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Quote: Step right up, ladies and gentlemen - but not for children, for what writhes and undulates beyond these curtains is NOT for the faint of heart! Yes - SEE the Wolf Man of the Appalachians! MARVEL at the Inside-Out Woman! THRILL to the sensational, shocking spectacle of the Salamander Boy's suppurating slime! And for a mere five, yes, FIVE dollars more... |
You grew up with the Sabbat as a Zantosa revenant. To you, torture sessions were as normal as Nickelodeon, and you ate human meat as often as Beenee-Weenees. You lived in the backwoods, where your family performed occasional scouting missions for the vampires you served.
Your cousins always idolized the Lasombra, with their spiffy city clothes and their flashy cars, but you knew where the real power lay. Accordingly, when a lone Tzimisce staggered into your family's homestead with a pack of Camarilla Archons on his tail, you knew what to do. Using your natural charm and superior knowledge of the terrain, you lured the Archons into traps and staked them one by one. Then, you invited your Sabbat guest to dinner.
In gratitude, he Embraced you that night. He took you away to the big city, where you bought spiffy city clothes of your own [ or took them from the corpses of Ventrue ghouls. ] You were natural Sabbat and were eventually given charge of your own nomadic pack. Now your pack and ghouls migrate from Camarilla city to Camarilla city in the guise of a travelling freak show, reconnoitering and fomenting dissent.
Concept:
You have had a lot of life [ and unlife ] experience; this is reflected in your Abilities. As you are a mediocre fighter, you prefer to attack from ambush or to command others.
Roleplaying Tips:
You can project rustic ingenuousness or slick friendliness at the drop of a hat. You are extroverted and sometimes genuinely like the beings you meet. This doesn't stop you from looking out for Number One [ you ] or Number Two [ the sect. ] If you see an opportunity to screw anyone or anything for more Sabbat Status, you'll do it faster than you can suck the vitae from a premature crack baby.
Equipment:
Flashy suit, sword cane, Winnebago, 12-gauge shotgun, manacles, whip, Mason jars containing pieces of human fat [ you can't eat, but you can chew... ]
The Count
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Quote: Please, dear lady - accept the hospitality of my humble abode. My valet will take your coat. Do you drink...wine? |
You were raised in bitter exile as the last scion of a long and illustrious line of Balkan nobles. Your family held its ancestral lands through Ottoman incursion and Hapsburg oppresion alike, but Soviet tanks finally forced you to flee to the West, Your heritage was instilled in you early on - you spoke only Romanian at the dinner table; were allowed to associate only with those of proper breeding; were instructed in Greek, Latin, fencing, and other gentlemanly skills; and were cloistered away in private schools for most of your adolescence.
People found you charming, though they thought it odd when you wore white gloves everywhere you went, or placed your cape [ yes, cape ] over mud puddles to allow ladies unsoiled passage, or used your cane to thrash insolent clerks up and down the storefront [ your parents got the charges dropped ], or refused to toil like a common tradesman in the bourgeois sewer of capitalism.
Then your parents died, leaving behind a morass of unpaid debts [ weren't the servants supposed to handle such matters? ] Your money evaporated, and you had neither the temperament nor the skills for work.
You were on the verge of selling your prized ancestral coat of arms when Uncle Demetri arrived from Romania. He had watched you for many years and deemed you an ideal candidate for the Tzimisce clan - the real Tzimisce, not the Sabbat upstarts. This was your true heritage, and you gladly allowed yourself to be inducted into the nobility of the night. Money was never again a problem.
Uncle Demetri had enemies, as the great always do. One night, they attacked your manse, slew your sire's ghouls, drank Demetri's blood and captured you. They offered you a choice:join the Sabbat or join your sire in Final Death. You thought the offer over, and come to think of it, Uncle Demetri had always seemed a bit of an ass anyway, hadn't he? Thus began your sojourn in the peasant-infested but rather intriguing Sabbat sect.
Concept:
Your Old World heritage and modern upbringing have given you a bizarre potpourri of skills. Unlike most Tzimisce, you have not focused your will on mastering Vicissitude, considering it gauche.
Roleplaying Tips:
It was not your choice to join the Sabbat, but now that you have accepted membership you will serve it to the best of your ability - until it can be made to serve you.... You are unfailingly polite to all, but brook no disrespect, particularly from mortals. You will do anything for a comrade, but if anyone incurs your wrath you will go to the ends of the earth to extract proper and poetic vengeance.
Equipment:
Mansion decorated in medieval fashion, old-fashioned suits, Rolls-Royce, cane, broadsword, ornate resting coffin.
The Fallen Surgeon
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Quote: Forgive me - I was not always this way. |
Your mother was a doctor, as was her father before her. You learned the Hippocratic Oath before you could recite the Pledge of Allegiance. You graduated from med school at the top of your class and soon gained recognition as a brilliant and devoted young surgeon.
The work, rewarding as it was, was not without stress. Incessant pressure placed on you by your family and peers onlde things worse. For relief, you turned to drinking, gambling, and drugs. When the pipers finally came to be paid, you sold them your soul.
The mob provided you with lab facilities in a secret factory - a factory where porn flicks were made. But these weren't just any porn flicks. The stars of these films were freaks - artificial, sugically-altered freaks. It was your job to sculpt the "actors" - kidnapped junkies, vagrants, and runaway teenagers - for the wealthy clientele's delight.
They would have killed you if you refused, and that would have violated your Hippocratic Oath. So, robotlike, you did the work, and eventually you were able to sleep through the screams and wails and gurgles that arose from the growing menagerie in the subbasement.
Time became a crawling blur, so you don't remember the exact night the intruders shot and hacked their way into the lab. Your bosses were messily executed, and you figured you'd be next. One of the intruders, gazing in rhapsody at your caged creations, asked if you were responsible for them. Hoping for the peace of a death sentence, you admitted you were. Instead, he gave you an undeath sentence. Now you serve the Sabbat.
Concept:
You are an amazingly skilled surgeon, and have dutifully absorbed the Sabbat's teachings. In spite of yourself, you have gained respect among the Sabbat. Your Retainers are Blood Bound szlachta.
Roleplaying Tips:
You try desperately to glean some degree of good from your experiments. This rarely works, so you stay numb and aloof most of the time. You are able to perform the vilest acts with a dreamy detachment.
Equipment:
Lab coat [ generally soiled ], scalpels, anatomy textbook, first aid kit.
The Monster Maker
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Quote: Fool - you dare mock me? You dare question my theories? I will twist your double helix into a hellish moebius strip of unending horror! Attack, my monstrous minions! Attack, and let the world tremble! |
From earliest childhood you were ridiculed and ostracized by your so-called "peers" - sniveling cretins who refused to recognize your genius. Your classmates, your teachers, your family, the whole damnable human species - all of them mocked you, taunted you, belittled you. Curled up in your parents basement, with The Origin of Species under one arm and Where The Wild Things Are under the other, you vowed to show them all.
You grew up and received your doctorate in genetics. But were you respected? Did a Nobel Proze adorn your dingy little campus cubicle? Were the fruits of your labors lauded in the halls of science? No - oh, no. "Crackpot," they called you. "Half-baked," they called your ideas. "Professor Bug-Eyes," they whispered behind your back.
But you were right. There were monsters in the world, and you would find them. You would be their tyrant king.
You cobbled up some grant money from a pawn shop and a loan shark and took a sabbatical to Eastern Europe. In a dingy old Carpathian castle you discovered the truth. Not only were the legends accurate, but the monsters grouped themselves in great cabals. The master of the castle was a leader in one such cabal - The Sabbat. He offered you the Embrace, and you never looked back. Now you will make your own monsters, and then let's see the dean's face - ha ha! Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Concept:
You are brilliant, if deranged, and your high Mental Attributes and Knowledge Abilities reflect this. Your retainers are your monstrous creations.
Roleplaying Tips:
You are supremely, smugly self-confident in your theory du noir. You prefer to plot grand strategies from a distance, but at times the bloodlust overtakes you; when this happens, you assume zulo form and lead your servitors into the fray. You love to gloat over your brilliant schemes. Your vocabulary alternates between high-flown scientific jargon and lurid, alliterative descriptions of the vengeance you will wreak upon the world.
Equipment:
Catabolic transmogrifier pistol [ okay, so there are a few bugs you haven't worked out yet ], bio-aura stabilizer [ ditto ], Urkel-length plaid pants, bow tie, Coke-bottle glasses, cool supervillain cape.
The Seeker of the Forbidden
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Quote: I have recorded the truth - the hideous, blasphemous truth - for the benefit and horror of those who come after me. I fear that by the time you, the reader, peruse these words, I shall have met Final Death - or worse than Final Death - for know ye that I have gazed into the Effervescent Octagon and seen what waits beyond the Ghoo...no! The window - the wi- |
You were a quiet child who spent hours ensconsed among library shelves. The mundane world held little interest for you; you were sure that something else, something wondrous, lay beyond it.
Childhood turned to adolescence and wonder turned to cynicism, and you became less and less convinced of the essential goodness of the cosmos. Indeed, the more you thought about it, the more certain you became that the Powers That Be were in fact malevolent. Such a possibility fascinated you even more, and you devoted your life to a perilous search for the mysterious entities lurking in forgotten places.
You studied the occult, mythology and science. You pondered over enough quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore to dizzy a 32nd-degree Freemason. And then you began to notice the pattern. Livestock mutilations - Lovecraft's and Morrison's sudden demises - yes, it all made sense.
Cautiously fearing retribution from THEIR servants, you wrote of your findings to others in your field. One fellow scholar, a Hungarian occultist of considerable repute, invited you to visit her and study her library. You accepted the invitation, and the trip proved enlightening indeed. Certainly, the manipulation of history by vampires explained a great many of the world's mysteries. But not all - not nearly all. Even your hostess couldnot answer every question you posed.Intrigued, she Embraced you, allowing you to devote eternity to finding your own answers - no matter how shocking or horrific they may be.
Concept:
You embody the Tzimisce's scholarly side. You are a devoted student of the occult and are knowledgeable in many other fields as well. You are equally skilled in the acquisition of knowledge and have travelled to many exotic lands in your quest.
Roleplaying Tips:
Your thirst for knowledge exceeds even your thirst for blood. You devote yourself to unlocking the mysteries of the vampiric race, though you fear that behind the Kindred's Jyhad lurk entities more hideous than any vampire.
Equipment:
Fragments of the Book of Nod, Kirlian aura detector, laptop computer, rowan stake.
The Tattoo Artist
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Quote: Trust me - your face has amazing bone structure. Maori tribal scarification will go over awesome at your next board meeting or whatever. |
Everything was so ugly. The squalid roach-infested public-housing shell where you grew up; the jaundiced crackheads in the halls and the tarry-veined smack addicts on the corner; the ammo casings on the school playground. Ugly. The Barbie-doll coloring-book world you wanted was a lie. Everything was ugly and nothing could ever change.
But you could change yourself. You sat in your room and poked needle after needle into your flesh. Then you connected the dots with an X-Acto knife. Pretty.
They took you to the hospital and some woman who tried to talk to you, but you had nothing more to say. Not with words, anyway. You ran away and offered yourself as apprentice to a tattoo artist. The grizzled ex-biker laughed at first, but when he saw your desire and your designs he agreed to take you on. You learned everything you could, and eventually opened your own studio. Your fame spread by word of mouth, and soon you acquired a regular clientele.
Then the customer came into your studio. He disrobed, and you gasped in awe. The designs sheathing his body had to have been created by the Michelangelo of your craft. But you felt intimidated and unworthy when he asked you to create a dragon tattoo on one of his few areas of bare flesh. You also saw this as a challenge, and you performedyour magnum opus on his skin. When you finally needled in the last scale, you could have sworn the dragon opened its eyes and breathed.
Because it did. The tattoo expanded, became a bas-relief, then an actual statue of living, hissing, undulating flesh rising from the client's chest. You staggered back in shock, only to be restrained by a shimmering, multi-colored claw. The dragon's maw moved in synch with the client's mouth as he - it - explained. This had been a test, and you had passed. You would now have eternity to express yourself.
Concept:
You are a skilled and dedicated artist with a vision to convey. You have also learned to survive in very rough environments. You have practiced scarification techniques on yourself, hence your low Appearance [ at least in the eyes of the unenlightenened. ]
Roleplaying Tips:
Even after your induction, you still take pride in your work and treat your clients respectfully. You take the Tzimisce respect for the sanctity of the haven very seriously - anyone in your shop is a customer, and devil take the Seraph or archbishop who says otherwise.
Equipment:
Small loft/workshop, needle gun, inks, piercing paraphernelia, Genitorturers T-shirt.
The Torturer
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Quote: You think that if you just close your eyes you can pretend this isn't happening? [ reaches for tongs ] Kinda hard to do with no eyelids! |
Father beat you bloody every day of your life. Mother held you close and made you feel good. Mother did nothing to stop Father, though. Sister put out for every boy who looked at her sideways. [ Not for you. ] Your teachers tried to put you in "special" classes, tried to understand your feelings, but you felt nothing. You felt nothing at all. 'Cause when you did feel for Sister, you woke up at night all sticky and slimy, and Father beat the evil out of you. But Mother just looked at you with her sick, feline eyes.
You saw the same eyes that night in the bar five years ago. Number One, big-haired and made-up and squirming on the Leatherette stool. Buried feelings crawled up. You took her home with you that night. She never left. You still have some of her in formaldehyde in your basement.
There were more, and you got better - learned how to keep 'em alive longer, keep 'em conscious, what you could extract without fatal blood loss. Then came Number 18. She seemed almost too eager to go home with you, but she had such a pretty face you couldn't wait to start carving.
You spent hours on her. What was this whore's problem? You knew how to hurt people, hurt 'em good, but she writhed in her cuffs and rope like she was getting off on it! She screamed and moaned mockingly - and even after you yanked out her tongue with pliers you could hear her voice in your head, suggesting atrocities you hadn't even conceived.
Then, toward morning, her one remaining eye looked directly into yours, and the ragged stump of her tongue swelled and regrew, and she said, "Stop!" You did. She hung in her bonds and shuddered, and the multitudinous wounds you had inflicted evaporated from her body. She smiled at you with once-again-perfect lips. "Not bad for a juice bag," she sneered. "Was it good for you?" Then she popped the ropes open like they were spaghetti and snapped the cuffs as if they were Play-Doh and came for you....
Concept:
You have been stalking human prey since long before you became a vampire, and are quite good at it. You know how to hurt and how to kill and, most importantly, how to keep your victims alive for more.
Roleplaying Tips:
You are a loyal Sabbat vampire through and through, for you embody the sect's most depraved aspects. Your constant misogyny and sadism disgust even other Sabbat, particularly female vampires. Your self-loathing manifests as contempt for most other beings, though you are capable of presenting an affable mask, becoming compliant, supportive or domineering depending on the needs of your victim. Only when your toy is bound and helpless does the real monster emerge.
Equipment: Knives, razors, pliers, tongs, cuffs, chains, sulfuric acid, syringes, freezer, storage vats.