History: 1919 - 1977

Politics (1919 - 1942)

The Camarilla needed, first and foremost, footholds in the New World.  The East Coast was rapidly being overrun by Sabbat; the West, by Anarchs who believed fiercely in, and would die defending, their freedom.  The South’s hierarchy would have been an ideal base for the Camarilla, but its largely scattered, rural population posed a problem, as did its relative lack of material wealth after the devastation of the Civil War.  So it was that the Midwest was targeted: cities that served as midpoint for railroads  and steamships, industrial cities fast coming into their own.  Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati.

By the time the European Camarilla narrowed their choices down and sent out feelers, Nikolaus had already taken up residence in Cincinnati and gathered to him a small group of Kindred like himself: ambitious and militarily brilliant.  They knew the lay of the land, so to speak, and by the time the Camarilla moved in en masse, they had already gained influence and allies, contacts and herds among the populace.  

They were there first and thus had something of an advantage.  They demanded a place in the Camarilla council of the city.  But those that had come from across the seas were older, already established within the monolithic Sect, bearing reputations as long as the trails of blood they left in history.  They had ruled before, and they expected to rule now.

The ensuing power struggle was long and bloody.  Both sides pulled all the stops, played all their cards.  For the space of ten years, vampires clandestinely gathered and plotted and moved Kine like so many pawns on a chessboard.  Influence wars were waged like they were going out of style.  Some rumormongers would swear upon their damned souls that the Prohibition was one vampire elder attempting to destroy a young Brujah’s extended circle of drunken contacts, whilst another claimed the Giovanni’s entrance into America was facilitated by the young Camarillan’s attempt to circumvent his elder’s blockage on his contacts’ alcohol, thus gaining a certain amount of influence over them as well as their supplier.  And when influence wasn’t quite enough, vampires warred openly under the guise of race riots and alcohol riots.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati grew and flourished around them.  As the mortal world rolled into the Flapper Era, decadence became the word of the day.  America reveled in its own newfound power and wealth and liberty.  The automobile was produced and then mass-produced; backseats became notorious; Nikolaus found a new love.  Here was something to replace the thrill of racing a charger into battle: a squadron of cars running down European Camarilla still so enamored of their coaches and carriages; automatic weapons mowing down legions of vampires and their cohorts who still insisted on the sword and dagger.

Yet despite these advantages, and the advantage of precedence, the European Camarilla were older, more experienced, and they had what seemed like an unlimited pool of resources to draw from – manpower from the herds, influence stretched overseas and stolen from the hands of the younger vampires, cold hard cash from liquidated stocks and bonds purchased, ironically enough, in the American stock exchange.  Not only that, the Flapper Era had drawn a horde of sharp-tongued Toreador to the United States, and they too threw in their considerable influence with the European Camarilla.  Slowly but surely, the young American Camarilla were losing the fight to control Cincinnati.

Then, a godsend: the stock market crash, when the exponentially expanding bubble of American ego finally burst.  Fortunes evaporated overnight.  Influence followed.  Everyone was hit, but the European Camarilla had had more invested, and thus, had lost more.

In the winter of 1929, a truce was called.  Representatives from both sides met on neutral ground and forged out an agreement.  The true enemy was the Sabbat, and their true purpose was the same: to reclaim America for the Camarilla.  Therefore, instead of squabbling for the sake of squabbling, let them choose the Camarilla Council on account of competence.  The Prince would be European, but the Primogen Council mixed.  The Ventrue was European, as was the Toreador and the Tremere, but the rest would be American.  Lastly, the war leaders would be chosen almost exclusively from the American Camarilla, who had, presumably, a much better knowledge of the area.

It sounded good, and it looked good on paper.  The reality, however, was very different.

The war waged on – only now, it was secret, and deadlier than before.  Foes were no longer evident.  Those who smiled in Elysium could very well be the ones to wield the stake in ambush.  Those who complimented in Elysium could very well be the ones who machinate a financial landslide.  Nikolaus, for the most part a war leader, twice almost attained the position of Primogen – each time supported by a different faction – and thrice nearly lost his life, each time to a different foe.

And so the Camarilla of Cincinnati continued to cripple itself long after the peace treaty was signed until the original bifurcation in fact melted as the European Camarilla integrated with the American as the American Camarilla had decades before.  What was once a black-and-white war between old and young rearranged itself into a complex, ever-shifting tapestry of alliances and enmities that was, in essence, a recreation in miniature of the Elysium society of Europe.

Then, and only then, a sort of superficial peace came in dynamic instability, for the Camarilla was accustomed to grinding on despite internal conflict.  The Old Sect had successfully sunk its roots into the New World.

War II (1942 - 1953)

Peace, for Nikolaus, did not last long.  In 1939, a man named Adolf Hitler, now serving German in the very same position Bismarck had seventy years before him, started the second World War.  It would be a war that would rock a world that believed itself jaded by the atrocities of the first Great War.  War without honor, without personality, without humanity, it turned Europe into a glorified slaughterhouse, and the ones who went to the block were often innocents and civilians.  Even the Elders were shocked.

By 1942, America had throw in its collective hat, and a combination of increasing anti-German sentiment and increasing personal desire to join the fray drove Nikolaus from Cincinnati.

What happened in the four years between his departure and his reappearance is anyone’s guess.  Some think he, using a web of false identities, disciplines, quick thinking and careful planning, inserted himself into the Allied forces somewhere as a special night-unit commando.  Others believe he helped hatch one of the many plans to dispose of the Nazi high command, and of Hitler.  Still others are positive he had donned the dread black uniform and swastika of the Nazi SS and fought the war from the side of his native country.  The only certainty is that he was in Europe, and he was somehow involved in the War.

Even after the War ended with a furious Allied push in Europe and two radioactive Armageddons in Japan, Nikolaus did not immediately resurface.  The common assumption was that he had met the Final Death somewhere along the way.  Not as popular but perhaps more correct, another rumor had it that he was in Nice with an old flame.  Vacationing, as it were.  Either way, seven years after V-J – without fanfare – he reappeared in Cincinnati, no worse for the wear.  Yet it was then that he first began signing his name differently.  Nikolaus Kasch von Doenhoff had become, very simply, Nikolas Kash.

The Sabbat Wars: America II (1952 – 1977)

Nikolas did not stay long in Cincinnati.  Indeed, he lingered only long enough to make his presence known before heading out to the West Coast.  Los Angeles had become a place of glitter and fame by then, and San Francisco to the north, a rapidly growing city.  Perhaps he had tired of politics, or perhaps he was astute enough to recognize he would not be received well after so many years of absence.  Perhaps he was even running away – but from what, only he would ever know.

In San Francisco he gathered to his side old friends and cohorts, forming a coterie of Brujah idealists, individualists and iconoclasts alike.  Their goals and motivations were simple: to live hard, to die hard, and to play hard; to travel far and never stay in one place; to hunt down the Sabbat wherever they went, and  destroy it wherever they could.

Gleaming phalanxes of Brujah in their muscle cars roared all-abreast across the new-paved superhighways of the nation.  Tops down, adrenaline up.  Cadillacs in the ‘50s, Corvettes,  Thunderbirds and Barracudas in the ‘60s, Mercedes-Benzes in the ‘70s.  Guns in hand, lives on the line, they were reckless, fearless and lawless.  Wherever they went, a whirlwind of destruction followed.  The casualties were mostly Sabbat, but they weren’t perfect, and they weren’t knights in shining armor.  Reputation and notoriety came in equal parts.

Nikolas took that as a compliment.

Baltimore (1977)

Of course, it couldn’t last forever.  Such behavior has its price.  Some of the coterie died in battle; others simply drifted off, fed up with the nomadic devil-may-care lifestyle.  By 1977, the coterie had dissolved and Nikolas, alone again, found his way to Baltimore, where the Camarilla was gathering to strike against the Sabbat.

All told, Nikolas had accumulated nearly sixty years of experience in Sabbat warfare, twenty-five of them fresh.  It put him ahead of many of the Camarilla warlords.  He was also approaching his two hundredth year, and in America, where the original Camarilla elders that had come over by boat had become diluted by their less-than-a-century-old childer, that was a respectable age.  By some combination of intimidation and credentials, he took control of a part of the strike.

Nearly two centuries had passed, and warfare had evolved considerably.  Nonetheless, the principles remained the same, and when he began to chart strategies and offensives, he discovered the old talent still remained – boosted now by knowledge of the Sabbat’s fighting style.  From the sparsest pieces of information he gleaned the enemy’s intention, and moved to counter.  And he was still in some ways the same young captain that first rode into war against Napoleon so long ago: innovative and daring enough to try what no other man would think to try, and charismatic enough to lead his men through to victory.

Baltimore fell to the Camarilla, and two months after, Nikolas found himself a Primogen of the city.

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