[VtM 5e] Ithaca by Night

✅ System. Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition, including the Companion expansion/errata. I have most of the sourcebooks released so far, I think.

✅ The Pitch. The PCs are the newly appointed Regents of Ithaca, a coterie of Kindred dispatched by the Camarilla of New York to enforce their rule. They have one year to fight off Anarch insurgents, Sabbat revanchists, plotters in their own sect and their own conflicting ambitions, for if they are successful one of them will be elevated to Prince of Ithaca.

✅ Adult Content or Controversial Themes. This is a Vampire game. That means violence and gore is built into the concept, and fairly awful behaviour is to be expected from the PCs and their enemies as a matter of course – the violation of bodies and minds, corruption, addiction, etc. Anything too explicit or uncomfortable will be faded to black.

I should note in particular as a content warning that suicide plays a minor but present role in the background of the setting.

✅ Character Restrictions. Characters will be part of a Regency coterie, of Neonate age (if you want to play a Childe talk to me, perhaps we can make it work), and it should be reasonable for the Prince and primogen of New York to have appointed them to the task. This means that Camarilla-aligned clans are the most likely: Ventrue, Toreador, Nosferatu, Malkavian, Tremere, Banu Hakim, Lasombra. Anarch-aligned clans are less likely, but Cam loyalists (or potential spies and turncoats) from among their ranks are welcome: Brujah, Gangrel, the Ministry. Independent clans (Ravnos, Hecata) are unlikely as well, but at least don't have the stigma of Anarch association. Caitiff are unlikely but possible; thin-bloods almost inconceivable. Sabbat clans (orthodox Lasombra, Tzimisce) are probably right out.

The one other clan I'd almost rule out is the Salubri. I don't really get them, and it'd take an astronomically good concept to make me reconsider. That aside, I'm open to the idea of working together to make any idea work.

✅ Game Duration and Post Frequency. Post rate should be 1-3 posts per week. There is an interesting in-game turning point, as the characters have one year to stabilise and exert control of the city: depending on how things go, this time frame may mark the end of the game (and possibly of the characters' unlives), or the beginning of a new phase of rule.

✅ Specialized Software and Resources. None, using the GP forums only.

✅ Player Experience Requirements. If you have access to the V5 rules, any level of experience is welcomed. I'm not sure I could teach someone without the book how to play it asynchronously over the internet.

✅ How to Apply. Post your concepts here and in a week or so I'll pick the ~4 ideas that seem like the best fit. It seems like there was a lot of potential interest based on a check in the Discord, so put your best foot forward in pitching your ideas. I'm not looking for statblocks or full sheets, but the more you can intrigue me with your character's background, personality, motivations, how they fit into vampire and mortal society and how they might interact interestingly with other characters, the better your odds. Decent spelling, grammar and punctuation matter, too.

If you have any questions about the campaign, setting or character ideas, feel free to ask!

✅ Welcome Marginalized Groups. This game is explicitly friendly to LGBT and any other minorities or marginalized groups.

Cassie Blyte was a popular artist. Her strange surreal works were quite popular with multiple different groups. Her artwork May have reflected a slightly shattered mind before she was embraced. There was actually a small battle between a Malkavian and a Toreador who wished to make her their child.
After her embrace into the Malkavian clan her art took a dark and kaleidoscopic turn. While she prefers to stay in the Village, she is eager to branch out.
She tries to stay connected to the art world and has a small rivalry with a Toreador named Albert who stole some of her art and claimed it as his own.
A bonvivant with a bit of a dark side (Think Abby from NCIS), Cassie loves new experiences, and also carries some sort of art supplies with her everywhere.
I haven't decided If she has dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia yet. Both of these would be reflected by constant inconsistency in her art since her embrace. She worries about what will happen with her ability to continue making art if she survives long enough to outlive a normal human lifetime. Not aging being an issue hasn't occurred to her at all.

Reagan Quin is a Toreador wunderkind. They came to the city with stars in their eyes and big dreams of becoming an artist, actor, and/or model. They acheived...a level of stardom, though far from the spotlight they expected.

Reagan was "discovered" by their sire working as a high class escort. While they lacked any traditional artistic talent, Reagan posessed one true gift, the ability to blend. A true social chameleon, Reagan could be anyone the client wanted them to be. That art was what caught their sire's eye.

Seeing the Embrace leading to a far grander stage than Broadway or Soho could ever offer, Reagan threw themselves into the dark world of the kindred with reckless abandon.

When word of Ithaca began to spread, Reagan, with some assistance of their sire, made the bid to be the Camarilla representation. This is Reagan's grand stage, their blank canvas, the ultimate runway. Keep the wolves at bay, carve this city into the jewel it can be, and there is no telling how high this star will rise!

Ezra was working on an average job as a mortal he doesn't even remember now, obsessed by the fact that he is trapped inside this puny body with no one but himself, that he will never get to feel how does it feel like to be someone else. His Embrace by a child of Malkav has granted him his biggest wish, only by replacing his obsession with a vampiric one: now, consuming the blood of someone else is almost like a sacred ceremony to him. Every time he does it, he feels like he has become one with that person, getting closer the his utopia of being One with everybody else. His favorite activity is blending into the night life, whether it be a bar, a pub or a street corner, and meet new people, listening to their story of life, having pleasure from the richness of them, only to be climaxed by sucking their blood. He has made lots of acquintances this way, though at the same time getting himself into trouble because he usually strides into territories that he shouldn't.

Other vampires usually don't understand easily that he is a child of the moon. The best way to establish that is to observe him while he drinks blood. Even vampires usually feel the need to turn their heads as it seems like such a hedonistic, private and intense act.

Recently, he realized that through his vampiric life, he's done nothing but to lose himself in the complexity of other people. He realized he was only a hollow container, storing the stories and blood of others and nothing more. With the help of his Malkavian heritage, he was able to distance himself from the other vampires and their inner politics, but now he wants to be a part of them, he wants to be included. That's why he wanted to be a part of the coterie sent to Ithaca, presenting his vast (as much as his Neonate life allows) knowledge of places and people.

Mr Hammilton
Is of the Tremere clan. He carries himself as an aristocrat. If its from being a high-level servernt like a butler to a lord, or a lord himself is hard to tell.

Mr Hammilton is not a nice guy, he is calculating, bordering on cruel in acheaving his goals

The move to Ithaca offers several oppertunity to Mr Hammilton.
1) to server the prince of New York
2) to gain access/claim Josiah Bloodgood artifacts other occult material
3) to gain the position of Seriff in Ithaca down the line.

I'm very much inspired by Harry Hart (Galahad) from Kingsmen, just a bit more occult & nasty. I usually don't play an unlikeable character, so this is a challenge for me as well. The Chief of security angle from the Treme description in the book also seems to fit him well. It will put his background in some form of military or federal agency. Perhaps Interpol, as I see him more British than American.

Benjamin McNamara was born in Belfast near the tail end of the Troubles. Already a quiet, isolated kid, his upbringing taught him to keep his head down and withdraw into his own world of movies, music and videogames.

Given the above, it should come as no surprise that his studies revolved around the emerging (at the time) field of computer science or that he jumped at the opportunity to do his master's at Boston Tech. What should have been a step forward however ate him on the inside, as he became even more isolated, caught between his own social ineptitude, the pressure of work/studies and being in a new land. Withdrawn to the extreme, no one really noticed his absence following his Embrace by a Nosferatu elder who needed the help of a more tech savvy youngling with SchreckNET.

With the collapse of the Network by the Second Inquisition, Benjamin fled inland, first to Hartford, CT and then to Albany, NY before the opportunity presented itself to move to Ithaca under the guise of an academic. This also presents another interesting chance to explore his unliving nature. See, when he was first embraced, he saw his newfound powers as an upgrade to what he could already do well, which was fly under the radar and work from the shadows. In time and while under pressure, especially while fleeing, he found they could also use them to walk a darker path, unleashing all those emotions penned up through the ages. Likewise, he's now looking for a new place to settle, but perhaps now is his time to finally step out of the shadows (well, as much as a Nosferatu ever could, anyway) and instead of hunkering down under someone's protection, carve his own domain as Prince of Ithaca.

There's a thread up with some background information and flavour on the town and its remaining undead movers and shakers. Hopefully I've configured the game right to make that visible.

Yes, that link works.

Tessa Davenshire grew up in one of the larger estate homes in Upstate New York. She rarely saw her parents, her mother was too busy with charity galas and chatting with the other ladies from the country club, while her father was either away on business, or up in his office, hobnobbing with other local politicians and celebrities.

As she got older, being lonely and curious, she found her way to the seedier side of the elite, becoming involved with the local drugs and gangs. Tessa was smart enough to never go too far, especially with drugs. In her late teens, rumours started swirling about that her father was involved in the increase in missing persons in the area, mainly prostitutes and drug addicts. Tessa began to investigate, eventually overhearing a conversation between her father and his associates involving human trafficking and arms deals.

Terrified, she fled, using her contacts to change her identity and start fresh. She studied law at Harvard, hoping to fight for those harmed by her family. Her passion and book smarts caught the eye of the local Ventrue, who realized her upbringing could be an asset to furthering their power.

Now, Tessa is trapped between trying to help others and fighting her own nature. The assignment in New York brings her closer to home, where she hopes she can take down her father’s legacy and add to her Clan’s prestige.

Natalia Astankova is a long way from home. She growing up at the turn of the twentieth century in what was then the Imperial Russian town of Helsinki. She was turned during the Revolution by a powerful Tremere artifact and despite enacting swift vengeance upon those who turned her she was quickly hunted down and captured by the Bolsheviks who imprisoned her in the Lubyanka where she languished in torpor off and on until the 1940's when another war presented an opportunity.

Believing they could control her the NKVD released her from the prison and put her to work at night on the streets of Stalingrad. Natalia quickly broke her shackles killed the squads sent to hunt her down and fled west moving with the font lines until she arrived in Berlin where she hunted the bombed out ruins for a while before continuing her journey west. First to Paris where she finally had the time and opportunity to begin to understand this new world and her place in it and finally to America where she properly introduced herself to Calebros the Prince of New York.

Natalia was tired by this time, having experienced so much war in her life time and so she slipped back into torpor for several decades until reawakening just recently.

Natalia is something of a fish out of water in vampire society. She is polite, well mannered and thoughtful, she did after all grow up in the courts of Imperial Russia. Natalia abhors killing simply for the sake of killing and those who make their lives feeding off the fear of others. She satiates her hunger as best she can while leaving her victims alive with no memory of the incident. Natalia has seen the horrors of war first hand and the cruelty humanity is capable of inflicting upon one another with little regard to the consequences. She was literally the monster in the basement of the Lubyanka for years and she has very little desire to return to that life.

While older than many other vampires of her generation she is still in essence a neonate thanks to the many years she has slept through. There is something a little broken inside of her and there are times when she does not like what she has become.

That's an interesting concept. So Natalia's a sireless Tremere, created by some kind of one-off thaumaturgical relic or accident?

Oh that won't do! That won't do at all. Mr Hamilton, the carrere Tremere says. Either Natalia Astankova is an abomination or an oddity that should be studied and nurchered.

Tom den Ruijter

The kindred and indeed the world are tumbling into chaos. Like rabid dogs they gnaw at one another for a bone. Once we chained our Beast, but the fashion these days seems to be to let it simply run free. Where is the nobility of our kind nowadays?

I do not know. But I shall strive to show the noble example of old.

As Ventrue as one can be, Tom den Ruijter was prepared for his role among the kindred since childhood. He was selected for his breeding and intellect. He was privately schooled and prepared for a role in the boardrooms. He was made a ghoul to preserve his youth while he trained his body to physical perfection through rigorous diet and exercise and finally embraced at peak physical perfection. And even then followed years of indoctrination by his betters to learn the ways of the Jyhad.

Finally, he is left off the leash to prove his worth. Ithaca is ripe for the taking. It is but a small morsel but if there is a throne that will take a Prince then it must be a Ventrue Prince, so decree his elders. Tom's relative youth makes him ideal to infiltrate the college town filled with its vulgar modern sensibilities while his political and financial backing should put him well ahead of his rivals for the throne. Tom's personal wishes are of course secondary to the needs of the Clan. He has a duty to perform.

Privately Tom has long chafed at the chains that bind him to his clan. While he agrees with most of their ideals, the remaining elders who so tightly control the institution are hopelessly lost in the past. Tom welcomes the rapid changes of the modern era. He believes wealth and power can still be maintained without the old constructions. Indeed, one might even gain power through popularity by being both director and influencer. Still, it won't do to distance himself from his clan. They are stupendously powerful and terrible when crossed. Like a good lackey Tom will do their bidding. At least they won't be checking over his shoulder every waking moment of his existence. Not that they won't check in on his progress, oh no. They will do what they have to in order to claim their prize.

To the mortal world Tom presents himself as a young man of old money. A trust fund child is his preferred cover. His personal way of gaining access to the boardrooms and mansions of Ithica is through the time-honored tradition of indulging the human desires. Parties for the wealthy and influential. Friendship for the children of boardroom CEO's. Sex. Tom wields his beauty and money like a precision tool to unlock the doors to mortal power. But that is not to say he is all heartless, despite the best efforts of his elders. He does have some genuine affection for his mortal pawns.

Naturally, there is the dark side of the beast to be appeased. Tom has the feeding restriction of the Ventrue manifest in a thirst for young men who have had sex with another man. How ideal for him to move to a college town in the era of the convenience that Grindr provides. Before his embrace Tom was straight, but over the years he has come around to embrace both sexes as his bedroom partners. Only the girls are assured to leave the silken sheets hale and hearty however..

Something like that, some weapon or device that was stolen from a vault in the Winter Palace. My head cannon is a sword bayonet of meteoric iron. I wrote an interview with a vampire for fun to explain it.

Sorry for the delay, I had just gone to sleep when you wrote back.

PeaceWalker

Born Kayla Walker in the wilds of rural Oklahoma, a mix of Cherokee and Kiowa, there wasn't much a girl in her life track was destined for that would be considered grand or really even meaningful. A less than middling student in high school with no real direction afterwards, she floated through life like a dollar store plastic bag in the wind.
Adair county wasn't known for much but it had oil once the fracking companies opened the area up. With oil comes jobs but not the local kind. The big oil companies ship whole armies of workers from site to site drilling, opening and tapping wellheads. With those veritable armies of well paid men comes appetites to spend that hard-earned money and usually in ways that wouldn't be approved of back home where they lived. Parties, drugs, sex and all manner of other unsavory appetites slaked with money that flowed like rivers. It was easy to get caught up in such things when you'd never seen wealth like that before. Bad times follow bad judgement.
Kayla knew better than to get caught up in that scene. She'd heard the stories, knew people that had been the moths that flew too close to the flame & gotten burned. Youth has a way of turning a blind eye until it's far, far too late...this it was when it came Kayla's turn to be the unlucky moth.
Wildcatter man-camps attract all kinds of unsavory types, ones easily drawn to hard work, insane pay and little to no oversight or interference from the law. Whether it's common for the NightFeeders to frequent camps like these is hard to say but it's an ideal situation should one be so inclined. In Kayla's case, one had indeed been so inclined...
The camp had a coterie of NightFeeders working the lonely hours of the night and partying on their off days. Prey practically chased them down and that suited them fine being a bunch of rejects barely above thin-blood status. None of them intended to turn any of their victims but accidents happen. Kayla was that accident. A drug-addled feeding left the light fading from her eyes as dawn rose only yo be replaced by The Hunger by the time the sun set that day.
A confused girl awoke with a hunger and a rage that knew no bounds. The focus of that rage...the last face she saw the night before. She'd been born a thin-blood, not that she knew what any of it meant, but she knew who was responsible for her condition. She stalked and hunted the Brujah that had turned her, trapping, fighting and killing him but not before draining her accidental sire in a fit of rage, hurt and revenge.
The other members of the man-camp coterie were alarmed, intrigued and a little impressed that she managed to kill their comrade. Seeing some use in keeping her around, they grudgingly took her in and educated her properly into the ranks of the Kindred. With there being little to no Camarilla oversight in the areas the coterie frequented, they did pretty much as they pleased, honing Kayla -now just going by her Grandmother's last name- as a weapon. It was a role she found disturbingly suited to her in her unlife.
In the intervening years, the landscape of the NightFeeders has radically changed, as have her own fortunes. She'd moved away from the desolation of the plains states and to the Big Apple, staying with the structure of Camarilla even after the exit of most of her clan. Working as an intermediary, and sometimes enforcer, between the Caitiff, thin-bloods and the Camarilla she'd found her niche. When she heard of the opportunity opening up in Ithaca, she knew her services would be needed. Even if she didn't seek to become Ithica's newest Prince it would be a new adventure.

Edmond Vancroft's interest in history was the cause of his mortal undoing. As he was conducting research for his doctorate thesis, he noticed what looks like the same person in several paintings that were centuries apart. It was just the beginning of the internet era, and Edmond introduced some of his findings and theories in several bulletin boards fellow historians. Unbeknownst to Edmond, this caused him to become a direct target of the SchrektNET Nosferatu, some of which were also populating the same bulletin boards. Luckily for him, it was a Brujah, who aimed to swell the ranks of the Idealists within the clan, that got to him first.

Edmond, instructed by his Sire about the history of the Kindred and the role of the High Clan Brujah in it, wasfree to focus on his research. He teaches a night class at a university, and owns ( by making the owner a ghoul ) a small public library, which he tries to improve by finding exotic and rare scripture ( and books that sheds list on Cainite History, for his private collection ). Edmond is happy that he grew up in a rapidly developing era where access to information gets constantly easier, since unlike older vampires, his upbringing enables him to tries to keep himself up to date on technological developments - however, as much as technology develops, it will never replace a good book or a library.

In Edmond's view, the Camarilla is a necessary beast - some central structure needs to make sure the fledglings and the neonates are well behaved and don't to around breaching the masquarade. However, it needs adversaries to constantly evaluate and renew its methods, and keep alert. Otherwise, rot will set in and the whole structure will begin devouring itself - just look at how Rome fared after the destruction of Carthage ( ahh.. Ancient Carthage ) - the last great power that for a time managed to counterweigh Rome's power. A great power it at its greatest when it is fighting for its survival - once it has no major enemies, degeneration and debauchery sets in. This is why, after the Conclave of Prague, Edmond was secretly delighted - the Anarchs were a much worthier foe than the declining Sabbat rabble, and could test Camarilla's strengths and limits, forcing it to adapt new strategies and renew its methods. This can only benefit Camarilla in the long run, and Edmond decided to stay to witness and perhaps Camarilla's transformation. Still, the departure of the Brujah leaves Edmond in a tight spot, and he embraces the chance to prove his loyalty when the Ithaca opportunity arises.

James "The House" Wolfwood. avid gambler bar owner and wild west enthusiast also vigilante and sometimes protection racketeer was turned by a toreador whose attention he had caught back from his gambling days and they crossed paths while doing a patrol around a neighborhood that was seeing a slight uptick in crime. needless to say, their reunion wasn't as nice as James would have liked. now a creature of the night it was somehow very fitting to James outside the whole drinking blood thing. he is still getting used to that. he has however found his fear of heights seemed to be gotten weird where the skyscrapers of new york made him on edge and were thankful for an opportunity to get out of there and to Ithica where an opportunity to open a bar there had presented itself as well. it was perfect. leaving his home turf of new york city in the hands of capable mortals that he trusted tho none knew his turn they had him on speed dial for any issues. he hopes to help the Camarilla get order restored in this power vaccum left by the sabbat with as little loss of human life as possible.

So @Dirigible... How are you handling the flood of applications :D

Stand by. Been painting the house this week, so time and spare energy is a little more limited than I'd hoped.

I accidentally bought Horizon Zero Dawn / Forbidden West ... I also am suffering from a lack of spare time. It was a legit accident, I'd been looking at how much it was with taxes and left it in my shopping cart. A few days later my son asked for the Destiny 2 Witch Queen expansion and I wasn't looking and just hit purchase...