Princes of the City: Anyone Want to Bite?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 7:19 pm

Well, I mean it was 1-point before. I just took 8 points of flaws (because Ward seemed more interesting than any 1-point flaw) and would normally lose that last point. So I wanted to know if it was cool for me to take a bullshit fluff thing rather than nothing.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 7:22 pm

Was it? Thought it was two points. I must be mad. Yes, it's fine.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:53 pm

Awesome, doritos in blood dip for all.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:03 am

I havn't actually crunched any stats yet, but I'm trying to work out the basic points of my backstory:

]Placeholder_Name

1) Was a college student with a 2.3 GPA.

2) Was embraced by a an upstart Sabbat Gangrel 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 Porphyria and convinced his school to let him switch to all night classes and online without penalizing him for the dropped day classes.

Placeholder_Name graduated from colledge with a BA in in Art History (a Result of It's Senior Year and I havn't declared my major yet, which one do I qualify for syndrom) 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 contacts will include :

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 Placeholder_Name'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 Placeholder_name 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.
By this point, she's probably a ghoul.

Question: Could my character be a Caitiff, and if so could I use the Caitiff Pick Any Disciplines you want rule to take Gargoyle Flight, which is normally barred to non-Gargoyle vampires.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:30 am

According to the wiki in Revised Wings grew as a function of Visceratika which Cainites CAN learn as unlikely as the fluff makes it.
Flight as it's own discipline says it is Gargoyle only and Cainites can't learn it if anything like Protean is available to them.

But why do you want to do this? Wings are a terrible idea. Total masquerade breach waiting to happen. Take thaumaturgy and get Movement of the Mind Lvl 3. Or just use Protean. Either is a hundred times more useful and you can get into a thousand times more antics with them.

You're character sounds amusing. Are you sure it wasn't a Malkavian that sired him? I suppose if you go Caitiff we will never know.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:36 am

Shady314 wrote:According to the wiki in Revised Wings grew as a function of Visceratika which Cainites CAN learn as unlikely as the fluff makes it.
Flight as it's own discipline says it is Gargoyle only and Cainites can't learn it if anything like Protean is available to them.

But why do you want to do this? Wings are a terrible idea. Total masquerade breach waiting to happen. Take thaumaturgy and get Movement of the Mind Lvl 3. Or just use Protean. Either is a hundred times more useful and you can get into a thousand times more antics with them.

You're character sounds amusing. Are you sure it wasn't a Malkavian that sired him? I suppose if you go Caitiff we will never know.

Gargoyle flight isn't the result of their wings. Their wings are completely worthless and can't support their weight. Gargoyle flight is purely telekinetic. The wings are cosmetic.

And while Movement of the Mind 3 is very useful, the concept of the character is Caitiff who developed his Disciplines by watching TV shows and reading Anne Rice novels. Lestat can fly. Nick Knight can fly. Obviously, this guy thinks that he should be able to fly.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:43 am

I'm not familiar with Gargoyles in WoD so I was just going by the wiki. I didn't know that about the wings. Also never heard of the Forever Knight TV show... or read any Anne Rice novels come to think of it.

Flying guy is still a masquerade breach in public though. Pair with Obfuscate?

EDIT: Possible backstory addition. When you come to Juneau one of us teaches you Thaumaturgy and you shock us when you express Movement of the Mind for some bizarre reason?
We aren't all going to meet for the first time when the game starts are we? I'm assuming we've been running the city for awhile now. I'd like to figure out some backstory for us all to share in.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:13 am

Hyz- check out the Gangrel clanbook, it details animal traits they might get as a result of too many frenzies which have actual mechanical traits, but cost an Appearance dot. I was considering spinnerets for my character but didn't have the points to buy off the dot cost. But you might want to take wings. Living in an area where people are expected to be bundled up pretty heavily does a lot to help hide such potentially masquerade breaching things.

edit- right, caitiff. You may be SoL in that case.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:15 am

Shady314 wrote: Also never heard of the Forever Knight TV show... or read any Anne Rice novels come to think of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM9O7BFkLNw

The SFX were more impressive in the 90s.

Flying guy is still a masquerade breach in public though. Pair with Obfuscate?

Of course. Two point of No one notices me unless I attract their attention is wonderful.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:18 am

Storyteller's handbook apparently included the Arcane background from mage--

Prerequisite: Cannot have Clan Prestige, Fame, or Status; must be Generation 8 or lower

Certain Kindred are inherently unknowable, and those around them often fail to notice them, let alone their undead states. Some vampires have the ability to remain anonymous. This strange ability generally manifests as a strange nepenthe, whereby the person trying to remember the Kindred experiences only a strange nostalgia, absent of any detail.

A vampire with a high Arcane Trait may attempt to vanish from view, or she may simply seem too ordinary to notice. This is not similar to Obfuscate, per se, and it certainly does not help in combative (or potentially so) situations -- the Kindred won't be disappearing into a puff of smoke or lingering invisibly before anyone's eyes. If someone searches for the Kindred, their quest may well prove fruitless: Somehow, no one remembers her, or the camera was out of tape, or the guard was too far away to give a reliable description.

A vampire's Arcane score subtracts one die per dot from any dice pools used to actively search for her -- most often Perception or Investigation pools. A Kindred may choose to "turn off" Arcane if she so wishes, thereby enabling others to find her, as is sometimes beneficial. This is a passive Trait, not an active one; it does not help on Stealth rolls or other overt attempts to hide from others. It simply makes the vampire hard to find, whether she's lying in the back seat of a car or hidden in a crypt three continents away.

No character may take the Arcane background if she has any Status, Clan Prestige or Fame, or vice versa. Likewise, Arcane does not have any effect for Kindred of the Eighth Generation or lower -- elders are simply too unnatural to slip so easily from the minds of others.

Note: This Background is as often a detriment as it is a blessing, and it sometimes conflicts with other Backgrounds. An Arcane Kindred with Resources may well have to hunt down his stock dividends while an Arcane Mentor may prove more trouble to find than she's worth.

1 Easily overlooked.
2 Hard to follow.
3 It takes a detective to shadow you.
4 Maybe he passed through here a couple years ago.
5 Never heard of the guy.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:46 am

Shady314 wrote: We aren't all going to meet for the first time when the game starts are we? I'm assuming we've been running the city for awhile now. I'd like to figure out some backstory for us all to share in.

When the game officially starts, you lot will have already met, organized, and been operating as effective princes of the city for six months.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:08 pm

Prak, how long has Kel been in Juneau? As it stands my guy's ~22 years, hyzmarca's is at 8, and Whipstich's and Koumei's characters arrived 6 months ago.

An easy enough background narrative would be that, given Stan's provincial and complacent outlook, Kel's isolationism, and hyzmarca's character's inexperience, there was little effective need for any social order past general discretion. Max and Suzanne made it clear that was unacceptable, and so we collectively got our shit together.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:21 pm

I can be flexible on the "effective princes" duration, if it helps y'all's backstory. Let us say you were officially recognized during the last ____ months?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 5:41 pm

I did a quick checking on the murder rate in Juneau to flesh out buddy cop antics portion of the backstory.

It's zero.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Juneau-Alaska.html

Well, it's sometimes above 0. There were two murders in 06, one in 07, and one in 2010, but for the most part, but most years there are no murders at all in Juneau.

The theft rate, though, is pretty damned high.

Prak wrote:
Hell, if I sent a bear into town to get me a keg of beer, it would probably merely be odd that the bear moved with purpose and had worked out how to transport beer, not, necessarily, that it wandered into town.

Not that I'd do that.

It wouldn't be that odd, given that bears notoriously break into food storage containers.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 9:14 pm

Uh.... let's say 125 years?

...shit, my character is the oldest one, isn't he? I implied that he took over an 1800s style poacher/hunter lodge, from the actual lodgers, so he had to have been there a while. He was basically just sitting in said lodge and reading for most of that time.

What's the rate of death by animal in Juneau?

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:18 pm

This is the WoD which is supposed to be our world but worse so AH may have Juneau be a little more dangerous.
Anyways that just seems even funnier as your expectations for unlife are constantly shattered.

Also suicides are high in Alaska.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:23 pm

Prak wrote: What's the rate of death by animal in Juneau?

Low enough that it wasn't included in any statistics that I can find.
The classics of cancer and heart disease are the top two leading causes of death in Juneau. Accidental injuries rank number 3.

Leading Causes of Traumatic Injuries in SE Alaska

1. Falls – 42% occur at home with 20% involved alcohol

2. Motor Vehicle Accidents – More likely to be fatal accidents, 40% involved alcohol

3. Suicide – 77% of attempts involved alcohol, drugs

4. Fishing and Boating Accidents – 18% involved alcohol, drugs

5. Pedestrian and Biking – 60 % were not wearing a helmet with 28% involving alcohol, drugs

A quick check shows that in the entire United States, half a person is killed by bears every year, and a tenth of a person by wolves. Since this includes the entire United States, I'd presume that far less than 6 tenths of a person is killed by wild animals in Juneau every year.

Notably, the biggest killer among wild animals is bees, with 53 deaths per year in the entire USA due to bee venom allergies.

Dogs are the top demesticacted killer with 31 kills per year in the entire USA, on average. They're number 2 after bees.

Average Number of Deaths per Year in the U.S
Bee/Wasp 53
Dogs 31
Spider 6.5
Rattlesnake 5.5
Mountain lion 1
Shark 1
Alligator 0.3
Bear 0.5
Scorpion 0.5
Centipede 0.5
Elephant 0.25
Wolf 0.1
Horse 20
Bull 3

And, apparantly

Cows kill about 22 people in the U.S. every year. “From 2003 to 2007, the US Department of Labor recorded an average of 21.6 cattle-related deaths per year, for a total of 108…the odds of a human being killed by a cow are increased mainly by being a farmer, male, and over 60. That's still nothing compared to a cow's odds of being killed by a human” (http://bookofodds.com/Accidents-Death/A ... ath-by-Cow) (the source of the doctored image above is unknown)

1) bees (53 deaths each year in the U.S.), 2) dogs (30-35 deaths), 3) cows (22), 4) horses (20), 5) spiders (6.5), and 6) rattlesnakes (5.5). Yep – you are 10 times more likely to die in the U.S. because of a bee sting than a bite from a rattler and 22 times more likely to be killed by a cow than by a shark.

http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/events/departm ... -kill-you/

basically, there aren't enough wild animal caused deaths in the entire country for Juneau to have a significant number. The biggest killers seem to be domesticated animals and bee allergies.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:28 pm

Shady314 wrote:Anyways that just seems even funnier as your expectations for unlife are constantly shattered.

Also suicides are high in Alaska.

That's the spirit!

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:08 pm

[quote="hyzmarca]The biggest killers seem to be domesticated animals and bee allergies.[/quote]
So if we have to cover something up we want to make it look like a dog got them. Good to know. Sounds like influence or a contact in Animal Services would be good.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:14 pm

Shady314 wrote:[quote="hyzmarca]The biggest killers seem to be domesticated animals and bee allergies.

So if we have to cover something up we want to make it look like a dog got them. Good to know. Sounds like influence or a contact in Animal Services would be good.[/quote]

Well no, not really. That's less than 1 per state per year. Making it look like a dog got them is still going to attract attention and get animal control involved and investigating.

The best bet is to make it look like an accident. A fall, most likely, bonus points if it's a drunken fall. Falling off a boat while dunk and drowning is also a reasonable one. And, of course, the old standby of car accidents, possibly while drunk.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:30 pm

I intend on making life miserable enough for people that alcoholism spikes, anyway. I assure you that people will be drunk any time we want them to have an accident.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 12:03 am

Hm... controlling three of the larger bars/clubs in town means we could also easily ghoul and blood bond people to us...

edit:
Kel in his kitchen-

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 1:11 am

hyzmarca wrote: Well no, not really. That's less than 1 per state per year. Making it look like a dog got them is still going to attract attention and get animal control involved and investigating.

I'm imagining more like if one of our animal soldiers kill someone. Or their behavior just makes the kine suspicious. Or AH has lupines show up to make our lives miserable. It just made me realize animal control might actually be called for some bizarre stuff. I hadn't thought of them before.

Places/People likely to brush up against the supernatural.
Animal control. Many supernaturals might appear as animals.
Police (more importantly forensics). Obviously.
Docks. Airports. Possible entry points for supernaturals.
Hospitals. Supernatural shit that doesn't kill you probably fucked you up. Feed too much but not enough to kill them and people end up here missing a LOT of blood with no wounds.
Funeral homes. Uh oh.
Bars and Nightclubs because stereotypes. Also intoxicated oblivious food.

What's missing?

Also what sort of background or level of resources do I need to own this place?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 2:55 am

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

Alertness 3
Athletics 1
Dodge 1
Empathy 3
Expression 1

Crafts 2
Drive 2
Etiquette 3
Firearms 2
Security 1
Stealth 3

Academics 1
Computer 1
Investigation 1
Law 1
Science 1

Backgrounds
Allies: 3
Resources 2

Virtues:
Conviction 3
Instinct 2
Courage 5

Willpower 5

Path of Self-Focus 5

Merits
Eat Food 1
Medium 2
Unbondable 3

Flaws:
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)

I haven't yet spent any Freebie points, save a few that I got from Flaws. Nor have I purchased any disciplines, yet.

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 Porphyria 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 havn't declared my major yet, which one do I qualify for syndrom) 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. He met Virgil during the Old Man Smithers case and helped blow up the werewolf.

Equipment:

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.

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.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 4:11 am

AH was pooling certain backgrounds a yea or nay? It seems to just be a nWoD thing so if not then no problem. Just wanted to ask.

Everyone having resources seems wasteful. As a coterie/government for at least 6 months it'd be better if we could allocate some points to our collective resources and then simply split the responsibilities into our domains. Like our group owns the nightclubs but Suzanne has been granted them as her domain. It would increase our personal investment in what we've built in Juneau. Though Im fine if not.

So what are we thinking?
Prince: Suzanne
Sheriff: Kel?
Keeper of Elysium: Zantosa?
Harpy: ?
Primogen: Everyone else