I'm currently running a Vampire the Masquerade chronicle using the 5th Edition rule-set for a small group of fellow role-players. These are the chronicles of their adventures.
Our campaign is set in Los Angeles and features a small group of Camarilla agents sent into the 'Free States' to search for ways to once again bring the Ivory Tower to dominance under the pretence of being disillusioned neonates looking for the freedom of the Anarch way of life. Having made a few allies unsuspecting of their greater goal they have decided that in order to gain influence they need to acquire a barony of their own.
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The now obligatory warning bit - Unlike my other RPG write-ups this one will contain swearing, sexual references and other references that might offend. If you can't tell the difference between real peoples opinions and grown-ups role-playing predators who crave blood then this probably won't be for you. I've also used actual photographs to represent some characters which I'll give acknowledgements to at the end if I've any idea who they are.
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The introduction to this campaign, the first story and all the other parts can be found at the following links and are in chronological order...
'Infiltrate LA' Chronicle
Welcome to L.A. - Introductory Session
Story One - 'Three Murders' - Part One, Two, Three, Four and Five
Interlude Session - One
Story Two - 'The Pasadena Problem' - Part One, Two, Three, Four
Solo Session - 'The Neillson Library'
Story Two Continued- 'The Pasadena Problem' - Part Five, Six, Seven and Eight
Story Three - 'Becoming Baron' - Part One
The now obligatory warning bit - Unlike my other RPG write-ups this one will contain swearing, sexual references and other references that might offend. If you can't tell the difference between real peoples opinions and grown-ups role-playing predators who crave blood then this probably won't be for you. I've also used actual photographs to represent some characters which I'll give acknowledgements to at the end if I've any idea who they are.
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The introduction to this campaign, the first story and all the other parts can be found at the following links and are in chronological order...
'Infiltrate LA' Chronicle
Welcome to L.A. - Introductory Session
Story One - 'Three Murders' - Part One, Two, Three, Four and Five
Interlude Session - One
Story Two - 'The Pasadena Problem' - Part One, Two, Three, Four
Solo Session - 'The Neillson Library'
Story Two Continued- 'The Pasadena Problem' - Part Five, Six, Seven and Eight
Story Three - 'Becoming Baron' - Part One
The PC's
Phil as Michael Tomassio - Toreador
and Hope Romero - Gangrel
Tom as Johnny 'Roach' West - Malkavian
Matt as Dr Daniel Matthews - Banu Haqim
and Hope Romero - Gangrel
Tom as Johnny 'Roach' West - Malkavian
Matt as Dr Daniel Matthews - Banu Haqim
Dave as Vincent 'Vin' Ghast - Brujah
The player characters stats and backgrounds can be found HERE should any-one be interested.
As I have written out introductions and dialogue for certain NPC's and some location descriptions I'll post these more or less as I wrote them so they'll be in a 'reading to the group' style and they'll also be in blue so you can tell them apart from the more traditional write-up sections and occasionally an obscure Malkavian premonition will turn up in purple. If I think something needs a bit of out of character explanation then those will get a storytellers note that will helpfully be in red...
Introduction
Mariel St John, adopted childe of Louis Fortier has been driven to seek out the coterie for aid due to the machinations of the Autarkis Gangrel Marius leaving her with no other options just as he and they intended.
The matter she needs resolving involves a close acquaintance who would be ruined should her naivety and poor judgement be revealed and this loss of status would no doubt spread to the newly elevated Mariel who has no intention of moving back to fourth place in the Fortier hierarchy.
The coterie has therefore offered to investigate and eliminate three suspected Sabbat infiltrators of Los Angeles in order to prevent the apparently innocent involvement of her Toreador friend Sophia Bartholomew coming to light. In return she will lend her political weight as representative of the Baron of Downtown Louis Fortier to legitimise their claim to the barony of Pasadena when they attempt to do so at the upcoming Rant.
Scene Five - Recon
Those of the party with the most experience of stealth were the Banu Haqim Daniel and the Malkavian 'Roach' who both had varying levels of skill in the vampiric discipline of Obfuscate. 'Vin' had some abilities of his own in that area but these were more mundane skills gained while stalking prey. The Toreador Michael was ill equipped for this sort of job so it was decided that he would stay in the vehicle and enable them to make a quick getaway should it become necessary.
The old Farmhouse which was their target location was to the North and West of LA in the Simi Valley which though considered 'The Barony of Simi Valley' actually only had a kindred population of two, or had up until recently. The approach to the moderate sized farm complex had sufficient cover for those such as Vin who required it though the other two members of the recon group who were protected by their abilities also kept as low a profile as possible in case their own powers were countered by those of their enemies.
The suspect kindred have seemingly chosen to base themselves in a farmhouse in one of the more rural areas of the valley in the middle of a large farm mainly dealing in livestock of various kinds.
The house itself is a rough but sturdy brick building surrounded by several wooden out-buildings and a fence that is in some state of disrepair. An old truck is effectively abandoned outside one of the outer buildings and three Harley Davidson motorbikes are parked by the main house and have obviously been taken good care of. The few cattle you can see in a nearby pen look emaciated and unwell.
The group circled the area making a mental map of the target for when they discussed tactics later. The number of functioning vehicles seemed to indicate that the estimate of three enemies was indeed correct. The recently abandoned truck looked to have been placed to block a secondary entrance to the main house leaving only one visible way in and out. There were adequate buildings to provide an approach or set up an ambush as well as a nearby orchard which gave some cover to the approach from that side. They noted a locked set of shutter doors that appeared to lead into a cellar off to one side of the main house beneath one of the side buildings, the lock was slightly rusty but functional.
Not wishing to alert their prey by approaching to closely they began to withdraw just as Roach caught sight of some movement through the window and observed them briefly with his ability to scan auras. The Malkavian had considerable experience with this ability and it was his considered opinion that their enemies were a Gangrel, Brujah and a Nosferatu he also noted that all had committed the act of diablerie within the last few years. With this new information and not wishing to be noticed by three vampires who drank the souls of their enemies he returned to the car.
Scene Six - Planning
The Banu Haqim had a variety of methods in mind for the assault based on previous experience at removing kindred targets, experience which he didn't bother to explain but given his clan of origin were fairly obvious. His main assertion was that they definitely wanted to take out the Gangrel at range if at all possible and the Brujah as well if it could also be done. It was also pointed out that despite their preferences for stealth and using the creatures of the sewers many Nosferatu were quite capable of throwing down when cornered.
The mention of creatures bought the conversation around to the fact that at least two of the kindred they were hunting had powers in that area making all creatures they passed near to, potentially spies for the Sabbat. Looking at the crude map they'd made based on their shared notes they could see various choke-points both for and against attacks that would be ideal if they could lure the enemy into them. Some of the coterie were also aware that it was likely that they had other abilities not associated with their own clan as the coterie had and so they had to expect the unexpected.
After some back and forth it was decided that Daniel would set up with the sniper rifle in the orchard as their was a narrow but serviceable pass between two buildings that gave them line of sight to the doorway from that location. He would then draw attention to the location hoping to draw out the enemies where he could hopefully take out the first through the door.
Vin would take position on a nearby outhouse roof to attack or flank as necessary but that left one avenue of approach needing to be covered and neither of the remaining coterie members would be effective against a kindred inclined to combat. Fortunately a possible solution to that problem was about be revealed...
Scene Seven - Hope Romero
An athletic young woman with strawberry blonde hair enters the gallery and is intercepted by Heather who seems to recognise her. "So what you doing here Hope?" The woman informs her that Marius sent her as he was under the impression that there was likely to be a job in Pasadena pretty soon and that she was to speak to a 'Michael Tomassio'. "Cool, I'll show you to the meeting room and then I'll find him for you." Heather gives a brief introduction as she helpfully finds you already gathered together in the meeting room.
Storytellers Note - Two of the PC's had enquired about secondary characters for situations where their primarily social based ones were to be honest pretty useless against anything other than untrained humans. I agreed on the proviso that the back-up's would stay a set amount of xp behind the primary ones and that they could be written into the background in such a way that their inclusion made sense. The first of these is Hope Romero who was controlled by me for the first part of the introduction as otherwise Michael's player Phil would have basically had to interview himself, lol.
"Marius says you're going to need some-one to patrol your baronies borders to make sure it's still yours when you eventually decide to tell everyone you're the baron. " "He also said that you'd be able to grant me feeding rights in Pasadena in exchange but that I had to do the introduction thing first, so here I am..so is there a job going?"
Michael confirmed that there was a possibility that such a thing could be arranged but such feeding rights would be somewhat unofficial until he had officially announced his taking of the position. He also wanted to ensure she was capable of doing the job. Her counter was quite simply that she'd been doing the job for Marius for some time in various areas and that if they didn't think she was capable they were more or less saying that their patron was inept. Seeing a solution to their other problem of needing a third combat capable kindred for the Sabbat assault he asked how she felt about doing a small job for them to prove her worth.
Hope agreed that less Sabbat in the world would be better than more Sabbat but that she wouldn't be willing to help them when the reward was a 'maybe you get feeding rights' especially if what they were asking of her was a Search and Destroy mission. Michael assured her that should she be successful in helping them that her rights to feed in their domain would be guaranteed as long as she didn't kill any-one while feeding. Daniel was however interested in her military experience and she revealed that she'd served in the second Gulf War as a dog handler mainly tasked with locating IED's.
Daniel also wanted to know if she was capable of following orders to which she responded which she took offence to as a question of her loyalty. Calming a little she assured him that was well versed in planning and tactics but made no apologies for adapting to a plan in order to minimise risk to herself in order to avoid final death. It was also quite obvious that she had neither Camarilla nor Anarch sympathies simply considering herself Autarkis like Marius.
Vin was really only interested in her skill set from a "How do you kill?" point of view. Hope listed her skills in hand to hand combat as well as her skill at range. Having a few questions of her own she wanted to know exactly what the targets were. Informed that they were facing Brujah, Gangrel and Nosferatu she was adamant that she wouldn't "Sit on a hill with a rifle" when there was a chance to get stuck in and that she had no intention of taking out another gangrel at range. It wasn't ending the unlife of a member of her own clan that bothered her but if she had to do it she would prove her superiority toe to toe. Of course if one of the others shot it then that was just fine too. With her involvement now agreed they laid out their plan. "It's your rodeo..." was her only further input.
Equipped with the Barrett sniper rifle, Vin's automatic shotgun, a variety of handguns and shotguns and a flare gun to draw the attention of their targets. It was at this point that they discovered that their C4 explosives had gone mission. A number of suspicions were raised including the possibility that Marius's blood doll Heather who worked at the gallery had removed it on the orders of Marius's PA Victoria who had doubted that they hadn't used some of it to blow up the Vignes mansion. Michael declared that he'd investigate the manner while the rest dealt with the Sabbat problem. Daniel, Vin and the new recruit Hope checked their weapons while Roach accompanied them so they had the benefits of his more esoteric methods of information gathering. Believing that if the former owners of the farm have survived the invaders intrusion they are more than likely being held within the cellar near the farm Roach focused his abilities of premonition on that location in particular..
You see two men and a woman in chains, the woman has been impaled, the older of the men is covered in blood yet seems to be starved of the substance himself, the young man is un-moving and you can feel a tangible aura of despair from both men though the older's aura is filled with hatred of some unknown enemy. As your mind is caught up in the mixture of hate and despair you' drawn to the orchard nearby where a shallow grave contains several mortal bodies...
Scene Eight - Search and Destroy
Using Hope's Jeep and and one of the coteries own vehicles they drove to a rendezvous point some distance from the alleged Sabbat's farmhouse base and then disembarked before making the rest of the journey on foot.
As planned Daniel circled around into the fields and set up the .50 calibre sniper weapon with a clear view of the only usable door in the farmhouse and scattered a quantity of home-made caltrops in front to hopefully catch by surprise any-one attacking him either directly or under the cover of Obfuscate. Hope dropped her shotgun and took on her wolf form as her famulus picked it up in it's teeth and trotted along after her as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
As Vin crossed the orchard towards one of the outbuildings he noticed a patch of disturbed earth. A tarpaulin had been placed over a shallow pit and lightly sprinkled with earth in a vague attempt to conceal it. As the nearby coterie members moved to investigate they discovered four bodies in a shallow grave.
A man, a woman and a teenage boy had been tossed within after being drained dry and they had been viciously assaulted before their deaths. As the bodies were disturbed another tiny figure could be seen underneath. The girl who was also drained couldn't have been more than six years old and if there was any doubt about the brutality of their prey then it vanished from the coteries minds in an instant. Even those whose humanity had slipped couldn't see any reason to commit such a vile act and their desire to destroy the enemy became finely focused.
Presuming that Hope was at the location specified and observing Vin climbing onto the outbuilding roof Daniel fired the flare into the air that was to attract the attention of their targets. When no response was indicated the Banu Haqim instead fired his handgun several times into the air. Then without warning the front door swung open but the doorway was empty but as Daniel was contemplating firing anyway the window next to it exploded outwards in a shower of glass and wood from the frame. From his vantage point on the roof the Brujah could see a blur of movement heading around the outside of the complex presumably to flank the shooter.
Before Vin could act there was a horrendous grinding noise as the lorry protecting the other entrance was hurled aside and a second blur tore through the double doors moving in the opposite direction. Deciding to deal with the problem closest to him he leapt from his rooftop hideaway, emptying the shotguns twenty round drum on full auto at the blur heading towards him but hit nothing and as his bulk hit the ground he found himself in front of a hulking kindred easily as big as himself.
As the pair of Brujah sized each other up, Hope ambushed the unprepared kindred who had emerged from the building effectively eviscerating it with her wolf forms claws after her teeth had removed much of it's throat and lower jaw. As her famulus joined her in the attack she realised from her foes own claws that it was a gangrel like herself and like her it was capable of taking an obscene amount of damage, it was grievously wounded but not yet finished. Daniel had heard the crashes from the main building but despite a nagging feeling that he was being watched could see nothing of the third Sabbat and was now regretting not simply taking a shot as soon as the doorway opened.
Vin and his Sabbat opposite had exchanged blows but each seemed to match the other for strength and skill. Realising this Vin drew the fearsome two-handed machete from it's scabbard across his back to even things out a little. His foe had came to the same conclusion and drew a cleaver that appeared to have been made from a a large piece of steel welded to a pipe and then sharpened. A blow aimed for Vins stomach caused him a glancing wound as the Sabbat ducked a blow that would have decapitated him if it had made contact. Despite the seriousness of the encounter, Vin was beginning to enjoy himself.
The first Daniel knew that the Nosferatu had found his sniper nest undetected was the roar of a shotgun as shells were unloaded into him at point blank range, caught completely by surprise the sniper lashed out with his own blades but hit nothing as with unexpected dexterity the sewer rat stepped swiftly aside. A blow that Daniel was pretty sure had been enhanced by the discipline of Potence forced him to step aside, before he steadied himself and sliced the attacker with a number of precise and well placed blows as he recovered his compose after the ambush. Seeing that it was outmatched without the element of surprise the Nosferatu promptly disappeared.
With the catastrophic damage caused by her initial attack Hope knew she had the advantage as she shifted back into humanoid form and struck him over and over again causing more damage then it could heal until it had no more blood upon which to draw and collapsed into torpor. Still hearing the sounds of battle she headed in the direction of the snipers nest to see what was keeping Daniel. She arrived just in time to hear the doctor yell "Where do you think you're going?" before leaping into what looked like thin air and hit the ground with his arms around the legs of a very shocked Sabbat whose overconfidence in his cloak of invisibility had made him pause before moving away. Daniel hauled himself onto it's back and stabbed it as deep as he could, over and over again. As it attempted to pull away it's last sight was Hope bending down and ripping out it's throat as the two starving kindred drank deeply from the fallen vampire.
Vin and his opponent were both dripping vitae from a number of deep wounds and were currently each attempting to hold the others weapon arm at bay in a tense test of vampiric strength. As doubt entered the eyes of the Sabbat for what may have been the first time in it's undead existence Vin forced it's weapon from it's hand before driving his own machete deep into it's shoulder, through it's chest and into it's heart. Seeing the Sabbat fall, Hope returned to the place her own opponent had fallen to ensure it never rose again.
Each of the warriors found themselves looking down at their respective kindred enemies. Hope sought the power to face her sire as did Daniel. Vin simply wished to be as physically powerful as he could and so each prepared to commit an act reviled by most vampires claiming any form of civility or fearing righteous destruction, that of diablerie. Essentially drinking another vampire dry, ingesting not only their blood but their very essence. Daniel could feel the Nosferatu fighting against him as he drained some of it's strength and felt his generation lower, Vin's generation lowered too but instead of the strength of his clan he drew upon it's speed to enhance his own as his mastery of celerity increased. Hope's anger at the death of the young girl had given her a will of iron as she drained the Sabbat Gangrel's soul taking some of it's skill with the signature Gangrel discipline of Animalism, it's generation and the extra resolve she possessed allowed her to gain an advantage the others had not as her Vitae thickened increasing the potency of her blood.
Though each had gained something from the act they had lost a little of themselves too as their grip on their own humanity slipped and the beast gained a greater hold. As the gunfire and sounds of violence faded Roach approached under his own shield of invisibility, revealing himself once sure that his side had won. His eyes narrowed slightly as the newly acquired black veins in their auras were clearly revealed to him. That however was a problem for later. For now the farmhouse needed to be searched for the evidence needed to identify the reason for the Sabbat being in Los Angeles...
To Be Continued in 'Becoming Baron' - Part Three
In Conclusion
I like to do a round-up of how the session went in these features but if you couldn't give a shit what I think then feel free to skip this bit...
So now there's three diablerists in the coterie. They were warned of the consequences but were somewhat fortunate with their dice rolls so none of them are slathering wights or have other vampires living inside their minds...well...they hope not...
Though it was somewhat of a surprise to me that they all came to that decision at least it was for character reasons and not power-gaming so there's that. From my point of view it opens a lot of new possibilities as even amongst the Anarchs the act isn't exactly looked upon favourably by most so it allows me to complicate their lives somewhat which is always fun.
Acknowledgements
I've used pictures of real people to represent some of the characters and art for others so in no particular order Michael Tomassio is represented by the actor Matt Bomer, Johnny 'Roach' West is quite obviously Kurt Cobain, 'Vin' is the actor Scott Adkins, Dr Matthews is Mads Mikkelsen, Vera Vignes is Helen Mirren, Henry Waters is Henry Caville, Victoria is a model called Lilith May or Lorelei Swan depending on where in her career you find her and Yukio is Devon Aoki. Everything else is from vampire related folders and searches and is as far as I know is all of the 'fair use' variety. If there's something that you feel should be attributed to some-one then feel free to let me know and I'll happily add an acknowledgement...
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.
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| Mariel St John - Ventrue Harpy |
The matter she needs resolving involves a close acquaintance who would be ruined should her naivety and poor judgement be revealed and this loss of status would no doubt spread to the newly elevated Mariel who has no intention of moving back to fourth place in the Fortier hierarchy.
The coterie has therefore offered to investigate and eliminate three suspected Sabbat infiltrators of Los Angeles in order to prevent the apparently innocent involvement of her Toreador friend Sophia Bartholomew coming to light. In return she will lend her political weight as representative of the Baron of Downtown Louis Fortier to legitimise their claim to the barony of Pasadena when they attempt to do so at the upcoming Rant.
Scene Five - Recon
The old Farmhouse which was their target location was to the North and West of LA in the Simi Valley which though considered 'The Barony of Simi Valley' actually only had a kindred population of two, or had up until recently. The approach to the moderate sized farm complex had sufficient cover for those such as Vin who required it though the other two members of the recon group who were protected by their abilities also kept as low a profile as possible in case their own powers were countered by those of their enemies.
The suspect kindred have seemingly chosen to base themselves in a farmhouse in one of the more rural areas of the valley in the middle of a large farm mainly dealing in livestock of various kinds.
The group circled the area making a mental map of the target for when they discussed tactics later. The number of functioning vehicles seemed to indicate that the estimate of three enemies was indeed correct. The recently abandoned truck looked to have been placed to block a secondary entrance to the main house leaving only one visible way in and out. There were adequate buildings to provide an approach or set up an ambush as well as a nearby orchard which gave some cover to the approach from that side. They noted a locked set of shutter doors that appeared to lead into a cellar off to one side of the main house beneath one of the side buildings, the lock was slightly rusty but functional.
Not wishing to alert their prey by approaching to closely they began to withdraw just as Roach caught sight of some movement through the window and observed them briefly with his ability to scan auras. The Malkavian had considerable experience with this ability and it was his considered opinion that their enemies were a Gangrel, Brujah and a Nosferatu he also noted that all had committed the act of diablerie within the last few years. With this new information and not wishing to be noticed by three vampires who drank the souls of their enemies he returned to the car.
Scene Six - Planning
The mention of creatures bought the conversation around to the fact that at least two of the kindred they were hunting had powers in that area making all creatures they passed near to, potentially spies for the Sabbat. Looking at the crude map they'd made based on their shared notes they could see various choke-points both for and against attacks that would be ideal if they could lure the enemy into them. Some of the coterie were also aware that it was likely that they had other abilities not associated with their own clan as the coterie had and so they had to expect the unexpected.
After some back and forth it was decided that Daniel would set up with the sniper rifle in the orchard as their was a narrow but serviceable pass between two buildings that gave them line of sight to the doorway from that location. He would then draw attention to the location hoping to draw out the enemies where he could hopefully take out the first through the door.Vin would take position on a nearby outhouse roof to attack or flank as necessary but that left one avenue of approach needing to be covered and neither of the remaining coterie members would be effective against a kindred inclined to combat. Fortunately a possible solution to that problem was about be revealed...
Scene Seven - Hope Romero
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| Heather - Ghoul of Marius 'Galerie Sanguine' Employee |
Storytellers Note - Two of the PC's had enquired about secondary characters for situations where their primarily social based ones were to be honest pretty useless against anything other than untrained humans. I agreed on the proviso that the back-up's would stay a set amount of xp behind the primary ones and that they could be written into the background in such a way that their inclusion made sense. The first of these is Hope Romero who was controlled by me for the first part of the introduction as otherwise Michael's player Phil would have basically had to interview himself, lol.
"Marius says you're going to need some-one to patrol your baronies borders to make sure it's still yours when you eventually decide to tell everyone you're the baron. " "He also said that you'd be able to grant me feeding rights in Pasadena in exchange but that I had to do the introduction thing first, so here I am..so is there a job going?"
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| Hope Romero - Gangrel |
Hope agreed that less Sabbat in the world would be better than more Sabbat but that she wouldn't be willing to help them when the reward was a 'maybe you get feeding rights' especially if what they were asking of her was a Search and Destroy mission. Michael assured her that should she be successful in helping them that her rights to feed in their domain would be guaranteed as long as she didn't kill any-one while feeding. Daniel was however interested in her military experience and she revealed that she'd served in the second Gulf War as a dog handler mainly tasked with locating IED's.
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| Hope Romero - Gangrel Mid Range Problem Removal |
Vin was really only interested in her skill set from a "How do you kill?" point of view. Hope listed her skills in hand to hand combat as well as her skill at range. Having a few questions of her own she wanted to know exactly what the targets were. Informed that they were facing Brujah, Gangrel and Nosferatu she was adamant that she wouldn't "Sit on a hill with a rifle" when there was a chance to get stuck in and that she had no intention of taking out another gangrel at range. It wasn't ending the unlife of a member of her own clan that bothered her but if she had to do it she would prove her superiority toe to toe. Of course if one of the others shot it then that was just fine too. With her involvement now agreed they laid out their plan. "It's your rodeo..." was her only further input.
You see two men and a woman in chains, the woman has been impaled, the older of the men is covered in blood yet seems to be starved of the substance himself, the young man is un-moving and you can feel a tangible aura of despair from both men though the older's aura is filled with hatred of some unknown enemy. As your mind is caught up in the mixture of hate and despair you' drawn to the orchard nearby where a shallow grave contains several mortal bodies...
Scene Eight - Search and Destroy
As planned Daniel circled around into the fields and set up the .50 calibre sniper weapon with a clear view of the only usable door in the farmhouse and scattered a quantity of home-made caltrops in front to hopefully catch by surprise any-one attacking him either directly or under the cover of Obfuscate. Hope dropped her shotgun and took on her wolf form as her famulus picked it up in it's teeth and trotted along after her as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
As Vin crossed the orchard towards one of the outbuildings he noticed a patch of disturbed earth. A tarpaulin had been placed over a shallow pit and lightly sprinkled with earth in a vague attempt to conceal it. As the nearby coterie members moved to investigate they discovered four bodies in a shallow grave.
Presuming that Hope was at the location specified and observing Vin climbing onto the outbuilding roof Daniel fired the flare into the air that was to attract the attention of their targets. When no response was indicated the Banu Haqim instead fired his handgun several times into the air. Then without warning the front door swung open but the doorway was empty but as Daniel was contemplating firing anyway the window next to it exploded outwards in a shower of glass and wood from the frame. From his vantage point on the roof the Brujah could see a blur of movement heading around the outside of the complex presumably to flank the shooter.
As the pair of Brujah sized each other up, Hope ambushed the unprepared kindred who had emerged from the building effectively eviscerating it with her wolf forms claws after her teeth had removed much of it's throat and lower jaw. As her famulus joined her in the attack she realised from her foes own claws that it was a gangrel like herself and like her it was capable of taking an obscene amount of damage, it was grievously wounded but not yet finished. Daniel had heard the crashes from the main building but despite a nagging feeling that he was being watched could see nothing of the third Sabbat and was now regretting not simply taking a shot as soon as the doorway opened.
The first Daniel knew that the Nosferatu had found his sniper nest undetected was the roar of a shotgun as shells were unloaded into him at point blank range, caught completely by surprise the sniper lashed out with his own blades but hit nothing as with unexpected dexterity the sewer rat stepped swiftly aside. A blow that Daniel was pretty sure had been enhanced by the discipline of Potence forced him to step aside, before he steadied himself and sliced the attacker with a number of precise and well placed blows as he recovered his compose after the ambush. Seeing that it was outmatched without the element of surprise the Nosferatu promptly disappeared.
Vin and his opponent were both dripping vitae from a number of deep wounds and were currently each attempting to hold the others weapon arm at bay in a tense test of vampiric strength. As doubt entered the eyes of the Sabbat for what may have been the first time in it's undead existence Vin forced it's weapon from it's hand before driving his own machete deep into it's shoulder, through it's chest and into it's heart. Seeing the Sabbat fall, Hope returned to the place her own opponent had fallen to ensure it never rose again.
Though each had gained something from the act they had lost a little of themselves too as their grip on their own humanity slipped and the beast gained a greater hold. As the gunfire and sounds of violence faded Roach approached under his own shield of invisibility, revealing himself once sure that his side had won. His eyes narrowed slightly as the newly acquired black veins in their auras were clearly revealed to him. That however was a problem for later. For now the farmhouse needed to be searched for the evidence needed to identify the reason for the Sabbat being in Los Angeles...
To Be Continued in 'Becoming Baron' - Part Three
In Conclusion
So now there's three diablerists in the coterie. They were warned of the consequences but were somewhat fortunate with their dice rolls so none of them are slathering wights or have other vampires living inside their minds...well...they hope not...
Though it was somewhat of a surprise to me that they all came to that decision at least it was for character reasons and not power-gaming so there's that. From my point of view it opens a lot of new possibilities as even amongst the Anarchs the act isn't exactly looked upon favourably by most so it allows me to complicate their lives somewhat which is always fun.
Acknowledgements
I've used pictures of real people to represent some of the characters and art for others so in no particular order Michael Tomassio is represented by the actor Matt Bomer, Johnny 'Roach' West is quite obviously Kurt Cobain, 'Vin' is the actor Scott Adkins, Dr Matthews is Mads Mikkelsen, Vera Vignes is Helen Mirren, Henry Waters is Henry Caville, Victoria is a model called Lilith May or Lorelei Swan depending on where in her career you find her and Yukio is Devon Aoki. Everything else is from vampire related folders and searches and is as far as I know is all of the 'fair use' variety. If there's something that you feel should be attributed to some-one then feel free to let me know and I'll happily add an acknowledgement...
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.
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