Vampire: the Masquerade - Visions

Red Thunder

A Warrior in a Garden
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
  2. One post per week
  3. Slow As Molasses
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
  3. Prestige
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
  3. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
Fantasy, SciFi, Modern, Magical
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To live the Unlife of a Kindred is to live conflict. It is intrinsic to us, evident externally in the struggle between the mutually antagonistic sects the Camarilla and the Sabbat, with the Anarchs unwillingly caught in the crossfire, and evident internally, a matter of continued existence as we restrain our beastly nature that rages to be set free against our predators and prey alike. There is competition between the Clans, each pursuing some obtuse and often unknowable goal to the detriment of the others while simultaneously relying on their enemies. Within even the Clans, Elders and Childer fight, seeking their own betterment, an increase in their own power.

Yet at times, Kindred of disparate backgrounds find themselves with the same goal, needing companionship from enemies the same as allies. At such times, even the Veil might shake, leaving the night walkers desperate for the understated fear of Unlife.

Houston, Texas is a bustling hub of economic activity. The Toreador Clan-led Camarilla keep close eye on the movements of goods and services, and on the Sabbat thugs who seek to undermine and uproot their carefully laid machinations. There is regular action between them, the ports to the Gulf of Mexico a location of regular contention due to the heavy traffic of goods via ocean lanes. The Anarchs, for better or for worse, have here been left mostly alone; the inner city Wards a haven from Kindred sects and Kine police alike, they conduct business with little trouble and rarely get involved in politics.

But the status quo is being disrupted, and the Camarilla Prince has called for representatives from all Clans regardless of affiliation. Catatonia has began to affect the Lunatics, the Malkavians, on a wide scale, even striking those who might have never suffered from it before. And with the mental strength their subconscious collectivity possesses, who's to say what might keep this madness from spreading beyond their Clan…?

∆∆∆

PROLOGUE:

Houston, Texas. October 10th, 1999.

An otherwise routine evening interrupted by a knock on your door.

"Good evening. My name is Lance Bringham, Houston's Sh- Hm? Intrusion? What do you mean? I'm here on the Prince's business … The Prince of Houston, you-

"Hmph. Listen. I can't say I like being here any more than you probably like having me here; I prefer cracking heads over speaking to them. But what I have to say is of utmost import; Prince Washburn wouldn't have sent his Sheriff otherwise. The Camarilla has learned of a growing blight affecting the already fragile psyches of the Lunatics, the Malkavians. And given their rather pernicious habit of affecting the minds of those around them, I needn't impress upon you the urgency of-



"Comas, okay!? Whole swaths of them are falling into the deepest catatonic states that no amount or level of Discipline can seem to break! And any Kindred with even the smallest amount of mental acumen is feared to be susceptible.

"Which is why the Prince is calling a conference to determine how to handle this. Either you volunteered or were voluntold; I don't care which. All I care is that you be at Barbour's Cut Container Terminal, at the Port of Houston, at 2am on Wednesday the 13th. And you had best be polite; who knows who may actually show up, and we don't need a bloodbath."

∆∆∆​

Life, or rather Unlife, has been various shades of kind, or maybe unkind, to you. Maybe you were led into this world of the vampiric Kindred willingly, trading your mortal soul for the hedonistic pleasures of immortality; more likely, you were brought into the fold kicking and screaming for some talent or connection you had that could prove useful to someone else. Regardless, your existence is the Night, a violent thing filled with keeping the Beast within contained to prevent drawing unwanted attention from the kine, the humans, while allowing just enough of it loose to keep yourself alive. For blood is your life: it sustains you, and it powers you.

Descended from a variety of progenitors (usually called Antediluvians, though that can be fuzzy for some groups), Kindred are subdivided into Clans, each with powers or "Disciplines" often unique to them. The occultist Tremere can channel magic into the blood or the blood of others with Thaumaturgy, forcing it to do their will. The aristocratic Ventrue can Dominate the minds and wills of beings weaker than themselves. The Malkavians can force mental illness on those around them, with results ranging from the subtle to the dramatic. Yet one cannot apply these Disciplines haphazardly, for the Kindred reply on the Masquerade for safety. Any overt display of vampiric power is met with decisive and often fatal action from those who deem themselves in command. Or from forces outside the ken of Kindred society but no less dangerous to them.

That command is often in dispute. The Camarilla are the closest thing the Kindred have to an organized government. The Prince makes the laws, and the Sheriff enforces them. With jurisdiction over a city, the Prince seeks to keep his citizens happy and complacent while also balancing the Masquerade.

Not that the Sabbat much care for it. At obvious and often violent odds with the Camarilla, the Sabbat revel in stoking the Beast within and the power it brings. Often with a more aggressive and less organized mindset, the Sabbat's mission statement can be difficult to define, save the pursuit of power.

There is a third sect, though they are often overlooked save as a potentially ally to either of the others. The Anarchs are as advertised: preferring to be left alone and ungoverned, the Anarchs mostly keep to themselves unless provoked, minding their own business in the areas of town they control. To live and let live, as it were.

And to each sect, to the local head of each Clan within the sect, the deceivingly slight if lengthy frame of Sheriff Bringham, the enforcer of Prince Washburn's laws, has appeared. Perhaps he was greeted in friendship; perhaps he had to put a few bitches down before he was listened to. But he always delivered his message: there is a spreading catatonia, and it has no regard for party affiliation. And you, whether weary Kindred Embraced in ages past or Childer newly Turned not but a month prior, you have been appointed to answer the Prince's summons. To see if you can find an answer to this question of the Lunatics' sleep.

RULES:
  1. Always abide by Iwaku rules. Failure to abide by this is grounds for immediate dismissal.
  2. Keep OOC in the OOC. Up to and including drama between characters. This shows up in every ruleset in every RP. Let's be pleasant, yeah? If you have problems with another player, please be mature and handle it in DMs. Barring that, I'll mediate. Failure to abide by this is grounds for immediate dismissal.
  3. No god-modding. You're playing a Vampire, so obviously you will be capable of achieving extraordinary feats. But no Vampire save Caine himself is able to travel the speed of light or lift Mt. Everest. And likely not even him. Failure to abide by this is grounds for immediate dismissal.
  4. Please read the rules. Please read the rules. Please read the rules. Please read the rules. Please read-
  5. No sex on screen. No nudity on screen. I've not marked this red star for a reason. While this absolutely isn't for kids, it's not smut. If you wanna get characters busy, fade to black. FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THIS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL. I ain't playing with this one.
  6. On that note, this is a Vampire game, which means horror and to a much lesser degree aspects of gore-rer. Please understand this before even putting up a character sheet, as I really don't want to have to deal with complaints of scary or tense moments later. If an amalgamation of disparate body parts screaming your character's name is too much for you, this may not be your RP.
  7. Posts are expected loosely every 1-2 weeks, with 2 paragraph minimum. I'm not expecting Voltaire, but please put effort into your work. And collabs are great! I love collabs. If you decide to do one with another party, please ensure to respect the post frequency.
  8. This will not be first come / first served. I would like to see what everyone has to offer and will therefore have something like a 2-3 week window in which to post a character sheet. There will be 6-8 accepted characters.
  9. Please be prepared to do your own lore research, especially as regarding character creation and character knowledge. As stated in the Interest Thread, the lore is massive and expansive, and while I may not be respecting the official timeline, I'm going to do my best to respect the foundational stuff. If you have questions, please let me know! We can figure out application of lore together. I will absolutely be posting links to the World of Darkness wiki.
  10. Please read the rules. Please read the rules. Please post a red rose at the bottom of your character sheet. Please read the rules. Please read the rules.
  11. I know these are a lot of rules, guys, but I also want y'all to have fun. VtM is such a rich, dark, and fun world to play in, and I look forward to seeing what you bring to the table.
CLANS AVAILABLE:
Though there are 13 commonly recognized Clans, I'm not allowing all of them. Playable Clans are as follows:
  1. Brujah

  1. Gangrel

  1. Giovanni

  1. Lasombra

  1. Malkavian

  1. Nosferatu (you are required to have an excellent character concept, due to their curse of disfigurement)

  1. Ravnos

  1. Toreador

  1. Tremere

  1. Ventrue


CHARACTER SHEET:
  • Name
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Height / Weight
  • Clan
  • Generation (how far removed are you from the original vampire in your Clan. The lower generations are more powerful but are usually more prone to giving in to the Beast)
  • Sect Affiliation (Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarchs)
  • Appearance (a face claim will do, as will realistic art; anime will not be accepted. Please keep written descriptions 1-2 paragraphs long)
  • Personality (1-2 paragraphs)
  • Biography (3-4 paragraphs)
  • Mundane skills of note (3-5)
  • Disciplines (only Clan specific; include which if any they excel at, and to what degree)
Feel free to go crazy with coding, provided it's mobile friendly. I do basically all my RP on mobile (which, among other reasons, is why it ain't fancy), so anything I can't read gets rejected outright.

DISCLAIMER:
Vampires are monsters.

I know I put this in the rules, but I want to make sure it's understood. Vampire: the Masquerade deals heavily with characters desperately trying to hold on to their last shred of humanity while also trying to navigate their ruthless and terrible new existence. Kindred very often give in to the Beast inside and are capable of despicable acts, both mundane and supernatural. While I don't wish to scare anyone off, as such instances of this trauma will be few and far between, it will happen from time to time. Though Vampire is a mostly social game, it is still at its core survival horror.

I also wish to point out that, due to the nature of the Malkavians and the threat of spreading psychosis, there will be depictions of mental illness, some extreme, some less so. I have some familiarity with what they look like and will do my absolute best to research them further to make their description in writing as realistic as possible, but I'm sure I will make errors along the way. This isn't meant to minimize anyone with a mental illness, but is rather an innocent failing on my part when I thought I was otherwise treating it respectfully. Again, this is mostly a social drama, but many people have hidden illnesses that aren't often seen until later.

EPILOGUE:
If you've gotten this far, I thank you deeply. While I never got into the LARP aspect of VtM, I've loved the setting a great deal since first being asked to join a VtM tabletop back in college. I'd love to discuss character concepts and creation with you, should you find you need or want it.

The Vampire: the Masquerade Wiki can be found here, with links to the Clan Wikis in the Clan descriptions above.
Vampire: The Masquerade

Description of what a Vampire is to VtM:
Vampire (WOD)

Feel free to ask any and all questions.

Thank you, and good evening.

Join me on Discord.
 
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Question: is it ok to play a Zantosa Toreador? I have a concept that would make use of Vicissitude. If not, I'll probably go with Malkavian.
 
Question: is it ok to play a Zantosa Toreador? I have a concept that would make use of Vicissitude. If not, I'll probably go with Malkavian.
Sorry, no; Vicissitude is the main reason Tzimisce aren't listed as playable.
 
Question: is it ok to play a Zantosa Toreador? I have a concept that would make use of Vicissitude. If not, I'll probably go with Malkavian.
Sorry, no; Vicissitude is the main reason Tzimisce aren't listed as playable.

Okay, no worries. Malkavian it is; and don't worry, not going to do a Malkfish. 😅
 
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  • Name: Anna Naryshkin
  • Age: 400
  • Gender: Female
  • Height / Weight: 5'2"/105 lb
  • Clan: Malkavian
  • Generation: 11th
  • Sect Affiliation: Camarilla
  • Appearance
    :
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  • Personality: Anna is disturbingly normal for being a clinically insane creature of the night. She is outwardly charming, polite to a fault, even kind. Only after one sits down and converses deeply with her for a while - and gets past the pleasantries - does it become clear that she is absolutely crackers. She speaks of paranoid conspiracies, spilling ancient and terrible secrets as if they were common knowledge, weaving everything into a self-contradictory narrative of madness. What is worse is that trying to make sense of it all will work - it will all start making cold, clear sense - as her listeners begin to slip into madness themselves. And then she will offer tea to the gibbering wrecks. She also makes really good cookies.
    Anna's personal motivations are simple. She seeks to understand. There are so many theories, so much lore, so much personal experience - it would take all eternity to put them all together into a single conception. Fortunately, she has all eternity. So she is endlessly patient with listening to others, hearing their thoughts, synthesising their ideas with what she already knows.
  • Biography: Anna was Embraced in Russia sometime in the early 17th Century, as the chaos of the Time of Troubles turned Russian society upside down. This period exemplified the saying about Russian history, which can be summed up as "And then it got worse." Anna was the daughter of a boyar, a Russian noble; she witnessed the fall of the house of Rurik, and her father was one of the plotters who deposed the first False Dmitri. This made him many enemies; and among those enemies was one who was both more and less than human. It amused this being to take the beloved daughter of the conspiratorial boyar as revenge.
    Anna went, if not willingly, without a fight. She had always been an odd child, quiet and bookish but deeply observant. She loved her parents, and she understood that while losing her would break their hearts it would also preserve their lives. She didn't quite understand at the time that they would rather have died together as a family than lose her to undeath.
    Her sire was delighted at her naivete, and reveled in driving her parents mad with grief - in truth, he barely needed to use his powers at all, so stricken were they already at their daughter's fate. But the sight also broke Anna's mind, the first step in a long descent into madness.
    Anna doesn't remember much of her first century of unlife - or at least, she doesn't much care to recall it. But at some point her sire poked the wrong bear and had his existence ended on a fiery stake - this part she remembers well - and she inherited part of his legacy. The lands and the riches were claimed by his killers, of course, but she had no interest in them. She got the books, and enough jewellery to buy passage West. She drifted through Europe, settling in a city for a few years at a time before moving on, leaving broken hearts and broken minds as she went.
    The Camarilla eventually noticed and made contact. They had observed her for a while and deemed her no great threat - dotty, but potentially useful. She had an instinct for insinuating herself discreetly into society and fulfilling her needs without drawing undue attention to herself; this was aided by her singular lack of ambition, so that she had no qualms about simply cutting all ties and moving on whenever she felt the urge to do so.
    She has been an outside member of the Camarilla since then. Like with many other Malkavians it is merely a convenient association. She is left mostly to her own devices, as long as she performs certain favours once in a while and refrains from going over the line of acceptable behaviour. This is mostly trivial in her eyes, and in return she receives some advice and support when necessary. She is not particularly loyal to the Camarilla, nor does she consider their goals terribly important, but she is exemplary when it comes to not getting in their way.
    Interestingly, she also owns a string of properties and businesses across Europe and the Americas, managed and run by agents and factors. She's independently wealthy as a result, and has safe houses in most cities, but is mostly unaware and uncaring of how to leverage these assets. As far as she is concerned, she simply exists on the kindness of these people and the privileges of nobility; in some ways she is still very much the aristocrat she was born as.
 
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Hanna Kowalczyk
BASICS
  • 58 years old
  • Female
  • 5'2" / 102 lbs.
  • Brujah
  • 14th Generation
  • Anarch
APPEARANCE
Possessing a delicate frame, Hanna is waifish and almost ethereal with a heroin chic. Everything about her is delicate, tiny, and her features are likewise elfin. Hair dyed a different color every few weeks - often bright, spontaneous, loud - is piled into a variety of messy, simple hair styles, while her thin-waisted figure is usually wrapped in something bohemian, decidedly 70s.

Vampires are, often, creatures of habit, and it's hard to let go of the era that birthed her, after all. Her skin is still pale, her eyes a startling shade of almost golden brown, lips seashell pink and full. She is almost never seen without a set of pink colored round glasses and a cigarette.

PERSONALITY

As far as vampires go, Hanna seems to possess little by way of mystique. She is extraordinarily laidback, instead cultivating a certain atmosphere of devil-may-care hedonism and free thought. She has no problem showing her emotions, whatever those may be, though often she remains largely placid, almost unmoved with the goings-on of life - or Unlife. Purely, she goes with the flow - most of the time. In her mind, she's only got so much mental energy to devote, and she won't bother with such petty things like who killed who over what, or why some human's so taken up with her, or the particulars of certain Camarilla factions and their (ugh) policy.

However... it would be unwise to mistake such laidback nature for timidity or cowardice. Hanna is frightfully insightful, with an uncanny intelligence. She plots, slowly, like a trapdoor spider waiting for something to walk by, opportunistic. Her air may be carefree, but her anger certainly isn't. While it seemingly takes a lot to rile the young vampire, that doesn't mean she's forgotten every last thing someone's said - done - insinuated. And she is rather dedicated to keeping that record of wrongs. The older she gets, the longer it grows...

BIOGRAPHY

Hanna Kowalczyk was born the daughter of Polish immigrants in 1945. In their homeland, her father had been a professor, a man of lofty thought, revered, but in this country - well, in this country he was only a janitor in a college. Likewise, her mother was a maid, a nanny, and they did what they could for their daughter. In the meantime, her father filled young Hanna's head with complex ideas from a young age, intent on having his daughter well-educated even well before she could stand to understand the ideas he put forward.

Hanna would soon take those ideas and run with them out the stadium, but unlike her father, who was an ardent Communist, she went the other direction - to anarchy. Lands without laws. That large groups would always, always, always feed the Machine over the little man, be they capitalist or communist. She was pulled into the counterculture scene easily in the wake of the Vietnam War, watching as friends and lovers were pulled in to a conflict that would soon become vilified in popular consciousness. The Bohemian lifestyle suited her - little by way of responsibility to her fellow man, a carefree life of bumming rides and sharing what you had with who you wanted, and smoking as much weed as humanly possible while creating art and philosophy. Unlike a certain somebody, with his 'duty', his 'camaraderie', his 'civil standing'.

She had been traveling with a group of musicians when they began to talk of a music festival: Woodstock, 1971. It was at this mass affair that she met the person who would become her sire, a 13th generation Brujah from 1600s Poland who immediately took a liking to this well-read and iconoclastic woman. And so, he gave her the option. After all, he was somewhat more old-fashioned than some of his less scrupulous kin. He wasn't just looking to Embrace for kicks. He wanted a companion, and the fact she spoke Polish, remembered something of visits to the homeland, only added to her appeal. Quickly, she fell under his spell, entranced by both his power, his ability, his sheer force of personality.

She chewed it over for a single night, and decisively on the next, he Embraced her to the background sound of the Grateful Dead playing "Dark Star".

She has since not looked back. In fact, she's made that a bit of a general policy. No regrets. No ruminating. Things have changed a little bit since. She dumped her Sire after seventeen years of tutelage, chafing as she began to realize he was grooming her into a partner, a perpetual student, someone to whom he could extol his thoughts. Well, she wasn't about to have that. In the last ten years, she's taken up in Houston, TX, deciding that the nightlife scene was really her dig. Now she runs a bar called Maximum Buzz, sporting a basement that's a frequent for nightlife, both Kine and Kindred. So if ever you're in Houston and you're looking for some good music and a drink, any drink...

Skills:

- knowing how to make several varieties of drinks
- charisma out the yin yang
- musical talent, singing and playing
- holding conversation
- general creativity

Clan Abilities:
- Celerity
- Potence
- Presence
(Levels to be decided?)
 
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Isabel Webb
Basics
  • Twenty-Six years old
  • Female
  • 5’5” / 154lbs
  • Thin-Blooded - Ravnos
  • Fifteenth
  • Anarch

Personality
Isabel was always a bit reclusive even before being embraced. At school she had a small but tight circle of friends and was generally more likely to be found with her face in a book as she did her homework than at a party. While moving to Boston and then Houston helped her come out of her shell a little, she is still pretty much the archetypal introvert; preferring to sit at the edge of a party watching everyone over her drink rather than be in the middle of it.

Biography
Born and raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Isabel life had always been fringed by the occult, or at least what mortals think of as the occult. With Salem just across the bay there was no way it couldn’t have been any other way. Like most people however, Isabel ignored it and got on with her life. Several of Isabel’s friends were into the supernatural, but pretty much the only thing that rubbed off on her was a penchant for unusual hair dye colours.

Graduating high school near the top of her year, Isabelle opted to further her education by studying biomedicine at Boston University. Initially, this was meant to be a pre-med course, but in the summer between her junior and senior years, Isabelle won an internship with one of the nations most innovative and prestigious biomedical companies. Over the course of the summer, she impressed her supervisors to the point that she was offered a job once she had finished her studies. For someone who was tired of living on instant ramen the offer was too good to pass up and a scant couple of weeks after graduating, Isabel found herself on a plane heading to Houston, Texas and the companies headquarters.

The first couple of months of this new life were rough for Isabel. It was the first time she was truly away from her friends and family and in those early days in Houston her life pretty much only happened at work or her apartment. Slowly though she began making a few friends through work and explore what her new home had to offer; possibly it was a manifestation of her home sickness that attracted Isabel to the city's alt scene. Regardless, the young New England transplant began building up a couple of places, including one called Maximum Buzz, where her face became a semi regular sight and the people knew who she was.

It was after an evening spent at one of these bars that Isabel life ended and her unlife began. Walking home in the early hours, she noticed she was being followed by what she assumed was another reveller. There was just something about them that made Isabel uneasy and turning down the first alley the provided itself to her she began to run. Before she’d gone more than twenty meters something slammed into her back and pinned Isabel to the floor. Somehow her purser had closed the distance and was now on top of her, a terrifying look of hunger in their eyes. She tried to fight against her attacker, but the only result of that was excruciating pain and unending darkness in her right eye. And then there was pleasure, euphoria like Isabel had never felt before as the light slowly faded from her left eye.

Waking up propped against a dumpster, Isabel felt like death. There was no one to explain what had just happened to her, why the sun burned her skin or why she had a thirst that she couldn’t satiate. Dragging herself back to her apartment, Isabel locked herself away from the world as she went increasing insane. It was several weeks before derangement and thirst caused her to reemerge. Almost feral, Isabel wandered the streets of Houston through the afternoon and evening till her eyes fell upon a sight they recognised despite her delirium. The frontage of Maximum Buzz called to something in her and wild eyed she made her way inside.

Perhaps it was luck, or perhaps it was something that Isabel had picked up sub-consciously, but she picked quite possibly the one place in Houston where the appearance of a blood starved and demented kindred wouldn't lead to mass panic, her immediate destruction or both. Instead the the owner of the establishment, Hanna, took the wild fledgling under their wing. Effectively fostering Isabel, Hanna fed the sireless one eyed childe and then, once a little sanity had returned to Isabel, explained what had happened her and more importantly instructed her on how to survive in this new world that they found herself in. That chance and fortuitous meeting was a little over three months ago. While Isabel is still coming to term with what happened she is getting a grip on how to live while being dead. Still she misses just Being Human.​
 
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"With every passage of time, I am closer to being myself. Immortality gives me the ability to find the era I closer represent."

Age: 179, about 20/21 in appearance
Gender: FtM, Prefers He/Him/His
Height/Weight: 5'6", 115llbs, on the slim build
Clan: Ventrue
Generation: 15th
Sect: Camarilla

Appearance:
Sophistication and class is what you expect from the Ventrue. And while it is true and wildly common that Julian doesn't represent the stereotypical view of dignity, he still exudes such an ideal in the way he carries himself, as some sort of Gothic Prince. Often in dark clothes, slacks, and a black trench coat. He sticks out with bright red hair, and golden colored irises. Pretty, but with handsome features, he exudes confidence in many of his mannerisms.

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He's known to have a rather uncommon accent, well to the local Texans it's uncommon. Sporting a husky, airy, standard London accent, it conjures up tales of adventure and a journey out West for opportunity. While his build and rather slim, for a young man his age, Jules has always had a habit of blending into whatever era or year accordingly. He almost comes off vain in that sense, changing and tweaking his appearance into according what's fashionable for the time.

Personality:
You'd think Jules was a boy born of the night in the height of the 90s, as he adopts the modern slang, and very much carries a boyish charm to everything he does. A struggle to find a sense of identity for a long time, Jules is often highly adaptable, and will often adjust or adapt to whatever place he is in at the time. It makes it difficult for people to truly know him, not because he has any sense of mystery about him or that he's particularly an enigma. It's often just because he's kind of an oddball. He can be kind of awkward in casual conversations, though due to his chameleon like personality can easily turn the charm and sophistication on when need be. While he gives the impression of all play and no work, Jules is surprisingly a hard worker. While people might not know much about Jules as an individual, what they do know, is that he takes his duties and responsibilities seriously, he wouldn't be respected by so many if he didn't. He's not a lazy individual, even if he gives off very youthful vibes.

Quite mindful and quite self aware, few of ever seen Jules given into any sort of beast like nature. It's because he actively fights to never to do so. He sees the beast within for those who are weak minded, he also sees it as those who thirst for power. Neither of which Jules is seeking. Even before he was embraced, what he sought was the ability to feel comfortable and normal in his own skin. Sometimes that's still difficult for him to do. While kissed with immortality, he is often reminded that he was denied death to be reincarnated into who he saw himself be. In that sense Jules can be seen as a very vain individual. His constant changing of his identity. His constant search and struggle for being seen the way he wishes to be seen. Rumor has it that Julian purposely broke his ribs just to fasten his chest down. Whether that is true or not Julian still suffers with this notion that he won't ever entirely be who he wants to be, and while not deeply religious, but deeply spiritual he fears if he dies in this form - he will be punished and never be the person he wanted to be. So he vows to live his life as many different people until death comes to him.

Biography:

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the idea of living his truth self seems like a foolish dream. As a young girl in the 1800s, Emilia Weston was trapped physically and spiritually in the environment she was born from. While she certainly hadn't to suffer the way the lower class and under class did, she was privy to reading, writing, and a slight education. Though the expectation had always been the same, to find a prestigious husband for her to tend to his needs.

This didn't necessarily suit Emelia's ideals. The idea of being with another man disgusted her. Though in those days if she had said anything, she would have been laughed as child's folly and an adult woman's sin. But that wasn't entirely Emelia's truth. She didn't feel like the other woman fretting about liberties and the ironic clash of a woman's duty. She watched the men, jealous of their lives, feeling that she too deserved those things they received. Not from a liberties perspective and certainly not from a woman's perspective, but as a man. Knowing this very idea would have her thrown somewhere to be corrected, she was sixteen, with a low education level, but just enough that someone may take pity on an orphaned boy.

She was reborn that day she left her family, leaving behind an ideal that entirely wasn't her. That was the night that Julian was born or really the step to become one's true self. Disguised as an under educated boy, Julian began to acquire work, under his new guise. In fact he was pretty good at this acting stuff, most people didn't bat an eye, and it felt liberating not being trapped by the duties that didn't appeal to him. There were close calls, because they are always close calls in the beginning. And he wouldn't say it wasn't particularly lonely at times, not being able to talk to others about his experiences or feel accepted. If he ever told anyone about who he really was and why he had done what he had done, he could have been arrested, at worse be thrown in the asylum for some form of insanity.

So then the irony of his circumstance is that for five years he lived his ideal self. A cunning business man, helping a friend start his own textile business, a friend who never knew the truth. His ideal self in secrecy without anyone knowing his "true identity". To be found out, by a vampire. It is said the clan of Ventrue can only feed on the blood of certain individuals, because their taste are so refined. This particular vampire, Carmelo, only fed on the blood of young woman. So curious Carmelo was led by hunger to a young boy. Driven by hunger he attacked the boy to find his secret. Carmelo found the entire situation sort of amusing, having a good laugh about it, decided to embrace the young man because he found the whole situation humorous.

Julian didn't. And still to this day has a bit of a grudge against what Carmelo has done. To be gifted immortality in the body Jules had always despised. Feeling trapped in a body that didn't feel himself. And yet Jules paradoxically accepts his fate, because he found acceptance within his curse among others. A sense of belonging. And people who accept him as he is.

Just moved to Houston. Julian's the type to always reinvent the wheel and try something new. Is looking for work and to make more of a name of himself as someone more important among the circles.
 
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CS completed, pretty much.

Also kind of interesting that the eldest character so far is the fruit loop.
 

AMÉLIE DUPUIS



BASIC INFO


Name: Amélie Dupuis
Age: 112 years old
Gender: Female
Height / Weight: 5’8”/130 lbs
Clan: Tremere
Generation: 11th
Sect Affiliation: Camarilla

Appearance:

Amélie is sturdily built, compact and possessing little in the way of feminine curves. Her eyes are a shock of grey, lips thin and nose pointed towards the high-cut bangs she insists on styling herself. Paired with a heart-shaped face, the cut and color give her a decidedly French appearance.

Her entire look exudes a quiet intensity. The dramatic eyeshadow she wears draws attention before her words ever do. Having embraced the 90s, the woman sticks to wearing oversized pants and jackets, with a top that preferably shows off her abs. She is almost always wearing platform heels; a girl on stage, even when she's not.


PERSONA


Amélie’s personality very much reflects her outward appearance. As resilient as the leather boots she wears, the French woman is a strong-willed individual, not easily cowed by the emotions of others. Very little bothers her. She was never one for theatrics or drama for that matter. As old as she is, she is still largely reticent; her business is her business, as the saying goes, and one of her few triggers is when others pry into her affairs.

There is an air of intensity about her that one can not shake, especially when faced with one of her unnerving stares. While she does not consider herself to have a temper, Amélie is not immune from mood swings and outbursts. Since childhood, she has been conditioned to bottle her emotions, letting them smoulder until one ill-timed misstep sets off the bomb within.


BIOGRAPHY


Orléans, France. November 7th, 1887

Amélie was born into a night plagued by poverty. The youngest of seven, her birth placed an added strain on her parents and grandparents. She was considered a nuisance; a girl, for one, and far too young to do any menial tasks around the house. Little work could be found for her. An uncle in New York offered to find the girl employment there to help out back home, and without further ado, little twelve year old Amélie was shipped away, arriving at the steps of Ellis Island in 1899.

Queens was an experience unlike any other the young girl had had before. It was much to get adjusted to. Crowded into a tenement apartment with two other families - neither of whom spoke a word of French - Amélie tried her best to assimilate into American society. The so-called “uncle” who had sponsored her never materialized; through limited English, she was able to get a job in a shirtwaist factory. From sun-up to sun-down she would work, trudging to and fro the factory to her tenement apartment and back again. Music helped to break up the daily monotony. The little songs she would hum to herself as she pulled threads through a needle, the songs she would sing as she walked home from work. More than a few people noticed the beautiful sound of her voice; some were drawn to it, none more than Joan Moreau.

Amélie would come to refer to her only as Madame - an illustrious, wealthy woman who lived in the north side of the city. Madame seemingly happened upon her one night and offered a job as a maid in her home. It was the first time the young French woman had ever seen her. But in fact Madame had been watching her for quite awhile; the 10th generation Tremere was quite taken by what she’d seen, and it only took approval from her regent before she initiated what would be the most pivotal moment of Amélie’s life. They embraced on Amélie’s 22nd birthday. Madame’s strict tutelage dominated most of her time through the 20s and 30s. By the end of World War II, Amélie was a bonafide shut-in, a permanent fixture at Madame’s side. She had no desire to be anywhere else.

In 1959 Amélie met the man who would soon become another lifelong companion, a fellow Tremere vampire by name of Aymard. A brilliant, enigmatic man with a bright smile, Aymard managed to dislodge her from Madame’s side and introduce to the vibrant pop culture lifestyle of America. She attended her very first concert with him; from then on, she found herself enamored with mainstream media. From the Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Earth, Wind, and Fire; as the music scene rapidly evolved, so too her way of living, every era bringing with it a newfound fascination.

With rock music back at the forefront, she has since transformed herself in its image. In 1984 she moved to Houston, TX, where her Sire had been living for ten years. She now spends her weekend nights singing at various venues in Houston, varying just enough between places so that she does not accrue too large a following.


TALENTS


Mundane skills of note:
  • Gifted vocalist
  • Seamstress, as well as other various domestic cleaning skills
  • Can cook well, though it does her no good now
  • Can play guitar and bass
  • Fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and German

Thaumaturgy:
  • Gift of Morpheus | Amateur
  • Path of Blood | Expert

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  • Nice Execution!
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As of now, sign ups are officially closed. Thank you all for your contributions. Notes have been sent to you each individually for your character sheets. This weekend is busy for me, but I expect to be able to have an opening post Sunday night or Monday.

Thank you, and good evening.
 
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27 appearance | 75 years

Male

6'2"/170lbs | 1.88m/77.1kg

Toreador

13th Generation

Anarch
Wesley 'Wes' James Moore
Appearance:

There's something in his smile that is equal parts alluring and handsome, but beneath the coy grin is the little known lie that its all an illusion. Power meant to make every contour a little more perfect, each lash a bit more full. To say Wesley is attractive is one thing, but it all depends on whether or not you're under his spell. He demands attention and it isn't hard to garner. Maintaining both a well dressed and healthy visage are important to the man.

Standing at just over six feet, Wesley is tall and has a fair amount of muscle to his frame considering, but remains relatively wiry in build and overall appearance. Self care and beauty have become second nature, and as a result, Wesley is a strikingly gorgeous face among the masses. His blonde hair used to be much shorter but in recent years he's taken to letting it grow, and it's now twisted down past his shoulders. Most days he keeps it tied up so it's not in the way while he works. Wesley's eyes are a light hazel in color.

Personality

From a young age Wesley has always been very quiet, but as he grew older that cautious silence grew into one of mystique instead. He was less afraid of what was outside of his door and more willing to admire the world around him, although most of that had to do with the intrinsic nature of the Toreador clan curse. Everything became something to study for its inherent beauty. Wesley has a difficult time multitasking due to his inability to break his focus from anything that appeals to his sense of wonder.

Most people expect Wesley to be as loud and demanding as his fellow Toreador Kindred, and while he wouldn't outright deny his own vanity, he prefers the intimacy of a small group over one sided spotlights and large crowds. He is well spoken, but comes across as being pompous or a bit too self centered in overall conversation. When he gets excited, he can talk for hours on end without regard for whoever else is in the room, whether or not they decide to stick around for the entire conversation.

He is trying to learn to be a better person, and fit generosity and compassion into his life. It can be difficult at times given his bloodline. Slowly though, he has become more self aware of his narcissistic tendencies.

Biography

1924 - 1934
Wesley was born during the Golden Age of Hollywood. His mother was a nameless starlet with her eyes set on making it big on the silver screen, but the only kind of work she found was in the circles that worshiped a silver spoon. While she did find some fame as an unnamed extra here and there, she soon wound up pregnant and no one would hire her. So for nine long months she did what she could to make ends meat until Wesley was finally born. Then, it was back to the set and back to the stars.​
1934 - 1945
He has a vague memory of moving out of the apartments and into a house, and for a time it was happy. His mother seemed to spend more of her days with him at first. Those few, happy memories stand out as some of the only ones Wesley has of his time in Hollywood. He met the neighbor, Miss Valerie. She was young and sweet and whenever Wesley's mother was away she would always send him over to Miss Valerie's. Every Friday she would take him to the cinema. It was the highlight of his childhood.

It wasn't long before old habits returned, and Wesley began to see less and less of his mother. The truth of his mother's work finally became apparent to the boy. Wesley was 14 the first time he caught his mother with a man in the bathroom. When he left, he saw the too casual exchange of cash between his mother and the man. His mother tried to explain that it was normal but the image haunted him. So he left.

He worked under the table at a local bar, cleaning up after close, and slept in the fire escape just to get by, but he refused to go home. But, like clockwork, every Friday, he'd go to the cinema with Miss Valerie and she'd make sure he had something to eat. After a few short weeks of living on the streets, Miss Valerie gave Wesley a key to her small neighboring house. Wesley came home the following day.​
1945 - 1951
He continued to work under the table until the day he turned 21. After a late night shift, he saw his mother stumbling blindly through the streets and could hardly believe his eyes. Before he knew what was happening she was cold and unresponsive in an alley, dead from an overdose. For the first time in years, he returned to the house next door, only to find it occupied by a group of men who he'd never seen before. When Wesley tried to leave, they beat him within an inch of his life. In a panic they loaded him in the back of their truck. Oh, how he'd wished that was the end of it, but Miss Valerie had heard the commotion, and soon her body was next to his. They began to drive and that was the last Wesley remembered. But it wasn't the end.

When he woke a few days later, he met a woman by the name of Rosa. She would eventually be the one to Sire Wesley. It took months for her to reveal herself as a Toreador Kindred, and Valerie's lover. She quickly took a liking to Wesley and made him a surprising offer. If he did as she asked, one day she might embrace him. Valerie had liked him well enough, and Rosa was willing to give him a chance. What started as an innocent relationship quickly turned into a clear cut position of power and submission. Rosa liked things her way, and at first Wesley found the idea strange. Living under her roof was optional, yet he could never bring himself to leave. There were others, her Childer she called them, but she didn't seem to have eyes for them as she did for Wesley.

For years she taught him many trades until she could milk his natural talents. It was all in his hands. Sculpting, needlework, he seemed to excel with his own touch. But what he really excited at was writing. It seems all the years of watching movies had finally given him some sort of talent after all. When Wesley was good, Rosa would allow him some of her blood. When his talents failed, the hunger would drive him mad. This maddening back and forth ritual of praise and punishment was enough to drive Wesley to want to leave, but he could never bring himself to walk out the door, for, as he later discovered, he'd been unwittingly made her Ghoul.

Finally, after Wesley was 27 years of age, Rosa made the decision to Embrace him. He doesn't remember much of the ensuing weeks.​
1951 - 1990
Rosa found a new Ghoul to entertain herself with, and Wesley befriended some Rosa's other Childer more closely. One, an older woman by the name of Victoria Blanchard, and another by the name of Eleanor Thompson. He fell hard for Eleanor. They spent most of their time together, with the blessing of Rosa of course. For decades everything was fine, until they moved to Houston during the first month of 1990. The day they arrived, Rosa called and demanded that Eleanor return. She didn't even look back to say goodbye. Their Sire wanted them back.

Wesley spent an increasing number of nights teetering back and forth between heartache and rage. It was the closest he'd ever felt to understanding what the call of the Beast really was that everyone spoke of. He ended up front and center on a bar stool at the Maximum Buzz.

He's been there every since.​

Mundane skills of note

  • Well practiced dancer, loves Swing
  • Writing
  • Needlework and hand sewing
  • Advanced knowledge of knots, knot tying
  • Speaks conversational French and Spanish
Toreador Disciplines

The Toreador are a clan of vampires known for being some of the most beautiful, sensual, seductive, emotional and glamorous of the Kindred. They are responsible for the legends of vampires who seduce and entice their prey with beauty, love and sensuality. Famous and infamous as a clan of artists and innovators, they are one of the bastions of the Camarilla, as their very survival depends on the facades of civility and grace on which the sect prides itself.

Auspex is a Discipline that grants vampires supernatural senses.

Level 1:
  • Heightened Senses: Raise one of your five senses to superhuman levels
  • Ancestors' Vigilance: Raise one of your five senses and perceive ghosts
Level 2:
  • An Ear for Lies: Know when someone lies to you
  • Aura Perception: Learn various qualities of a person from their aura
  • Sense Vibrations: Learn the most intense emotion of a person
Level 3:
  • Artist's Intent: Learn details of an artist's state of mind in relation to a piece of art
  • The Spirit's Touch: Learn something of an object and its previous owner from its resonance
  • Spirit Ties: Learn something about a target from residues of its tissue
Level 4:
  • Telepathy: Briefly probe someone's mind or project a telepathic message to them
  • Ancestors' Insight: Briefly probe someone's mind, project a telepathic message or plant a foreign thought in the mind of the target
Level 5:
  • Psychic Projection: Free your mind to travel the world in astral form
  • Spirit Travel: Project your mind into one of the spiritual realms

Level 6:
  • Celestial Harmony: Open your mind to the thoughts and emotions of a crowd
  • Cipher: Gain the ability to read any non-supernatural language or code
  • Clairvoyance: See what is happening in a distant location
  • Crocodile's Tongue: Know what someone wants to hear in order to get the best reaction
  • Discern the Aura: Scan a group of people with one particular trait in their aura
  • Eagle's Sight: Gain a bird's eye view of your area
  • Genius Loci: Gain insight by meditating at places of high resonance
  • Horoscopic Forecast: Gain a glimpse of the target's future
  • Insight of the Talespinner: Draw out detailed characters and stories quickly from your mind
  • Prediction: Socially outwit someone by knowing what they are going to say ahead of time
  • Sense Emotion: Learn the emotions of the people around you
  • Spirit Bond: Create a connection to something so you can find its geographical location
  • Telepathic Communication: Mentally speak with someone, even if they are a great distance away
  • The Dreaming: Be somewhat aware of events concerning you while in torpor
  • The Mind Revealed: Continuously read someone's thoughts to know what they are thinking and about to do
Level 7:
  • Anima Gathering: Take other people with you to travel astrally
  • Ecstatic Agony: The pain from wounds makes you act stronger, not weaker
  • Karmic Sight: View someone's aura, personality, morality, and other karmic qualities
  • Melange: See the truths behind reality in metaphor
  • Mirror Reflex: React quickly to an opponent in combat by reading their mind
  • Personality Metamorph: Take on fictitious personalities as your own
  • Pluck the Secret: Learn what a target knows about a specific subject
  • Spirit Link: Speak with multiple people telepathically at once
  • Stealing the Mind's Eye: See and hear what a target does and even use some Disciplines through them
  • Supernal Awareness: Sense events and deeds anywhere in the world
Level 8:
  • Omniscience: Learn the personalities and identities of all creatures around you
  • Psychic Assault: Make a powerful mental attack against a target's psyche
  • The Oracle's Sight: Hear and see the thoughts of everyone around you
Level 9:
  • False Slumber: Astrally project while in torpor
  • Master of the Dom: Merge with a land and know everything that transpires on it while gaining power over the land and its residents
  • Precognition: Gain some insight as to what may happen at a particular time and place
  • Sight of the Oracle: Always know what is happening around you, gain visions of past and future events, and increase other supernatural senses
Level 10:
  • Pulse of the Canaille: Sense the attitudes, directions, and trends of groups of mortals, as well as those who may be controlling them
Celerity is a Discipline that grants vampires supernatural quickness and reflexes.

Level 6:
  • Flawless Parry: Make perfect defensive motions at the expense of taking no other action
  • Precision: Enter a trance where you can operate with exceptionally fine manipulation
  • Projectile: Throw objects with the speed of your Celerity
  • Tireless Tread: Run at 50 miles per hour for at least eight hours
  • Quickness: Expend a blood and gain yet another additional turn. All previous celerity levels are activated
  • Momentum: Focus your Celerity into one instant, increasing her strength
Level 7:
  • Celerity Refinement: Choose to spend vitae for Celerity as you need them, rather than declaring them beforehand
  • Flower of Death: Use your Celerity to gain bonuses to attacking
  • Quickness: Expend extra blood points to gain extra actions, at the cost of an unsoakable lethal damage level per action
  • Stutter-Step: Use your Celerity to gain bonuses to defense
Level 8:
  • Physical Defiance: Move so fast you defy gravity and kill mortals instantly as you pass through them
  • The Unseen Storm: Move so fast you are truly invisible
  • Time out of Time: React instantly to anything and move before anyone realizes what you have done
  • Zephyr: Move so fast that you seem to defy gravity
Level 9:
  • Paragon of Motion: Perform most physical acts without fail
    Between the Ticks: Expend a blood and a Willpower, you gain an automatic success on all attacks delivered to an opponent with less than advanced Celerity. You have an extra action against those with advanced Celerity. All attacks delivered by those with less than advanced Celerity are considered to be automatic failures. You can declare fair escape at any time
Presence is the Discipline of supernatural allure and emotional manipulation which allows Kindred to attract, sway, and control crowds.

Level 1:
  • Awe: Awe is simple but solid. Once the vampire employs this power, those who are near him or her either want to be closer to him or her or shudder in fear. It is an immediate and intense attraction, but temporal and not so overpowering that those afflicted lose their sense of self-preservation. Danger breaks the spell of fascination, as does leaving the area. Victims will remember how they felt, though, and this will affect their reactions should they ever encounter the vampire again. Awe is extremely useful in mass communication. It does not matter what is said – the hearts of those affected will lean towards the user's opinion.
Level 2:
  • Dread Gaze: This power engenders unbearable terror in its victims. Dread Gaze, like the legendary hypnotism of the cobra, stupefies the victim into madness, immobility, or reckless flight. To use this power, the vampire merely shows the mark of Caine upon him or her – bearing claws and teeth, hissing loudly and with malice. Any vampire can do this, but students of this Discipline are more insanely terrifying than mere sight can explain.
Level 3:
  • Entrancement: The Kindred makes someone obsessively want to please them.
Level 4:
  • Summon: The Kindred compels someone to come to them immediately.
Level 5:
  • Majesty: The Kindred appears as a figure of absolute power and authority. Where a charismatic, skilled vampire with Awe [1] may impress at a street corner, or drink undisturbed in a back alley, the power of Majesty [5] can influence an area of effect alike a small concert hall or theater full of people.

Level 6:
  • Aire of Elation: Make everything you do seem so hilarious it incapacitates people
  • Capture Reality: Project the essence of a scene through photographs or film
  • Force of Personality: People are forced away from you by your aura
  • Intensification : Create an object that instills a particular emotion in those who view it
  • Love : Make someone enamored with you as if in a blood bond
  • Melusine's Song: Command someone through song
  • Paralyzing Glance: Send someone into a seizure of terror
  • Passion: Fill a person or group with lust, greed, anger, or fear
  • Renew the Earthly Pleasures: Overwhelm a vampire with mortal feelings
  • Siren's Song: Instill particular emotions in a group through music
  • Spark of Rage: Provoke a group of people to Frenzy
  • Star Magnetism: Make those who see you in pictures or films in awe of you
  • Two-Tiered Communication: Subliminally say different things to someone than what is heard publically
  • Vengeance of the Martyr's Legacy: Compel all the vampire's descendants Frenzy
Level 7:
  • Cooperation: Lessen hostilities and promote cooperation in a group
  • Fires of Conviction: Embolden a crowd to riot in the name of some cause
  • Mask Empathy: Cut emotional bonds between people
  • Mind Numb: Drain the people around you of motivation or incentive to act
  • Phobia: Make someone irrationally afraid of something
  • Scourging the Instinct: Whip a crowd into a controlled frenzy
  • Unholy Penance: Fill someone with guilt and the desire to beg forgiveness
  • Vengeance of the Martyr's Legacy: Force all the vampire's descendants to Frenzy
Level 8:
  • Bloodlust: Rouse your troops into an enraged horde capable of ignoring their wounds
  • Corruption: Make someone addicted to sadistic acts or go into a Frenzy when presented with pleasurable things
  • Invoke Frenzy: Send someone into one of three types of Frenzy
  • Ironclad Command: It becomes very difficult to resist your Presence powers
  • Perfect Paragon: Appear as the ideal person to whomever sees you
Level 9:
  • A Perfect World: Make everyone in a city work towards making it your ideal city
  • Pulse of the City: Project an emotion into the residents of a city
Level 10:
  • Dream World: Project dreams and nightmares to everyone in the world
General Note: The list of abilities is for reference and not an all inclusive list of Wesley’s powers.
Trivial Facts

D.O.B. : June 28th, 1924
Given Name : Lonnie Hubert Dupont
Mother : Charlotte 'Charlie' Rose Rousseau
Sire : Mistress Rosa
Cats : Red said I could have 7
Job : Currently works for Hanna at her bar, Maximum Buzz
In fact, I read the rules many times. So here's a bunch of roses.
 
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In collaboration with @Red Thunder, I have finally finished designing this character. Please enjoy this withered monstrosity.
Also, it is important to note that this character was designed to continue existing as an NPC regardless of whether or not I myself end up committing to the RP full-time. Even if I do end up doing that, I would probably make a new pc. Anyway pls enjoy my leathery boi.

P.S. I hate making CS's. This is probably obvious by how plain and text heavy the sheet looks. My apologies to any real life Toreadors who recoil in disgust immediately after opening it.
:upsidedown: