His Dallas assignment helped him establish a domain there, but the efforts of infernal forces kept the city in turmoil. After helping the Justicar Erik Grimold with the conflict, he was offered the post of Archon. The Justicar kept him on the move for close to fifty years, battling renegade thaumaterges and infernal wizards.
In 2023, after the Justicar was removed from his post by the Inner Circle, Reginald felt betrayed by the institution that he was protecting. In taking Detroit Reginald hoped to establish a domain to call home, but the forces of darkness in the city have made him uneasy and wary. It is with fear that he builds a powerbase and consolidates his holdings. He has earned the enmity of a great many ancient kindred, and no longer has a powerful benefactor. In Detroit, he hopes to establish a place of safety for he and his line.
STR 2 DEX 2 STA 2 CHR 2 MAN 5 APP 2 PER 4 INT 3 WIT 5
Alert 2, Athletic 2, Brawl 1, Empathy 2, Intimidate 2, Leadership 3, Subterfuge 5
Etiquette 2, Firearms 2, Melee 3, Stealth 2, Survival 2
Bureaucracy 1, Linguistics 2, Medicine 2, Occult 4, Politics 2, Sabbat Lore 1
Auspex 4, Dominate 3, Thaumaturgy 4 (Blood 4, Weather 2, Levinbolt 2) Celerity 2, Obfuscate 2, Protean 1, Visceratika 1 (that's right, Viscer-freakin-atika)
Humanity 5 Willpower 10
One eye, Occult Library
Childe: Cheryl Jefferson Grandchilde: Susan
Personal Journal
It's a cold autumn night. I am in the basement of my home, talking to my friends about the soon-to-come roleplaying session. We have all dressed the part of our characters for the first and last time. We mill around the damp concrete and wonder what the evening will bring. Tom, the storyteller, comes down to pep-talk us before the game.
He tells us that the other players have arrived, and he needs to get them settled in and in-character before our dramatic entrance. It sounds like a lot of fun. Tom has been preparing this moment for at least six months, maybe a year. I suppose some backstory is in order.
The name of the chronicle is "Chicago by Night: Past to Present." The idea is this, in it's basic form: Tom wants to bring two sets of role-players together. He's done this before, and all of the players involved were playing in Chicago. Tom seems to like the setting. The current game is set in 2021, and has a cyber-punk feel to it.
The original players were Tom's college friends. They have since dispersed throughout the states, and getting them together would be quite an accomplishment. Tom's close circle of friends pre- and post- graduation form the second group of Chicago players. That's who we are going to meet tonight. Our characters are archons, vampire cops investigating an infernal scheme.
The story, for the cops, began in Dallas in the 1970's. The Gangrel Justicar and his archons, with a little bit of help from us, thwarted the plans of a nefarious mage named Vael. The fight at the end was spectacular. Demons fighting elder vampires and Brujah elders brought low by Gangrel. Of course Vael escaped and continued to plot horrible things. Our characters were recruited by the Justicar to help in his ongoing struggle with these infernal forces.
The characters, and their players, in costume, are thus: Myself playing a Tremere southern-gentleman/former Civil War lieutenant, who wears dark suits with white shirts and an eye-patch due to war injuries, and carries around a saber from the same war; Lance playing (coincidentally) a huge african former-slave Brujah with underworld contacts, wearing a cloak and carrying a ridiculously large staff; Rob playing a Vietnam sniper Gangrel, complete with fatigue pants, beret, and a plastic pistol; and Dave playing his amerind/sabatuer Gangrel Jayson Blackpaw, who wears a poncho with blood and claw-tears in it, he has on war-paint and false claws as well.
So we are a crazy-looking crew, and as we flee the basement to the outside only to re-emerge in the house, I can only imagine what the neighbors must have thought. Tom leads us back into the house with a mile-wide grin on his face. I usually come in second. Reginald, my Tremere alter-ego, isn't as tough as the rest of this crew, so when I play him I tend to be a little cautious. Jayson(Dave) leads us inside. I come through second, with Jake Sabre(Rob) and Kasiel(Lance) bringing up the rear.
As we walk inside everyone is in character. Scott is wearing sunglasses to hide his character's(also named Scott, in fact, the other play-group is playing vampiric versions of themselves for the most part) glowing eyes, a result of too many Gangrel frenzies. Aaron is wearing a cowboy hat low, and his eyes cannot be seen as we enter. Shannon (playing Victoria, a Toreador socialite) is sitting down casually. Jim is sitting, but in a more defensive way than Shannon. Darin (playing Logan, a Caitiff wildcard) is standing, and appears uneasy. I've always liked Darin's role-playing. The fact that four archons are walking into the room is a little unsettling. I think the others are just trying to play it cool.
The social interaction that follows is tense and quite heated. We, the archons, are on the trail of the villain Vael, and the trail leads to Chicago. Not only that, but Scott has unwittingly embraced some poor dying fool. The resulting neonate was possessed by a powerful demon and wrought havoc in Milwaukee. We had been in Milwaukee, and the little bastard had almost killed the four of us by himself. We aren't happy.
The actual details of the session are many and numerous, but it is the out-of-character stuff that I loved so much. Here we are, all friends, but as vampires we are at each other's throats. It was good role-playing, and it was the most fun I've had in-character as Reginald. Oftentimes our vampire personae are not used, our social interactions limited to the Storyteller as various characters. But intimidating a group of friends with the threat of justice from our hands was quite an experience. Playing an archon was fun, but that night was the big pay-off, everything before or since pales in comparison.
In-character
In fact, my favorite in-character moments are from when I was not playing Reginald at all. While he is the favorite character as far as playing goes, I relish the opportunity to flex my role-playing (acting) muscles. Tom ran a series of short stories that all featured one of the archons as the main character, and the rest of us were supporting cast. During the course of these stories, I had the opportunity to play a Brujah anarch, a Glass Walker theurge, Reginald the Tremere Archon, a mummy messenger of Horus, and a Child of Osiris.
Choosing one of these characters as my favorite would be too difficult, so I will recount each of their experiences as I remember them. Each of us played a different character in these stories, and we had a goal list. We received extra experience points for meeting the character's goals. There was an overlying theme for the short stories: they all related to one another in some fashion, and to the schemes of an ancient vampire nemesis of the archon's benefactor, Justicar Grimes. It seems that Tezcatlipoca, the Jaguar, a vampire whose cockamamie intrigues once incurred the wrath of two Justicars, was searching for the Soulstone of Osiris. The stone was believed to carry the lost soul of the vampire Osiris, and it powered an ancient sword. When the two were connected, they were capable of destroying vampires with ease. Coincidentally, the Jaguar was said to have been created Thaumatergically by either Osiris himself or Osiris's last progeny. The Child of Osiris known as Quetzalcoatl was sterile, and had to use magic to create others. The creation rebelled and tried to kill his mentor, which almost brought Gehenna down upon the earth�we intervened.
The first vignette was on the east coast, in north or South Carolina, I can't recall which. The Prince in that city was fighting a losing battle with the anarchs, and a shipment of illegal weapons was his only hope to stem the tide. I played the anarch "leader", T-Funk. T-funk was a Brujah philosopher of sorts, and he led the anarchs not so much with intimidation as with visionary thought. Jameson, the Prince, and his Tremere sheriff were very hostile towards those Brujah. Not only that, Jameson was an evil bastard in his own right, as I remember. Perhaps my in-character efforts cloud my judgment. The crux of the story was the ship that came into the harbor with the weapons in question. It wasn't just carrying weapons, and the settites who manned the ship were dead. Kasiel was in town, it was his story, and he was investigating both the anarch-prince conflict and the mysterious shipment. I managed to win the archon's sympathy for the anarch cause by my actions and not get killed in the process. Dave was playing Jameson and he came pretty close to snuffing out T-funk a couple times. The boat in fact carried something with an enormous appetite for blood.
The second story was that of Jake Sabre. He was a little further inland of the east coast, and was investigating the disappearance of the city's Prince. The Prince's childer, as it turns out, was an abomination who was seeking control of the city. I was playing a garou who was the brother of said abomination. He had vanished and was presumed dead some twenty years before. The Prince had embraced the werewolf as a secret weapon, but the creation betrayed the sire. Lance played the abomination nicely, and managed to kill over half the city's elders before being brought to justice. It was an interesting story for me because of the bittersweet feeling I had to play as I conversed with my "brother", who had in fact become corrupted and needed to be destroyed. He didn't make it. I don't recall the connection to the Jaguar's master plan in this town, though I think he had caused the upheaval as a distraction to steal away with some item or other, perhaps on the trail of the soulstone itself.
The third was my character's story, told in his hometown of Atlanta. The Brujah Prince, Rake, had been letting the city go to hell in a handbasket for some time. It was getting to be time to clean it up. Rake behaved himself quite nicely when the archon was in town. Rake had not let the Ventrue back into town since his coupe for control of the city; all the Ventrue in town met mysterious deaths. The Ventrue sent an assassin in to end his reign. Rob played the assassin, a blood-bound, conditioned Ventrue servant to the nth degree. He was born and embraced to serve. Dave played Reginald's nemesis in town, the Tremere Regent of the Atlanta chantry, Ith. Jeff was playing a Brujah elder named Anvil whom Reginald had taught the beginnings of thaumatergy, and Lance played Rake. Gabriel, the Ventrue "ninja", was supposed to kill Rake. I was supposed to keep order and not let Rake die whilst still bringing the city to a semblance of peace and progress. I think Ray played Khalid, an elder Nosferatu who had tired of the Jyhad and retreated from kindred society.
Meanwhile, the Jaguar had conspired to slip in a pack of Nosferatu Antitribu and an Arachnea (a bloodline of thaumatergically created spider-vampires, created by Reginald's grandsire). The villains stole away with a book from the Tremere chantry, which raised our ire, and when we pursued them to the sewers, the fight began in earnest. Khalid's assistance proved to be pivotal in defeating Beast, Calebos, and friends. The Ventrue assassin Gabriel had been slaughtering Rake's dozen childer one or two at a time for several days. Reginald spotted him through obfuscate and forced him to introduce himself to the Prince. Thus, Rake was able to summon him to justice. He ended up blowing Rake's head clean off from a rooftop, but in the same round of combat, Reginald was able to Blood Rage Rake to spend seven or eight blood on healing inmmediately. Tom ruled that Rake's head regrew due to my efforts, but that he was a vegetable because his brain was blown out. So Rake survived, yet was forced to abdicate the throne. Widow (the Arachnea) got away clean with the book.
Probably my favorite moment outside of the Chicago game as Reginald. Tom confided in me later that he hadn't thought of that possibility. Rob got an XP as Gabriel for killing Rake and I got an XP as Reginald for not letting Rake die. Interesting paradox.
The fourth story was my favorite in-character moment of all time. I was playing a Child of Osiris who was searching for the Soulstone to keep it from the Jaguar. It was at a caern in the Dakotas. Jayson Blackpaw, the amerind/Gangrel spy and archon werewolf expert was Dave's character in the story. Ray, Jeff, and Rob all got to play werewolf caern elders, who were both protecting the Soulstone and confused/possessed by it. They had recently come into possession of it, and it had been corrupting whoever possessed it. Blackpaw was tracking the trail of destruction following the path of the stone as the garou tried in vain to keep it out of the Jaguar's hands. This was the last stand. My character had mastered the Bardo discipline, and had a fair amount of Obfuscate. Lance was playing Yaryan, another amerind vampire, who had strange powers and a mastery of animalism.
The Jaguar's plan came to fruition, he had brought a giant and nasty beast with him cross-country and had been obfuscating it with ridiculous levels of that power. It's sole purpose was defeating caerns of Garou, as it had Rage to spend and was nigh-unstoppable. Furthermore, the Jaguar had shock-troops in the form of kindred with bio-thaumatergical cybernetic implants. It was a mess. I knew that the only way to stop him was to make him fight the whole caern, but at the same time I needed to be in possession of the stone. I actually managed to call a peace parlay, and convince the garou that I needed to hang out with them. When the moment was right, I used the riddle-power of Bardo to stun the entire caern. It was beautiful. I walked over, stole the stone, and while they contemplated some unanswerable question, I obfuscated and fled into the night. Of course, I stayed very close by, so that the Jaguar's minions would have to go through the werewolves to get to me and the stone.
Tom told me later he hadn't thought of that possibility, and honestly the roll I made with the Bardo ability was incredible. Something like eight successes or so. It was the only thing that brought the vampires and werewolves together, hunting for me. Tezcatlipoca still got the stone, of course. He could see through my cloak of shadows. The battle between the werewolves, the huge war-beast, and the vampires was impressive.
The fifth and last story was told in Europe, after the events that happened in the states. A Ventrue elder was working the elysium crowd there, with Ray's character, the mighty Smith, in tow. I played a mummy who was coming into court to speak with the Ventrue, the others were all elders of one sort or another. Dave was a Settite whose mission was to kill the mummy. There was much discussion in the courts of the soulstone and the blade it belonged with. The Settite's mission failed and we all lived angstfully ever after.
The Inner Circle of the Camarilla came together and decided that Grimes was too powerful for his post of Justicar. He had more archons, at eight or nine, than any other of his post. It was a political move, of course, but he was pretty much fired. The archons lost their jobs as well, so we went to Detroit to raise hell.