Princes of the City: Anyone Want to Bite?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:45 am

Prak wrote:
radthemad4 wrote:Allies and Retainers 15?
Actually, looking at the very vague descriptions of background ratings, I'd say Putin as a ghoul would Allies 5, Retainers 5, Influence 5.

Indirect ownership of the airport is probably a good way to go, but at the end of the day we need the airport to be able to come to us and say "Masters, this passenger has flown here using only night flights and has a several hundred pound piece of cargo"

I already have the local TSA guy as an Ally. That potentially gives us anything suspicious. Verge can tell him to be on the lookout for X, and he can look out for X.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:52 am

Cool. Us owning the airport would probably make things easier for Bob, and help him provide more info.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 2:17 pm

Prak wrote:
radthemad4 wrote:Allies and Retainers 15?
Actually, looking at the very vague descriptions of background ratings, I'd say Putin as a ghoul would Allies 5, Retainers 5, Influence 5.

Indirect ownership of the airport is probably a good way to go, but at the end of the day we need the airport to be able to come to us and say "Masters, this passenger has flown here using only night flights and has a several hundred pound piece of cargo"

I'd think he'd be more Military Forces 9, Influence 6.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 7:41 pm

Suzanne has a contact at the airport as well, and the group-owned tour company's seaplanes often land there.

The surveillance infrastructure throughout the city is worth discussing, however. Technomancy 5, used by someone with dots in Security and Computers whom dispenses malicious dongles to charmed/blood-bound/bribed agents, would grant access most anywhere.

Kel would be able to surgically implant microcameras into ravens under the general control of his Corax ghoulfriend, which Seth could telecommute into on the fly. Maybe there's a small flap of skin to conceal removable storage and battery recharging ports.

Slaughterhouse: I thought a cultish dairy might prove better, since there's a longer history of dairies in AK than of dedicated slaughterhouses, and dairy cattle could be bled repeatedly. If that isn't enough, how about the group drop 200K on a Mobile Slaughter Unit, which provides services for local farms? It would have to be a little larger, to accommodate blood collection, which is otherwise done outside the trailer.

As an aside, Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network is almost certainly a cover name for something diabolical.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:13 pm

I like where this is going, but you might also want to think about who reports to who, and under what conditions.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 11:49 pm

Dairy Cult. Love that. With Herd 9 we have way more than just 125 head.

I don't see much benefit to actually owning the airport as opposed to just spying on it. It should be a tech company that supplies the city with most of it's networking infrastructure. You can dig underground under the cover of laying cable. Or whoever supplies the most jobs in the area. I assume BP or another oil company. A construction company is another good one if you want a fortified haven to keep under wraps.

We have two airport contacts so we could change one to something else. Do we have a contact for the Harbor? I still have a freebie point so I could grab that or a good lawyer. Do we want a doctor to provide us with documentation for Shere's disease as a cover?

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 2:46 am

Is there a Thaumaturgy ritual to preserve vitae? I had figured on Stan just cutting himself shortly before consecrating the Eucharist at his Thursday night church service, but if it can be preserved vitae could just be added to dairy production. Coupled with an "Alaska Fresh" ad campaign I'd wager much of the city will have a low stage blood bond with the group after a few months.

Shady, I hadn't heard of Schere's Disease before. Max is spending time at the hospital charming people, and there's a Medical Examiner contact, but a doctor's note would be a nice cover, and definitely worth another Contact.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 2:55 am

There's a couple rituals - Preserve Blood, Sanguineous Phial, Principle Focus of Vitae Infusion are the big ones.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 5:09 am

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:Kel would be able to surgically implant microcameras into ravens under the general control of his Corax ghoulfriend, which Seth could telecommute into on the fly. Maybe there's a small flap of skin to conceal removable storage and battery recharging ports.

Fuck Yeah!

Telecommute is more for using other people's stuff. Since these are ours, they'd just transmit to our servers wirelessly. Seth would be encrypting them though.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 5:31 am

Ancient History wrote:Principle Focus of Vitae Infusion

Is the most useful overall. A dime sized item worth a blood point is hard to beat. 50 blood points in something the size of a roll of dimes. Of course 6 dimes is an hour of work.
Sanguineous phial is just the old school magic way of achieving modern blood preservation.
Preserve Blood is a necromancy ritual if I remember right so the Giovanni can take blood from their corpses.

No one has Dominate 3 so how do we handle people's memories? I'm thinking drugs.
Blood bonding too much of the city sounds like something AH would have backfire spectacularly. Even level 1 means accidentally running into someone. Are we trying to set one of us up as the most loved person in the city?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:22 am

Name: Vergil "Verge" Caldwell
Nature: Deviant
Demeanor: Deviant
Concept: Watched too many movies
Generation: 13

3 Dots
Strength 1
Dexterity 3
Stamina 2

5 Dots
Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3

7 Dots
Perception 4
Intelligence 3
Wits 3

Abilities
13 (-2 freebies)
Alertness 3
Subterfuge 4
Empathy 5
Intimidation 2 (1 dot +2XP from Kel)
Leadership 1

9
Drive 1
Etiquette 3
Firearms 1
Security 2 (1 dot + 2XP from Seth)
Stealth 3

5
Academics 1
Computer 1
Investigation 3 (1 dot +5 XP from Seth)
Medicine 1
Law 1

Disciplines: -33 Freebies
Domination 3
-Command
-Mesmerize
-The Forgetful Mind
Auspex 4
-Heightened Senses
-Aura Reading
-An Ear for Lies
-The Spirit's Touch
-Telepathy

Backgrounds 5, (-3 Freebies)
Allies 3
Contacts 2
Status 3

Virtues:
Conscience 2
Self-Control 3
Courage 5

Willpower 5

Humanity 5

Merits -6
Eat Food 1
Medium 2
Unbondable 3

Flaws: +7
Haunted -3 (The Ghost of the cop he killed during his first Frenzy)
Permanent Wound -3 (Bite wound in his throat from his Embrace)
Prey Exclusion -1 (Children)

History:

Vergil was a student at the University of North Florida with a 2.3 GPA before his embrace. Was embraced by a an upstart Sabbat Malkavian name Simon Mang, behind a 7-11 during spring break, after a failed attempt to buy a case of beer. Mang had intended to form his own neonate pack through mass embrace, presumably for the purpose of fucking over his own (Camarilla-aligned) sire whom he had a rather terrible relationship with.

In any event, the Embrace was interrupted by a passing police car and Mang fled before learning if it had been successful or not. As such Placeholder_Name doesn't know who his sire is and was never really taught about what it means to be a vampire.

Upon awakening in a ditch behind a 7-11 in a Frenzy and feeding on the cop who was checking on him, it was pretty obvious that he was a vampire. The whole combusting in sunlight thing was another clue. But he didn't really know anything about vampire society. So he read books and watched movies. Lots of Anne Rice. Dracula, of course (the 1992 movie, of course). The complete Forever Knight boxed set.

Of course, he was forced to withdraw from most of his classes, but using the wisdom of Nick Knight, he convinced a doctor to diagnosis him with Schere's Disease and convinced his school to let him switch to all night classes and online without penalizing him for the dropped day classes.

Vergil graduated from college with a BA in in Art History (a Result of It's Senior Year and I haven't declared my major yet, which one do I qualify for syndrom) and a phlebotomy certification in 2007, the same year Sony pictures released 30 Days of Night. He decided that this was a great idea and moved to Alaska.

His stay above the arctic circle was short because it was fucking cold up there, and boring and a month of night also means more than month of day and that midnight sun is fucking annoying.

After that short failed experiment he moved to Juneau, where the climate was more hospitable. He applied for and relieved a PI license, which is a lot easier to get in Alaska than in some other states. Of course, the demand for PIs in Alaska was very low.

Inspired by buddy vampire cop shows, he contacted a young ADA named Jennifer Dearing and attempted to create a mismatched crime-solving duo. These attempts were politely rebuffed until the duo was pulled into a case involving a series of apparent wolf attacks. History would record that Old Man Smithers was pretending to be a werewolf to scare away the the Pentax corporation, which was buying up land in order to build a new resort hotel catering to tourists, because he had a personal grudge against Pentex. History also records that he blew himself up after being unmasked and escaping, his last act being to destroy the Pentex construction site. History doesn't record that he was an actual Werewolf and had no clue that there was any dynamite at that construction site or that Virgil was only 50% sure that stupid plan would work. In any event, Pentex cut their loses and pulled out and the werewolf killed and a beautiful friendship was begun.

Allies:

Jennifier Dearing: District Attrney for the 1st Judicial District, which includes Juneau. She's a tough no-nonsense lawyer who is dedicated to putting the bad guys behind bars and is often exacerbated by Virgil's antics. Her father was a cop. His father was a cop. She wanted to be a cop, but her dad made her go to law school instead. And she's good at it.

She learned about Vampires when Virgil forced his way into a major investigation and into her life, under the theory that Mick St. John and Nick Knight can't both be wrong and the best thing for him to do was become part of a mis-matched crimefighting duo. She reluctantly accepts his help because Vampire disciplines are useful in investigations, and no one would believe her if she tried to have him arrested, anyway.
Virgil gave her some of his blood when she was seriously injured and now she is a ghoul blood bound to him, though they're both uncertain about of the mechanics of this.

Bob Stillson: Is the TSA supervisor at the local airport. They first met when Virgil assisted in investigating a drug smuggling ring, posing as a consulting detective who solves crimes using undergraduate calculus and basic chess strategies. Since then they've engaged in favor trading and something approaching friendship. Indeed, Virgil was the first person that Bob called when he needed to disarm a bomb found in a passenger's bag, which turned out to be a dildo, a fact which saved him a lot of embarrassment. No one wants to be known as the buy who blew up a dildo.

Jacob Garcia: Half Native American Half Mexican Animal Control officer. Brother Charlie works in construction. Jacob's father was a Garou kinsman who moved to Alaska to "get away from all that Werewolf Shit. Jacob knows enough about werewolves to recognize their handiwork, and doesn't have much love for them. When the Garou known as Old Man Smithers started a private war against Pentex in the middle of Juneau, Jacob found a close ally in Virgil, and vice-versa because of course the vampire takes the werewolf claims at face value. Jacob owes Vergil a lot for his help back then and remains loyal to his vampire friend.

Contacts

Jeff Bridges, Smuggler
A small time drug smuggler who owes Verge several favors. Verge kept him out of prison once, and in return Jeff provides him with information as needed. Jeff owns a DHC-3 Otter that he ostensibly used for his tour-guide business. But since air tours of the Alaskan wilderness barely pay the bills, he supplements his income by moving contraband, usually drugs, sometimes other things.

Jeff has extensive criminal and is willing to provide verge with information, for a price.

David Wong, Park Ranger and Owner of Wong Bar, Grill, and Country Inn

The youngest son of two second generation Chinese immigrants from Texas, David Wong moved to Alaska to follow his dream of becoming a park ranger. While working as a park ranger at Glacier bay he met better dobs, and the two started a romance. Wong was 27 when they got married. Fife years later, he and Betty opened the Wong Bad, Grill, and Country in, which caters to tourists with a unique blend of Chinese, Texan, and Alaskan cooking. Now aged 37, Wong has two sons, and still works as a Park Ranger at Glacier Bay while Betty runs the restaurant.

Equipmen and Resources:

Taken from the group pool:
KITT: A classic Trans-Am T-Top heavily modified to resemble the car from Knightrider. It isn't a perfect reproduction, as it has been ruggedized for use in the Alaskan climate. The windscreen been replaced by a combination of smartglass and a transparent OLED display. With a push of a button it can switch from providing a normal exterior view to being completely opaque to sunlight with exterior cameras feeding the outside view to the OLED in order to facilitate daytime driving.

Loft and Antique Shop: A loft apartment above a small antique shop called Nash's Curiosities. This shops makes a negative profit and is a drain on his resources when he bothers to open it, which is rarely. Yes, it's totally ripped off from Highlander. None of the objects in the shop are particularly valuable, just because something is ol that doesn't mean it's actually wroth anything.

Airplane: A 1937 Fairchild 24H

Guns
Blaser R93 Rifle
AR15 Rifle
Walther PPK pistol (Jame's Pond's gun)

Speedboat: A Phantom Model 14 two seat smini speedboat.

Wardrobe: Lots of trenchcoats and dusters.

Enemy:

John Smith: John was a cop and good at his job until the night he found a vampire attempting to embrace Virgil in an alley behind a 7-11. The vampire fled, but Virgil repaid John's attempts to help him by ripping his throat out and ravenously drinking his blood. And while John understands that Vergil wasn't in his right mind at the time, he's still pretty pissed off about it, and seems to be stuck with him for some reason. Vergil and John have something of an understanding. Vergil keeps Tabs on John's family, his wife Katherine his daughters Melody and Emma, and his son Timothy. When they need help Vergil gives in anonymously. In return John doesn't do anything too malicious. But he's still a bored vengeful angry ghost that's stuck haunting the vampire who killed him, so he does enjoy fucking with Vergil.

History and Activities

Miscellaneous Activities:
Verge has been active volunteer for the red cross and is well known for running community blood drives.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Mar 09, 2015 1:00 am

Anyone not a Caitiff might went to mention their sire in their backstory - or else I'll fill it in for you. Likewise, I'd like you to decide on where your haven (or havens) are.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:53 am

Okay, cards on the table here: I'm sorta confused and cranky as to what kind of resources people are bandying about now. We went from people shooting down criminal contacts--which is kinda ugly for a Setite--to "Let's have this down solid in 48 hours" to offhand comments about ghouling Putin and living off cows. I honestly don't know what is intended to be a joke anymore.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:01 am

For what it's worth, I didn't shoot down criminal contacts - and I agree, I would like the players to nail down what the group backgrounds are in one place so I can link it in the first post.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:16 am

Sorry, I was mostly joking about Putin!Ghoul, and it just turned into that Den "Ok, I'm joking, but how would you do that?" thing.

I have no problem with criminal contacts, for the record

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:29 am

Whipstitch wrote:Okay, cards on the table here: I'm sorta confused and cranky as to what kind of resources people are bandying about now. We went from people shooting down criminal contacts--which is kinda ugly for a Setite--to "Let's have this down solid in 48 hours" to offhand comments about ghouling Putin and living off cows. I honestly don't know what is intended to be a joke anymore.

Less Living off cows and more a safe, steady supply of blood so that there is less risk of accidentally killing people, of which livestock are a part, since you don't have to hide cow corpses. Phlembotomy is also useful, there, since you risk killing someone with binge drinking if they leave the room before their blood goes into your mouth.

Anyway, I'll finish up my character's contacts when i finish working. Damn my need to pay for food and utilities. .

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:05 am

You're probably thinking of me Whipstitch. Im not against criminal contacts I just didn't want us to run the drug trade. I think the DEA as a federal agency is one of the last people we want investigating us. Suzanne has a drug dealer contact she gets her cocaine from.

Our Herd is in no way limited to cows. By the rules as written we have over 1000 humans in our herd. We just chose to make the majority represent a dairy farm we can regularly bleed cows from to supply us with emergency reserves so we try to avoid the dangers of a starving vampire.
For day to day consumption you can easily feed exclusively on human blood.

Suzanne likes coked up clubgoers and our Toreador prefers his cult of high schoolers.

I think we settled on a military force of animals and the police, specifically SWAT, plus the high school cult.

And anyone in the group can draw on tens of millions of dollars and use our impressive occult library for research. On a related note we can exchange rituals so you can assume you know any level one to two ritual another one of us knows and maybe one of the third level.

Am I forgetting anything?

Anyone with rituals can have Incorporeal Passage for a very secure haven.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:38 am

Yeah, I probably handed everyone flashdrives with the library scanned in. The physical library is in my hunting lodge manor.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:01 am

Some people wanted their characters to generally feed from animals, so in the bare bones pooled background blurb there are some animals, as a supplement to human sources. Most people were indifferent-to-encouraging of criminal contacts, so a couple of criminal contacts were suggested, along with a couple of default havens for those whom haven't declared one. Putin was a joke. My asking about slipping vitae in milk was system ignorance.

Go ahead and link to this post. If anyone feels like having their character be the contact person for a pooled contact/business they are wildly encouraged to say so, and I'll edit whatever in. If not, Stan and Kel can change their appearance, and so could meet contacts using cover identities and occasional hats.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:58 am

Right, so those are linked to the front page. Did you guys want to formalize any of the rules and positions? I know you were discussing it a couple pages back.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:27 am

Just in case anyone doesn't know the usual Camarilla positions:
Prince- Ultimate decision maker
Sheriff- Head Law Enforcement
Seneschal- Aide to the Prince possible second in command
Keeper of Elysium- Party planner
Harpy- Social Leader and trendsetter
Primogen- The Prince's cabinet usually the oldest most powerful of each clan in the city (we're all in this by default)

Whatever title you want to come up with- Treasurer? Deputy?

And ones fron nWoD
Herald- Official messenger especially to Kindred in areas outside the city (expect enemies to deride you as an errand boy)
Hound-Sheriff without the desire to bother investigating. Prince's executioner

My personal suggestion not knowing anyone's preferences would be Suzanne as Prince, Kel as Sheriff, Constantin as Keeper, Verge as an unusual Harpy whose job is to keep us up to date on pop culture or something, Seth or Max as Seneschal? Max and Ia as deputies to the Sheriff?

I've got a 9 for Int+Occult so the groups magical adviser? Vizier? Or Diviner for my oracular ability.

I also floated an idea earlier in regards to the Boardroom idea.
We're all Chief [fill in the blank] Officer.

Or we're all just Primogen and a Prince. Decisions are settled via a vote with ties going to the Prince? In PbP I see this taking forever. It should be fastest for everyone to be empowered to do their own thing within a particular field.

If anyone has a burning desire for a particular government setup or role just say so.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:51 pm

I think I'm going to bow out. Sorry to take up your time, AH.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:18 pm

The Group Backgrounds have been adjusted, and I freed up some personal points so as to cover other potential shortfalls.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:25 pm

I like the boardroom idea, just so my title could be Chief Bear Officer.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:45 pm

Assuming no objections let's go with AH's Bloody Boardroom idea. Or Board of Regnants?

Corporate Titles Pick one you like or make your own. I'll be CMO. Chief Magical/Medical Officer.