again. When Rory lost the last wrestle-off, he even laughed about it. At the end of the season, they even invited Simon to the unofficial team party. He showed up and announced his resignation to the stunned squad. A few even asked if he meant it. Simon told them that he did what he came to do and now he was done. For his senior year he did swimming instead, even talking Jacob, one of his goth friends, into coming along by noting the required uniform and a particular swimmer who was also in the Jacob’s math class.

Simon went off to the university of his choice, Stanford, to study computer programming. He had an intuitive connection with machines going back to childhood and had a computer at home from the time he was ten. By the time he left the wrestling team, he had graduated from coding simple programs to poking around undetected on the school district’s network. Simon never changed anything, but computers held an enduring fascination with him and in an era of dot com startups it seemed like an ideal career path. He could do what he loved and do some socially conscious software intrusion on the side. Maybe a little cash from an oil company ended up in a bank account he controlled, with no one the wiser.

Sailing through his undergrad courses, in equal parts thanks to a good head start and the determination that rose inside him whenever he hit a big electronic wall telling him “no,” Simon began his doctoral program at a sprint. He had the idea that he might finish in record time, which would be sure to get him noticed by headhunters.

Things Fall Apart
Then things started to go wrong. Simon’s mother, out of nowhere, developed a monster drug habit. Overnight she was on everything. His father found out and Simon flew home in a rush. While he was on the plane she slipped out of the house and overdosed in her classroom. Simon spent a year at home, helping his father cope. They both hit the bottle a little, but kept a close watch on each other and got through it. By the spring, things seemed manageable and Simon returned to his research. The day he left, his father painted the downstairs bathroom with the insides of his skull.

Simon coped by throwing himself into his research and adopting an exercise regime again to burn through the almost uncontrollable emotions. Neither helped much. Finally he decided he needed time away from everything familiar. He signed on as a deckhand on a crab fishing boat and spent a miserable winter almost getting killed on the Bering Sea.

The only thing that made it at all bearable was the ocean. Simon had never been on a boat for any length of time. The steady roll of the deck and the sound of the waves did far more for his mental health than being screamed at by men auditioning for the role of lung cancer patient. He never stopped hating them and didn’t feel like he had anything to prove anymore. He finished the season sore from head to toe, exhausted, and confident he was never doing anything that stupid again. He wasn’t even paid well.

Still, it helped. With more distance, going back to his research was at last tolerable. When it wasn’t, Simon put on a CD of ocean sounds and buckled down. He made steady progress and was just about ready to run his prototypes by his committee when disaster struck again. A friend and fellow PhD student, Markus, accidentally destroyed the main drive Simon was using to keep his files. He had backups, but lost a few days work and had to delay his presentation.

Just as Simon was ready to go again, the FBI arrived at his apartment with a warrant and confiscated all his computers. He was careful and knew they were safe, but it brought his research to a standstill. More than anything, he wanted to hack into the FBI and see what they thought they had on him, but Simon knew that was insane. They would be watching for that. Whenever he used a computer in public, a youngish guy with a conservative haircut always appeared in short order. He knew they had his apartment watched and couldn’t imagine they neglected to watch his internet traffic.

Simon got angry all over again as this wore on for months. He missed three deadlines from a combination of confiscated hardware and the endless stretch. He finally demanded to know when he would get his equipment back and what they were investigating him for. No one would tell him, so Simon hired a lawyer who sucked up money and never got anywhere. His committee turned from understanding to impatient. A student two years behind, Janet, was working on a similar project and making remarkable progress. Markus, still feeling guilty over the accident, slipped a segment of her code to Simon. It matched his line for line.

The smart thing to do would have been to go straight to his advisors. Simon looked up where Janet lived and went to her. She reported him to the FBI so she could steal his work and Simon had had enough. He drove over to her building in a rage, heedless of the FBI tail that must be following him, and pounded on the door under a moonless night sky. No one answered. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Janet’s apartment was empty, but a handwritten note asked Simon to meet her. It listed a warehouse in an isolated industrial park. Simon went and the FBI surveillance van quietly followed behind.

Simon hadn’t completely lost his mind. He circled the warehouse looking for signs of danger, then snuck up and tried to peek inside. All the windows were too high or blocked. Only one door was open. He readied 911 on his phone and stepped inside. The place was empty except for people hanging upside-down from...it looked at first like a hole in the air. His mind didn't want to comprehend the pure nothing of it. Something black and long dangled people by their feet, so their hands were about eye-level off the ground. He saw Janet, Markus, his most impatient advisor, the captain of the fishing boat, the FBI agent in charge of his case...all the people who had wronged him since his life went off the rails.

Excepting the three FBI agents with guns who burst in behind Simon and demanded he put his hands over his head. Simon jumped and obeyed. They moved up to arrest him, but the shadows of the warehouse bulged somehow and a man dressed in an expensive suit melted out of them. He told one FBI agent to turn his gun on another. The man did so at once and suddenly the FBI agents were shouting at each other. The man spoke again and the second trained his gun on the third and fell silent. Then he did the same and all three stood motionless.

Meeting the Abyss
Smiling, he came forward and hugged Simon. “My son,” he said. Now that it was quiet, Simon noticed he had a pronounced accent. “You have come back to me at last.” He went on to explain to Simon how he had collected all these people who did him wrong. Their lives belonged to Simon now. He could kill them or let them go, but before he decided he should know many things.

The man in the suit explained that he was Gaetano of Palermo, Simon’s ultimate father. His blood ran in an unbroken male line across Europe and over the ocean until it finally stopped in Simon’s young veins. He was Gaetano’s last mortal heir, the fruit of his living son, Paolo, whom he believed lost when the Normans conquered Sicily. But Paolo lived and only a century ago Gaetano secured proof. The blood told and now that Simon stood before him, he could only see Paolo in him. He had come nine hundred years to be reunited with his beloved son and he had a miraculous gift to share.

Simon inched away, barely keeping his pants dry. Gaetano begged him to stay, or started to and then slipped into a different language. He pleaded as Simon reached for his phone. Gaetano’s eyes lit up. He returned to English, praising Simon for his mastery of these modern wonders. Simon hesitated, completely unable to grasp what was going on. The darkness rose up and lifted the phone out of his hand.

Simon stared into the void. Something moved within it, invisible but there. Something vast, like the ocean. His mind groped for an explanation and came up empty. The void grew nearer and nearer, until it engulfed him. Darkness raced across his skin, not a shadow but a thing with real substance in defiance of everything he knew about the universe. It sank into his ears. It pressed at his eyes. Simon felt it pry his mouth open and he gasped, then inhaled. It pulsed and something inside Simon, more than the darkness, pulsed with it. A web of midnight spread through his body and Simon’s mind turned in strange ways. He had, he could have, no secrets from the cold ebon infinity that permeated him. He was its shadow of flesh. All of his memories shifted somehow. He distantly realized he had stopped shivering, stopped even breathing. A new darkness, a warm one, rose within him and Simon receded.

He woke in Gaetano’s arms, barely breathing. The cold darkness kept him from the hard floor. Gaetano called him Paolo and explained that he had felt the touch of the Abyss, that which was before God spoke Let There Be Light, the darkness that was over the spirit of the deep in the time when the earth was formless and void. There was no knowledge that could be more forbidden. As he spoke, Simon felt a new burning fire kindled inside him. He had to know what all that meant. Gaetano looked into his eyes. Then Simon felt a sudden pain followed by ecstasy as the shadow descended again.

Four times Gaetano took Simon into the Abyss and four times he emerged, each experience more potent than the last. Simon begged Gaetano for another journey, but his father- No, Gaetano? No… It was all confused in Simon’s mind. He kept thinking both at once. The person holding him said that it was too late now. Dawn would come soon and he must be away. But first, what should be done with the three FBI agents?

Simon looked at them and it took a moment to recognize them as living beings instead of mere things. “Oh...They should give me all their money and go away. And stop bothering me.” Gaetano looked each in the eye and instructed them to do just that. One by one they came up and emptied their wallets at Simon’s feet, then left.

Gaetano helped Simon to his feet and ushered his captives into the back of a van. None spoke or moved on their own. Another silent man drove the van away. Gaetano sighed and said he should have thought to arrange horses. But Simon could call a machine, yes? Simon obediently used his phone and called a cab. He and Gaetano parted ways outside Simon’s apartment.

Simon slept the day away, only the Abyss in his dreams. He woke not sure that he hadn’t dreamed everything. He had a voicemail from Markus telling him that they must meet the next night at an extremely expensive restaurant. It had a dress code, so he must go to a tailor. He should use Markus’ name and pay with a card he found find in his pants pocket.

Now Simon knew he was dreaming, but he checked his pants anyway. Inside he found a credit card so exclusive it had a five-digit yearly fee. Immediately he looked outside. The FBI van was nowhere to be seen. He dressed and left for the university, but couldn’t stop thinking about the card in his pocket. He stuck it into an ATM and asked for a $20 cash advance. To Simon’s amazement, it worked. He had to go to that tailor!

The tailor took Simon’s card and measured him for a suit, promising that for this much money it would be ready first thing in the morning. It was. Simon wore it to the restaurant, where he was taken up to a private dining room. He and Gaetano had the place entirely to themselves. Calling him Paolo from the start, Gaetano began to relate the story of their family. He knew it by heart, a dizzying array of men who beget other men. A surprising number were sailors of some kind. Many had been to war.

Five separate times, one of Simon’s ancestors had risen to nobility. Most had lost their titles in some misfortune or other, but Simon was still an unacknowledged knight of the Austrian Empire and a count in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. These titles were his by right and Gaetano would supply him with the proofs necessary to assert his claim, though he knew that all the lands and revenues associated with them had been seized long ago and would not be restored.

Simon objected. He knew for a fact that his family was mainly Dutch and Norwegian. Gaetano brushed that off, going back over the dizzying lineage until he reached an ancestor who came to the Spanish Netherlands -Simon got out his phone and began looking up place names- from Barcelona the first was ennobled but died without issue. All this provided he was Catholic, Gaetano amended almost as if it didn’t need to be said.

Gaetano did not understand what a Wiccan was, but it was the closest thing Simon could come up with. He hadn’t thought much about religion in a decade. He tried pagan next, which Gaetano did understand. Simon could convert from Islam. He would see to getting a bishop to write the documents. Simon tried to explain his actual beliefs, but the Abyss seemed to swallow them up. Gaetano waved it away; he would see to it. There would be Baptism, Communion everything done properly.

After the waiters left and Simon’s food was gone, Gaetano began to explain more about how the blood told. A lesser breed would have quailed before the Abyss, yet he could see the hunger on Simon’s face. To seek it was a beautiful thing, what Simon was born for just as he was born to rule over lessers. Gaetano quizzed him in detail about his mortal life, constantly interrupting to point out where Paolo had most been himself or recalled his ancestors.

Then they came to the matter of Gaetano’s true gift to his Paolo. A limousine, which Gaetano complained was nothing near so elegant as a proper carriage but would have to do, took them back to the warehouse. All those who had wronged Simon hung from the darkness again. Another flash of pain followed by endless ecstasy as the Abyss swallowed Simon whole, over all too quickly.

Gaetano explained that a man must punish those who have wronged him. The lives of his captain, Markus, Janet, and the FBI agent belonged to him. What would Paolo do with them? Hate no longer burned inside Simon. Instead he felt a cold stillness. He was like someone else took the razor from Gaetano’s hand and drew it smoothly across Janet’s throat, then the FBI agent and finally the captain. That left only his friend Markus. Simon paused, then turned away and dropped the blade. Markus only did him accidental harm. He didn’t deserve anything.

Gaetano put his hands on Simon’s shoulders. He understood. Paolo was not used to taking lives yet, but he made a very good start. Soon it would become easier. In only a few days, they would be home. Simon objected. He had his PhD to finish. Then he had to explain to Gaetano, only vaguely aware of the corpses behind them. It took a while, but Gaetano understood. Simon had a dignity to earn, in the way of this world. He collected the credit card from Simon and allowed three months for it all to be done.

With all the setbacks he suffered, that was an almost impossible timeline. Simon did it anyway. Every time he began to flag, he remembered the Abyss waiting for him and redoubled his efforts. He finished the research, wrote the code, tested it, fixed it, fixed the fixes, rewrote much of it, and finished with two weeks to spare. Dr. Simon Dykstra walked directly from his defense to a car that took him to a flight to Perle Perdu.

Gaetano greeted Simon in a lovely penthouse, just recently rebuilt, and eased him into the Abyss for his most amazing journey yet. When Paolo woke, he saw Markus kneeling before him with his throat bare and waiting. This time there was no hesitation. As he fed, Paolo felt the Abyss within him.

Life after Death
Gaetano was an indulgent sire. He had high expectations, but gave Paolo room to meet them in his own fashion. In turn Paolo accepted his correct name. Simon’s life remained important to him, and his skills invaluable, but Simon passed away with the Abyss’ touch. He easily became the person that Paolo used to be. Likewise Simon’s father and mother were not Paolo’s, so it didn’t matter that Gaetano arranged their deaths. If not ideal, they had been for the best in the end. Markus’ death caused occasional pangs of guilt, but Paolo knew that he had to feed or die in that moment. It was self-preservation.

In exchange for his services in rearing his long-lost son, Gaetano asked only that Paolo arrange things so he might more easily interact with the modern world. It was an unpleasant place, but the kine had many clever inventions and Gaetano had fallen sorely behind since he came from Europe in 1790. He encouraged Paolo to put his other skills to use too. The FBI now knew that Simon Dykstra’s misdeeds were the work of an embittered rival who confessed it all in her suicide note, so he was free to act as he liked.

Paolo slowly made a place for himself in Pearle Perdu, carefully staking out a niche independent of his sire and turning the fruits of his hacking into legitimate investments in the city’s rebuilding through a complex array of shell companies. They remain on good terms, but Paolo established himself separately five years ago and has been largely content since.

Questions!
1) How old is your character and when was he/she embraced?

Paolo was 27 when he was embraced in 2007.

2) Why is your character in Perle Perdu? Obviously for a home, but did his or her sire send her, is her bloodline encouraging him her to establish room for growth for them all? Etc. Are they on a diplomatic mission, or on the run etc?

Gaetano brought Paolo to Perle Perdu after establishing himself there. He hasn’t explained why he settled on the town, only that he was a relatively recent arrival when the hurricane hit.

3) Related: What are your character's long term goals and dreams?

Paolo’s concerns are largely still those of a mortal, though Simon’s politics are far less important to him. He wants to be rich and prove himself to his sire. Since his embrace he has converted to Catholicism, albeit of a decidedly Lasombra sort. He believes in the primacy of the spirit over the flesh, but has decided that the spirit is a second-order being. It is a shadow of the Abyss and the spirit’s shadow in turn is the flesh. The Abyss’ proper shadow is the traditional god and by transgressing some of the traditional edicts, Paolo expresses his faithfulness to the true first thing. As such, he has a longer-term goal of thoroughly exploring the potential of Obtenebration.

4) Does your character have mortal friends or family in the setting? Do they know of you even if (hopefully) they don't know you are a vampire?

Paolo’s mortal family, at least the ones that mattered to Simon, are all dead. However, he retains one mortal connection. His long-ago goth friend Jacob, now married to that swimmer, got a corporate job that recently transferred him to Perle Perdu. They met again when his name appeared on some documents that Paolo had unauthorized access too. For reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, he staged coincidental meeting. Jacob recognized him and they’ve rekindled their friendship, though Paolo frequently thinks of ways he could make use of his old friend.