“Neo-Hoodoo is the 8 basic dances of 19th century New Orleans’ Place Congo — the Calinda, the Bamboula, the Chacta, the Babouille, the Conjaille, the Juba, the Congo, and the VooDoo — modernized into the Philly Dog, the Hully Gully, the Funky Chicken, the Popcorn, the Boogaloo, and the dance of great American choreographer Buddy Bradley.”

Percentages

Charles thought he might be overcome with superstition when he was told where the meeting would take place. The air was heady with the scent of life. Lush green curled up to the tombstones like a tired lover. The vaults and statues had stood up to hurricanes and storms for hundreds of years and retained a quiet dignity. The cemetery was beautiful.

His contact, however, was not. Charles would have thought Agau a corpse propped up against a vault if he wasn’t currently flipping through the requested papers. The man seemed to be muttering to himself, but Charles couldn’t see Agau’s mouth move much. He was dressed strangely as well — sunglasses, with leather gloves and a thick leather overcoat. Charles sweated through light linens in the south Florida heat, even at night. Agau’s skin was dry and pale. When Vasquez had told him the killer’s name, Charles did a little bit of research on his phone. Agau was a voodoo loa. An angry one at that, who called himself the gunner of gods. Obviously a code name.

“It sounds like a strange request,” said Charles, “but I still love her very much. Can... can you make sure she doesn’t feel any pain?”

Agau laughed a low rasp, like two heavy stones scraping together. “But you want to make sure she doesn’t go to the press about your infidelity,” he said. The voice was not much more pleasant.

Charles nodded his head. “Vasquez didn’t tell me how much this was going to cost. I brought some cash with me in the car. Half up front now, half once it’s done?”

The rasp returned along with a slow head shake. Somewhere, Charles thought he noticed a similarity in the way that Agau and Vasquez moved.

“One third now,” said Agau. He began to pull off one of the leather gloves Charles noticed earlier. “One third when it’s done. One third on the next full moon or when Marie Laveau comes to me in her dreams and tells her favorite son she needs you to provide her a favor.”

Agau removed the glove. The hand it protected was shriveled and grey. When the fingers on the exposed hand flexed, Charles felt his throat catch. Agau pushed up the sleeve, exposing a sickly grey arm. Charles brushed away the bone he thought he saw poking through the skin as a trick of the moonlight.

“Whichever comes first,” said Agau as he sliced his wrist with a razor he pulled from his boot. Charles’ eyes widened as thick blood oozed from the wound. Agau produced a ceramic cup from underneath his long leather coat. The blood crawled down Agau’s forearm like a lazy spider until it plopped into the cup.

“How much?” asked Charles. “Uh, in total?” Agau held out the cup with his exposed hand. The rotting fingers delicately gripped the handle. Agau’s extended what remained of his pinky.

“Do you want her dead or not?” asked Agau. Charles took the tea cup into his trembling hands, forcing himself not to look down as he drank.

Digging Up the Past

Our origins are wrapped in the origins of vodou, voudoun, hoodoo, or voodoo — take your pick. The many ways to say and spell it should be the first hint of how adaptable we are. These faiths arose because the authorities running the slave trades forbade African religious rituals. The slaves created a new faith based on ideas from West African spirituality, Roman Catholicism, European mysticism, and even a few Masonic ideals. If you think there’s no difference between these faiths, ask your Christian friends whether the Catholics, the Baptists, and the Methodists are all the same.

Our bloodline was born out of the slave trade that fueled North American expansion. The plantation owners of the Caribbean brutalized their workers during the day, and we terrorized the workers at night. We took advantage of the isolated locations to become small kings of petty domains. Travelling by boat was a treacherous proposition at the time. Weeks in cramped quarters with few spaces untouched by the sun aboard a vessel vulnerable to fire meant most Kindred claimed whatever small piece of solid land they touched as soon as possible. A rare few were able to adapt seized ships from slavers and took to the sea as pirates.

Our unfortunate appearance often makes other Kindred think we’re Nosferatu. They were certainly on the slave ships, preying on the unfortunates huddled in the holds. I’ll admit, I’ve taken advantage of the confusion, especially when passing through a domain where I don’t feel like answering too many questions about who I am and what I’m doing there. You have to be careful, when dealing with the sewer rats, however. They may want you to think they are piteous and harmless, but they can be just as vicious as the pretty ones when push comes to shove.

There was another Clan that rivaled the Nosferatu’s terrible visage; one whose name we don’t even mention. They were also associated with death for most of their existence. And yet, if we were truly descended from them, why not just claim their name and all the glory and prestige associated with it? Because nothing comes for free. Those that came before had their own baggage. We don’t need to make claims to a long dead Clan, and we certainly don’t need the problems that such an ego boost brings with it.

Speaking of problems… This shall-not-be-named Clan was supposedly the one that the Giovanni usurped within the last millennium. The old necromancers walked between the living and the dead. They could control those spirits weak enough (or foolish enough) to let themselves be bound, and perhaps could have even done more, had they not been so distracted by their earthly whims. That is why we respect the loa, while not having any real use for ghosts or their puppet-masters. Mere ghosts are just the reflections of humans unable to outrun death. The loa have existed forever and shown the cleverness needed to take power as gods. The Giovanni had potential, but instead squandered it on fine clothes, foolish vices, and selfish desires.

To which of these Clans do we belong? Only an outsider would ask such a rude question. All three Clans had a hand in making us what we are tonight. We belong to Samedi, in the same way that a Toreador belong to their namesake. Except in our case, the true name of our founder hasn’t been lost to time and replaced with a word created to not draw the attention of a sleeping undead god. We are still on good terms with our founder. The Baron is young enough to still walk alongside us in the shadows, yet his wisdom is ancient enough to walk with the loa in their power and understanding. We are His.

Our Founding Father

In order to understand us, you must understand the founder of the feast. The Baron is the loa of resurrection. He appears dressed for a Haitian funeral in top hat, tuxedo, and dark glasses. He’s known for his carousing and encourages those who wish his favor to leave gifts of cigars and rum when they pray. He is a contradictory figure that celebrates life while inextricably linked to death. He is the master of death, collecting souls to escort to the afterlife, but indulges in vices as if there is no tomorrow. Sounds very familiar, no?

When you ask other Kindred about our history, they want to know if the Baron existed before we did. If he did, it suggests to them the loa are real, something we know to be true. If the Baron is a loa, then the others mentioned as his family, like Erzulie and Damballah, were also something else. Something not seen before and something not seen since. This way, Samedi is another challenge to the myth of Caine and all the vampires springing from him and his curse. It may not matter to many, but walk into a room full of Caine worshippers, and you might not walk out under your own power.

To keep things nice and easy, these Kindred (and others) suggest that the Baron was created by the makers of vodou. We stole his name and his face to make thing easier for ourselves. It wouldn’t be the first time Kindred played up to the myths that humanity creates, and it certainly won’t be the last. If this is true, all the things important to us — the dead, the loa, the respect for our founder — are all lies. It’s all card tricks and long cons to distract from some other purpose. To some, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and they blind themselves to look for deeper meaning. But after the shock of learning about the secret world of the Kindred, I can hardly blame someone from looking beneath everything to seek a deeper, darker truth.

The story my sire told to me was that the Baron did exist before our bloodline as a being of power. He came across a lonely vampire at the crossroads one night. The vampire cried tears of blood about the loneliness of her existence. Samedi spoke with her till the morning about death, life, vampires, and even a little bit about music. She whispered the secret of vampires into his ear the moment the sun came up. They both laughed as she disintegrated into ash. He sired his first childe the next night and has been fascinated with us ever since. He’s a loa and a vampire, just like most of us were human and vampires.

There are other stories other sires have told their childer. They cast Samedi as a fugitive, on the run from other, more powerful Kindred looking to wipe him out because of his unique abilities. He settled in the islands for many years. When the plantations and the slaves came, he kept to himself, though his abilities grew the legend of the loa. When the Kindred looking to control the wealth of the plantations arrived, Samedi took up the top hat and the legend to defend his domain. In some versions of the story, Samedi comes face to face with Augustus Giovanni, who was the Kindred that forced Samedi out of his home in the first place. These stories end with a deal struck between the Samedi and the Giovanni, but one that neither party seems happy with. Even if the story isn’t true, the tension between us still exists to this day.

Perhaps if you are lucky enough to meet the Baron, you can ask him yourself. The Baron is seen from time to time, rumored to have a grand haven hidden under an old plantation in Port-au-Prince. He’s not exclusive to the island though, making appearances as far north as New York City and as far south as Johannesburg in the same evening. The Baron insists that, as the loa of the crossroads, he can travel in ways nobody else is able to understand. Our enemies claim it’s a trick so other Kindred can dress up in his iconic attire and pretend to be him. If you want a visit from our founder in a poor mood, such accusations can’t be beat as an invitation.

Havana Nocturne

After World War II, Cuba was the next big score for organized crime. American Mafia families used their political power and financial reserves to bribe Fulgencio Batista’s regime. Batista gave up his country to their criminal influence. Havana soon became a vacation spot known for its luxury and decadence. Anything could be had for a price, and the tales of what the high-rollers at Mafia casinos indulged in rivalled anything out of Rome’s most outrageous legends. Though these nights would not last forever, the Mafia refined the lessons learned here when Bugsy Siegel was put in charge of developing a new destination fueled by humanity’s need for vice: Las Vegas.

Where Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano laid seeds, their puppet masters reaped the benefits. Many Ventrue and Toreador Princes took advantage of the friendly environment to indulge in their darkest desires. Many Kindred operated with only the smallest caution paid to the Masquerade. Some islands became fiefs rules openly by their Kindred masters. The natives ran scared from black cars kidnapping entire families in the night. The official word was the usual tyranny of a dictator, but there were plenty of Cubans that ended up as feasts for visiting Kindred dignitaries of both the Camarilla and the Sabbat.

It’s easy to think that Castro was a Brujah counter-plot to the Ventrue manipulations of the Mafia. It’s just as likely that he and other revolutionaries like Che Guevarra were tired of the corruption of Batista’s regime and decided to overthrow it on their own. Cuba fell to the Communist rebels on New Year’s Eve, 1958. The first few nights of 1959 found many of the Kindred of Havana scrambling to whatever sanctuaries they could find. Revolutions are an excellent time for the Jyhad to flare up and enemies to settle scores. The Samedi provided sanctuary for many of these Kindred, collecting debts which are still being repaid to these modern nights. Those who once scoffed at our backward religion and uncultured ways begged and pleaded for us to open our crypts and hide them from the teeth of their enemies and the torches of their hunters.

Many of the Kindred who fled from Castro’s revolution were part of Clan Giovanni. Their connections to organized crime meant Havana quickly became a stronghold of their Clan. I even remember rumors of Crocetta Giovanni breaking two barriers at once as the first Giovanni Prince in the New World and one of the first female Giovanni Princes ever. The fleeing Giovanni who offered merely money and favors to our people were left to their Final Deaths. The ones who offered something useful survived. Our connections to the spirits sing in our blood, but the Giovanni who taught some of us their Necromancy made those Samedi even more powerful than before. While our bloodline is small enough that we need not concern ourselves with those who know necromancy and those who do not, those who do are often deferred to as leaders when more than one of us gather in a city. If they can speak to spirits directly, most figure, they can speak to the other Kindred of the city for all of us.

Many of those Giovanni fared poorly once evidence of the price they paid for safety got back to their family. Crocetta’s very public and very messy Final Death is still whispered about to other Kindred as an example of Giovanni brutality. The Clan hates us, claiming that we stole their secrets. Their members swear bounties on Samedi who flaunt necromancy, but many of them don’t discriminate between those of us who do or do not use the Discipline. By their thinking, any destroyed

Samedi is an example to those who might have the ability to keep it hidden. For a Clan that prides itself as negotiators and shrewd businessmen, isn’t it sad to see the temper tantrums thrown when they end up on the bad side of a deal for once?

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

Though we were born in the islands, the Samedi now stretch throughout the world. Most of our Kindred exist alone or in pairs where they do, but we’ve come a long way from being the sole vampire claiming multiple plantations as our domain. We’re usually okay with working and playing well with others, though it often takes time and effort to establish those relationships. Both the Camarilla and the Sabbat are uncomfortable with us unless we take steps to make nice.

Most of the time, the Camarilla’s beef with us is shallow but important: we look like walking, talking corpses, and they have a Masquerade to uphold. It’s understandable, but it also means that if something goes down in the city, we’re usually number one on the scapegoat list. They do the same thing to their own members, but since we’re not an official part of the club, we don’t have anyone to back us up. Even if you make friends with, say, the Nosferatu, they’ll shrink into the shadows quickly if that means you take the fall for something they did.

The Sabbat, on the other hand, don’t give a shit about how we look. They don’t give a shit about much, really, which is why they want to tear it all down. You’d think that an organization that causes so much death would be one we’d get behind, but you’d be wrong. Death is a natural part of the world. Senseless death caused by manmade disasters and senseless violence is not. They stomp whatever gets in their way and then either blow town when things get rough or do it again if anyone stands up to them. We don’t like to cause trouble, and the Sabbat do nothing but.

We share a lot of space with the Setites and their rivals in the Sabbat, the Serpents of the Light. The bad news is that because a lot of their Kindred have adapted voodoo trappings in their rituals and Disciplines, they give the Baron a bad name. By the time you’re done explaining the difference between the loa, petro, and rada magic, your haven is already on fire. The good news is that because they hate each other so much, they rarely look at us as a threat. Often, they assume that we’re on their side and want to help screw over the other guy. If you can play that game right — and don’t mind a slow, painful death if you screw up — you can live pretty large off of the middle ground.

Many of the Anarchs brush off our talk of the loa as superstitious foolishness. This seems like a silly thing for a bunch of vampires to concern themselves with, but it’s usually cover for fears about us as Setite spies and saboteurs. We’ve done well by the Baron, so their calls for taking down the Kindred in power usually fall on deaf ears... if we even have ears in the first place. They do, however, have excellent access to criminal contacts and the sorts of people who pay us for our abilities, so writing them off completely is probably not the best option.

Many of us still call the islands of the Caribbean home. We’re stretched out through several of the larger cities, even if only a member or two in each. It’s been this way for hundreds of years, and may be why we don’t have much in the way of organization or political power. You’ll find a handful of us in Port-au-Prince and Port Royale, but the only time there is a large gathering is when the Baron makes his presence known. The Day of the Dead is the one day he’s sure to be in Port-au-Prince. I’ve heard that if you find the true Baron, any favor you ask of him will be done in honor of the loa.

As civilization conquered North America, the cities called us there. We’re not as urban-bound as some of the other Clans, but having a ready food source and easily collected dead bodies became a situation too easy to pass up. We have a few singular members that have travelled all throughout the continent, but we have two cities where a few of us have gathered as in influential presence. New Orleans, of course, thanks to its reputation for both piracy and voodoo. We’ve recently strengthened our position there in the aftermath of the storms that shook the old power structure to the core. Miami also feels like home to a few of us because of the island refugee populations that wash ashore on a daily basis. It’s also the base of operations for Boca Muerte, a Samedi who smuggles items in his coffin by shipping himself places as a corpse.

Some of us returned to the origin of vodou in West Africa. This is where we step between the Setites and the Serpents of the Light most often. There are other forces at work here as well, but with all the different things on the menu, we don’t stand out as often as we do elsewhere in the world. A rotting corpse whistling in the heat is far less dangerous than a clash between snakes. Africa offers an excellent mix of being able to work openly while not running against those who take offense to not being careful about being hidden.

Digging Our Own Graves

No matter where you go around the world, there will always be a criminal element. We often fall in with them because of our perpetual status as outsiders. If you’re willing to do dirty work, nobody cares if it looks like you got hit by a bus. Criminal activity and Kindred intrigues often go hand in hand. There may be Clans that pull the strings of larger, organized outfits, but the small crews those outfits use to keep their hands clean usually need someone willing and able to do what we do. There are few other occupations where wearing a mask is a part of the job, and not many of them offer as much fun and financial freedom as being a getaway driver or a second story guy.

Often times, this means being able to move illegally obtained goods from one place to the other. We know a few things about smuggling thanks to our condition. We might not have pull with Teamsters, but there are plenty of small operations that use our people to make sure something gets to where it needs to be without having all the proper paperwork. My sire claims that the first of our kind to work as a smuggler and a pirate had his name struck from the history books because he was so successful raiding European interests with a ship full of freed slaves. I don’t know if it was Samedi himself, but he does love his rum, does he not?

For those who prefer to work alone, there are plenty of people who need killing to be done and quite a few aren’t interested in getting wrapped up with Assamites in order to get a throat cut. We can look like anyone and can take a hit if things go wrong. That doesn’t even count the peculiar abilities of our signature Discipline. We can get inside secure locations as a strange white powder (well, maybe not so much anymore), and we can poison humans with just a touch. While the authorities are figuring out that the target just didn’t get sick on their own, we’re putting money in an off-shore account and already considering the next contract.

Our relationship with death sometimes becomes a professional one. Because we spent so much of our time in graveyards on the island, when death rites became more formalized, we were in a prime position to move into control. While larger Clans have taken over the large commercial firms that make money handling burials, we still lay claim to funeral homes and coroner’s offices across the world. Our services become vital because upholding the Masquerade often means either altering a body to look like it died from natural causes or making sure it never ends up under the harsh lights of a medical examiner’s table. Few Kindred think of these areas when drawing up their complex webs of power and intrigue, but everyone needs them in the end.

The Giovanni Connection

Our relationship with the Giovanni is complex. Regardless of whether the tales about a deal between the Baron and Augustus are true, any sort of full disclosure is very unlikely. In the absence of evidence, many colorful explanations have sprung up to explain why the Baron doesn’t get along with Augustus. Or, more specifically, why neither the Samedi nor the Giovanni seem happy with the bargain that they supposedly struck.

This is the version of the story I’ve heard: Augustus met with the Baron under somewhat pleasant terms. There was a minor disagreement about just what the Giovanni could do with their abilities. All loa are ghosts, but not all ghosts are loa. Augustus sought out the Baron for guidance on this subject, yet did not heed his advice. The Giovanni suffered because of it and threatened to go to war with us. Cooler heads prevailed, but since then the Samedi and the Giovanni don’t see eye to eye on much of anything. They don’t understand why we don’t try to command the loa like they command the dead. We don’t understand why we would even bother trying. Anyone trying to show power over the loa fool themselves at best and set themselves up for a great fall at worst.

Many of us have an interest in their powers of necromancy, for obvious reasons. Thanatosis gives us control over the body in death, while necromancy gives us control of the spirits of the dead. We make a good team with the Giovanni... when we get along. Because we run in many of the same circles, individual members of their family enter into relationships of convenience with our Kindred. This can lead to making necromancy easier to learn from specific teachers, should those teachers survive long enough. Our blood sometimes takes to necromancy like few other Disciplines, thanks to the blessing of the loa.

While those of our blood sometimes have a knack for necromancy, sometimes we don’t. One take on the bad deal the Baron made was a curse upon his line making using necromancy more difficult. We all owe him our unlives, but those who take advantage of his image do so with his permission. The price paid for walking in the Baron’s shoes is not being able to develop necromancy as well as those of us who prefer our own ugly mugs. In this version of the story, Augustus met with a few false Barons that extracted some goodies out of him. By the time he got to the real one, he was sick of being fooled.

There is one other option for learning necromancy, but it’s not one most people like to take. The Harbingers of Skulls apparently stole the Discipline away from the Giovanni. A few have offered to teach us how to use necromancy as a way to get back at the Giovanni, but these lessons are hardly free. They usually mean getting mixed up in someone else’s intrigues, not to mention pushing on the bruised relationship we have with the Giovanni. Being able to speak to the loa directly sounds lovely, but navigating the strings attached by the Harbingers might make the power not worth the cost.

Character and Traits

Concepts

Body Double

You make looking like a dead guy work for you. Sometimes, a dead body is needed to convince the authorities that someone is dead. You provide that body — your own — for a fee. A work night usually means a ride to the morgue or the funeral home (it helps to have someone there on your payroll). You might slip out the back or you might pay them off at the end of the night. Occasionally, you have to dig up a grave and climb inside when someone starts snooping around a Kindred playing much younger and more alive than they really are. The important thing is that the paperwork says there’s a body where the body is supposed to be. If some hunter digs up the grave in a few years, it’s not your problem. Unless they want to renegotiate at the end of the night.

Hijacking Urban Legend

They say that Blackbeard used to tie fuses and candle wicks into his beard and light them to convince his opponents he was of the devil. You don’t need the extra theatrics, but you take advantage of your corpse-like appearance in a similar way. Whether you are getting a truck on a lonely highway to pull over or taking the deck of a freighter in a midnight raid, you count on your strange look to frighten targets and build your legend. How badly you break the Masquerade depends on how poorly your planning goes, but you rarely feel the heat. Most of your raids are carried out between the domains of the same Princes that pay you well for your illegal goods.

Speaker of the Crossroads

All Kindred have one foot in the grave and one in the underworld. You pride yourself on being able to negotiate both worlds, unlike most who ignore the dead parts of their nature. You serve as a gateway between the living and the dead, carrying messages between

Kindred and their living relatives or speaking to the ghosts of their victims. What you ask for in return depends on how much your patron can afford to give. You usually help the poor for free but take the rich for all they are worth.

Combination

Disciplines

Switched At Death (Thanatosis •,

Obfuscate •••)

Usually, the Samedi take great pains to hide their shriveled, dead appearance. Looking like the right corpse at the right time, however, can prove to be quite useful.

System: Roll Wits + Awareness with a difficulty equal to the observer’s current Willpower. Success allows the user to appear as a specific dead body that they’ve touched. The power allows the illusion to emulate any damage done to the body, such as a fatal gunshot wound or a severed head. Any actions the Kindred takes that are out of place for a dead body, such as obvious movement or direct communication, trigger a Courage roll for the observer to stay in the presence of the Kindred. This power can only duplicate the state of the body the Kindred contacts. If the mortal has been dead 100 years, the Kindred will look like a skeleton.

This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

Grisly Gris-Gris (Fortitude ••, Thanatosis ••)

A common voudoun artifact is a gris-gris bag. These talismans protect the wearer from harm or bad luck. You can provide a similar type of protection... to those with an iron stomach.

System: The Kindred must spend a point of blood and break off a small piece of their body, such as a bit of hair, a fingernail, or a piece of skin. The target must ingest the Kindred’s body part. The next time the target makes a Stamina roll to soak damage, he or she adds a number of Fortitude dice to the roll equal to the Kindred’s Fortitude or Thanatosis, whichever is lower. While the gris-gris is in the target’s body, they temporarily lose one dot in Appearance per hour as their appearance becomes more and more corpse-like. If the target drops to zero Appearance this way, they become violently ill and vomit up the gris-gris along with the contents of their stomach. The target may choose to expel the gris-gris at any time once it’s become active.

This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

Exquisite Corpse (Fortitude •••, Obfuscate •••)

When Kindred rise every night, their bodies usually return to the same state they were in. You are able to maintain that perfect look throughout the night through a combination of supernatural physical toughness and your ability to control how others perceive you.

System: The Kindred suffers no cosmetic changes when she takes damage. If she gets shot, there’s no bullet hole. If a limb is removed, it turns to dust and an illusory one appears where the other once was. All health levels and dice pool penalties remain as normal, but someone trying to hurt the Kindred must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 7) after the first successful attack, or be stunned in disbelief. If stunned, all future rolls that scene to hurt the Kindred are at +2 difficulty.

This power costs 18 experience points to learn.