Everything

Fallon Marx

Nightclub bartending makes the perfect gig for would-be vampires. The sun’s on its way down by the time you head to work, the money doesn’t suck, and if you want to head home afterward with some patient, trusting soul, nobody’s likely to say “boo” to you so long as that night’s paramour manages to show up later looking no worse for wear. Small wonder, then, that such jobs feature real and wannabe ghouls. Fallon is one of them, and while he’s smart enough to be discreet, folks familiar with his nocturnal conquests know he’s more than just a pretty face.

Fallon is a pretty boy. Give him that much, at least. His good looks and surprising physical endurance make him a popular pickup for last-call lonely hearts. Fallon’s not picky; any gender will do. Sure, he likes the sex just fine. It’s blood, though, that he’s really after. A few sips in the midst of some kinky pre-dawn hijinks satisfies his thirst just fine most nights. On the happiest occasions, though, he manages to score a real vampire too inexperienced to recognize what Fallon really is. Most of Fallon’s conquests show up healthy the following night; none of his vampiric lovers, though, have appeared in public again.

Back in 1995, in a little dive called Pandora’s Box, Fallon was the one on the hook. A night creature took him home and made Fallon his little chew toy. Torn between agony and ecstasy, Fallon stayed on that hook for over 15 years. He’s a smart guy, though, and while he endured his master’s little games, Fallon watched for an opening and learned what he could about vampiric weaknesses. A shade past the turn of the millennium, Fallon saw his chance, took it, and “inherited” his deceased master’s fortune, home, and other little pets.

Fallon’s not selfish. He knows how to share. On those occasions when he bags a paranormal score, he shares the resulting blood-supply with two ghouled pit bulls (Hope and Destiny), a ghoul associate named Freedom, and the two hungry critters in his master’s basement. One of those critters was once a mage; that person’s soul, however, was ravaged by vampiric blood addiction to the point where their former powers fled. Decades of degradation have left that no-lon­ ger-Awakened shadow of its former self ravenously pitiable. Not even Fallon knows who this mage once was or even what gender it might have been. The desiccated, naked form in the basement resembles a skeletal travesty of humankind, and if Fallon feeds that poor thing (and its similarly debased yet never Awakened companion) the occasional stray dog, homeless bum, or barroom troublemaker… well, it’s an act of kindness, don’t you think? I mean, he could just let them starve, and that’d be a goddamned shame.

Fallon Marx owns a townhouse not far from his longtime job. He hasn’t aged visibly since 1995, but that’s just part of his appeal. Pandora’s Box is long gone, but Fallon never lacks for employment. He knows his business, treats customers well, and always has a smile for the other creatures who work

the club. He’s not the boss and doesn’t want to be. After all, it’s not like he lacks for funds. Locked in near-eternal youth, Fallon Marx abdicates any responsibility beyond his reliable services to whichever club he’s working at the time, plus his dedication to Freedom, Hope, Destiny, and the hunger that never leaves him. Oh, he’s strong enough to lift a Buick if he needs to, savvy enough to drop a bloodsucker or a clueless mage before they even know what hit them, and perceptive enough to avoid the real predators who’d turn Fallon into the final round of their night. Right now, though, he’s got no need to show off his hidden talents. Fallon knows a lot about a lot of things, but almost no one knows who or what he truly is, and Fallon aims to keep it that way… no matter the final cost.

Violent Young Vampire

Vampires who survive long enough to grow old have generally learned how and why to avoid the Awakened, and so the vampires a mage is likely to encounter are often young, impulsive, and arrogant to a potentially fatal fault. These neonate vampires tend to be violent, and easily fall prey to the murderous urges that are part of their undead existence.

As charming and seductive as they can be, a single neonate vampire isn’t much of a threat to an accomplished mage. A pack of neonate vampires, on the other hand, can destroy a powerful wizard with very little difficulty. And because vampires tend to be social predators, a mage who sends one of them off to Final Death (or worse — to some temporary yet humiliating fate) usually winds up on the bad side of his peers. Thus, vampires and mages try to avoid open conflicts. Such clashes go poorly for both sides.

• Increase one Physical Attribute by one.

Lupita and Michael

Sonia Velasquez was a good girl, really. But she wanted to be bad. Wanted it so much she dated that hirsute gringo her mama warned her about. So badly she wandered off with him into the woods long after dark. So deeply that when he tore her throat out, she tore his out, too. They both eventu­ ally walked away from that experience — a few days later, in

Sonia’s case. Sonia went into the ground. Lupita came out of it, a “little wolf” now groomed by her bad boy to feast on blood and let her inner animal run free.

Lithe, strong, hungry as hell itself, Lupita embodies vampiric savagery wrapped in a thin black-leather layer of rebel poise. She’s seen the movies, of course, and so she knows (or at least believes she knows) what this undeath thing is all about: endless parties in the woods and nightclubs, bodies ravished for blood and pleasure, fights fought with superhuman strength, and a certainty of damnation that makes the boundless night much sweeter for the brimstone along its edge.

Too young to realize what a cliché she is, Lupita has nurtured her unlife on pop-culture vampire lore. Her sire, Michael, isn’t much better off. He, too, is a young dude raised on The Lost Boys and Natural Born Killers, running through the shadows of the greater, and wiser, vampiric society. Their mutual love of dark mythology attracts them to the sinister fringes of the occult underground, where they hope to continue learning forbidden secrets and feasting on innocent blood. In this realm of sects and cultists, they occa­ sionally meet people of real power: Awakened mages whose Arts intimidate these youthful rebels, yet attract them with the promise of powers greater than the raw might and feral talents they already possess.

A muscular Latina in her apparent mid-teens, Lupita wears her hair loose and wild around her face. Ladder-slashed jeans, too-large biker boots, an array of gothic band T-shirts, and a battered leather jacket twice as old as she is (stolen off some old guy they mugged and drained outside a club) complement her clawed fingers and toes and lambent yellow eyes — legacies of the animalistic self she lets loose as often as possible. Lupita’s still too fresh to have mastered full shape-changing, but her wolfish aspect remains close to the surface of her skin. Michael is only slightly better at it than she is; he can shift into wolf-form while leaving his human guise essentially intact. If you look close enough, you can tell that his body hair is more lupine fur than human fuzz. In the dark, though, he looks like a normal-enough dude until his claws or teeth are in your neck.

Lupita’s Catholic traditions still skitter around in her skull, assuring this bad girl that her sins mean eternity in hell. Thus, she — unlike her paramour Michael — tends to be cautious in situations where she might get killed. Both vampires pick one-sided fights with human targets, but then skirt the presence of greater predators. In vampiric terms, they’re Caitiff: clanless vampires too young, reckless, and stupid to choose a side in the immortal wars. A mage who meets them, though, isn’t likely to know such things. To him, these kids are everything pop culture tells them vam­ pires should be: dangerous to mortals, but no match for an Awakened antagonist. That perception, however, has gotten a few young mages killed, ghouled, and tortured to the point of madness. Despite their youth and cultural banality, Lupita

and Michael are still dangerous as hell, with inhuman powers, several dozen cultist allies, occult curiosity, and a depthless thirst for blood drawn from magely veins.

Ancient Master Vampire

Careful vampires are essentially immortal, existing for hundreds or even thousands of years. Despite centuries of research (some of it lost under mysterious circumstances), neither the Traditions, the Technocracy, nor other Awakened orders truly understand much about these secretive monsters. Oh sure — mages think they know all there is to know about these so-called “Kindred.” In reality, the ignorant misinforma­ tion mages consider to be the truth of these undead entities is nearly as erroneous and incomplete as the knowledge vampires believe they hold regarding those jumped-up mortals who consider themselves to be like the wizards of old.

Because elder vampires use pawns — young vampires, ghouls, dominated Sleepers, mortal authorities, and even other mages — to further their ends, the ancient Kindred cover their tracks with rumors and misdirection. Certain vampires, it’s been said, command entire cities through their proxies and strange powers. A mage who angers such a beast might never even know who his enemy truly is, only that attacks seem to come from everywhere, with little obvious connection between them. Why do living statues, political activists, riot cops, street kids, and the local sheriff all seem to have something against a given mage? Only that secretive vampire elder knows for sure… and she’s not talking, least of all to you.

Roberto “Uncle Robert” Castrovinci

No one sees Roberto unless he wants them to. He learned secrecy during the War of the Vespers in his medieval homeland, Sicily, and has lived (or whatever this benighted excuse for living is called) by such disciplines ever since. In that long-ago time, Roberto was a common man swept up in the tide of violence that washed across Sicily when some rude Frenchman groped the young niece of Roberto’s friend Vincente. Outrage became violence, violence became massa­ cre, and massacre became war. In the process, hot-blooded Roberto learned to fear the urges of his fellow mortals, and then went from being an eager young brawler to a traumatized man seeking refuge in a church.

As things turned out, the wrong church. What good Christian could have imagined in those days that churches housed the faithful Damned? Who might have believed Roberto had he run from that church seeking aid? Possibly no one… but in such bloody days, those pious vampires could not afford to be discovered. And so, Roberto was converted in a most unholy way, his soul initiated into the legions of hell, his body twisted to mirror the tortures of his mind.

That was over 800 years ago, and Roberto has become very good at hiding himself from sight.

A master of secrets, Roberto moved between the Sicilian island kingdom, Italy, Iberia, and the Ottoman Empire for centuries. He built networks of trade and information, mastered the occult lore of Africa, Europe, and the classical world, and witnessed the soulless barbarism of mortal men. Roberto lost his faith in those days, and so when the modern age came to his world in clouds of flame, famine, and poison gas, he fled his homeland for the cleaner, safer shores of a young United States.

Smuggled through Ellis Island by a small army of loyal retainers, Roberto Castrovinci took up residence in the Bronx borough of New York City during the fall of 1915. After disposing of several potential rivals and establishing a protectorate neighborhood, “Uncle Robert” secluded himself in a brownstone and wove himself a network of allies, infor­ mants, procurers, and enforcers. There, safe from all but the most powerful intrusions, he continues to study the mystic arts, occasionally allying himself with devoted practitioners of Old Country wizardry.

Despite Siciliano stereotypes, Uncle Robert has no love for La Cosa Nostra. He saw the misery they inflicted upon his homeland, and allows them no influence within his protec­ torate. Roberto has banned all sales of drugs and weapons around his property; unauthorized gangs are forbidden; and the gruesome fates of muggers, rapists, and other parasites have become the stuff of local legend. Real-estate developers are bought off with money or warned off with force. Trespassers are dealt with in manners that suit the phrase “go medieval,” and so the people of Uncle Robert’s dominion remain happy… so long, of course, as they stay within well-established rules.

Only rarely does Uncle Roberto leave his home: two Morris Avenue brownstones converted into a single unit, with three basement levels dug beneath their foundations. Two families of living descendants occupy the upper floors and protect their downstairs benefactor. The building and surrounding blocks are protected by mundane methods and vampiric magic: traps, illusions, allies human and otherwise, a pervasive police presence, and a handful of gangs with funding and permission from Uncle Robert himself protect the param­ eters and deal out brutal justice to anyone who dares intrude on Castrovinci turf. Roberto’s got a few younger vampires in his circle, too: old-school Turks, Spaniards and Sicilians who still measure their power and experience in centuries. Few people see Uncle Robert unless he wants them to, and even fewer survive the experience if he doesn’t.

A short, stocky, gnarled man whose undeath warped his mortal features into ghastly exaggerations of homeliness, Uncle Robert dresses in impeccable handmade Italian suits and shoes. The contrast between his brutish face, bent body, and elegant fashion makes this vampire even more unnerving. He’s frighteningly adept at static magical Arts, too — not the blessings of True Magick, but the sorcery known to vampires and certain mortals. (In game terms, hedge magic and the Thaumaturgy Discipline.) Although he’s fluent in over two dozen mortal languages, including several dialects of Arabic, Italian, English, Greek, Latin, Urdu, and so forth, Roberto speaks casually in a hoarse medieval Sicilian language com­ posed of Latinate Italian, Norman French, Aragonese, classical Greek, arcane Arabic, and plenty of other things living people have barely even heard of, let along understand. His descen­ dants and retainers, of course, understand it perfectly, and that linguistic obscurity adds another secretive dimension to this elder vampire’s existence. For the few mortals allowed

into his presence, Uncle Robert projects a majestic aura of ageless charisma tinged with ruthless cruelty. He is not, Roberto emphasizes, a brutal man by nature. Ah, but nature has little sway within the gory human legacy, and so if he must assume a monster’s form, then he’ll remind people why this particular monster has lived nearly a 1,000 years with no apparent end in sight.