The World of Darkness

This section contains details on the greater world of darkness for New York City. Not everything here is considered common knowledge. If you have a question on wither your character can have the knowledge presented here In Character, please contact the staff first to get confirmation you are allowed to take such knowledge in character first before doing so.

The Black Hand

The Black Hand of New York City is known to operate a base of operation on Governor's Island. The territory is there's and those not of the Chosen are not welcome to visit. Rumors abound about this facility housing over a hundred members of the Black Hand. Though this is unlikely given the need for blood. Some suggest this is a major staging area for the Black Hand or some sort of Training facility. The information below is what is publicly known among the Sabbat about the members of the Black Hand that call New York City home. Anything labeled "Black Hand Information" is only knowable by Black Hand Characters.

Henri Lavenant

• Clan: Lasombra
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)

• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Laocoun
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Dominion
• Black Hand Information: Role: Watch Commander

Henri Lavenant keeps his mortal background a great mystery . He sometimes elludes to being Embraced in what is now Monte Carlo, but it's unclear whether that's where he was born. Cardinal Polonia has been heard to speculate that given the man's abominable manners, he must have been of low birth indeed . Then again, Polonia has been heard to say any number of uncomplimentary things about Lavenant . The two have been figuratively and literally at each other's throats ever since they first met in old New York . Lavenant came to New York in the Gilded Age and quickly made a name for himself. Unlike many Sabbat, he wasn't ashamed to use mortals to get what he wanted, and he was equally willing to pose as a bruiser of the slums or a wealthy parvenu in order to cultivate his contacts . He solicited stock tips from Cornelius Vanderbilt, contributed generously to Plymouth Church, nursed a nascent Irish street gang into prominence and even bought art he couldn't stand just to keep his fingers in the city's various pies . None of this was done out of any great sense of humanity, of course . He used the higher classes of mortal society to help finance his enterprises and the lower classes to keep an eye on his fellow Sabbat without really seeming to do so . The Hand could not fail to notice or admire the fact that a substantial number of Lavenant's enemies seemed to meet Final Death somehow or other, but that in itself certainly wasn't enough to recommend him for membership . Then a dominion visiting the city had the misfortune to end up without a decent place to stay a scant couple of hours before dawn, and Lavenant offered him hospitality . The two stayed up a little past dawn, and in the course of their long conversation, the dominion learned something very interesting about Lavenant. Despite (or perhaps because of) all his mercenary activities, here was a creature desperately in search of something to believe in . Perhaps also feeling a little indebted to him, the dominion agreed to put Lavenant in touch with one of the local Hand watch . Lavenant could take it from there, if he liked . Indeed, Lavenant took it from there . He succeeded in proving himself to the Hand, serving it as shakar for a while, then going on to become a dominion . When Polonia made his first exploratory forays into the region of the United States that he would one night oversee as cardinal, he made several trips to New York. He and Lavenant tried each other's nerves from the outset . There doesn't seem to be any particular incident behind this distaste, though . Both of them swear it was simply a case of oil and water not mixing . (Other older Sabbat smirk that this must simply mean that Polonia is far more like Lavenant than the Spanish noble would like to admit. Nevertheless, it's true that the two Cainites couldn't be more opposite in their behavior : Polonia upright, calm and soldierly ; Lavenant sprawling and crude .) Much to Lavenant's dismay, Polonia did succeed in gaining the cardinal's seat over the "Eastern Territories," and Lavenant was unable to keep the older Lasombra from interfering in New York any longer, though he certainly continued to try . Rumors circulate that his mortal network brought him advance notice of the planned Camarilla assault on New York and he tried to warn Polonia, but his advice was ignored in this matter as it was in every other . Other darker rumors suggest that perhaps Lavenant wanted to see Polonia lose the city, even at the cost of losing it himself . They claim that he either withheld part of what he knew or else deliberately made himself obnoxious in delivering his warning so as to elicit the worst possible response from the cardinal . Lavenant distances himself from such talk now. People will believe what they want to believe according to their own biases. In exile further down the coast, he continues to serve as dominion and shakar . Although his effectiveness has been damaged by the loss of his mortal contacts who were his single greatest asset, he is still a Cainite of considerable cunning and power, and he may yet rise again . . . regardless of what happens to the embattled Polonia

Miguel Angel Ramos

• Clan: Country Gangrel
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Rock
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Dominion
• Black Hand Information: Role: Remover

Miguel was born in rural Mexico, where he grew up as a hunter and tracker, skills that would serve him well after his Embrace into the Gangrel clan. His life changed when he was ambushed by a Sabbat pack while tracking a particularly elusive quarry. Instead of killing him, they saw potential in his skills and brought him into the fold. Embraced during a violent siege, Miguel quickly adapted to his new existence, thriving in the chaos and freedom offered by the Sabbat.

His prowess in combat and his ability to survive in harsh conditions did not go unnoticed. He was recruited into the Black Hand, the Sabbat's elite paramilitary force, where he further honed his abilities. Over the decades, he rose through the ranks, earning a reputation as a fierce warrior and a cunning strategist. Now, as a Dominion of the Black Hand, Miguel oversees the training of Black Hand agents in New York City, ensuring they are prepared for the Sabbat's ongoing war against the Camarilla and other enemies.

The Colonel

• Clan: Malkavian Antitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Boss Man
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Watch Commander

Little is known about The Colonel's life before his Embrace. Rumors suggest he was a high-ranking military officer involved in covert operations, known for his strategic brilliance and ruthlessness. His descent into madness came with his Embrace into the Malkavian clan, a process that fractured his mind but also unlocked a terrifyingly insightful and unpredictable intelligence.

Embraced into the Sabbat, The Colonel found a new purpose in the chaos and brutality of the sect. His military expertise quickly brought him to the attention of the Black Hand, and his unique blend of madness and genius made him an invaluable asset. Over the decades, he rose through the ranks, earning the position of Watch Commander in New York City, where he oversees Black Hand missions with a mix of military precision and Malkavian madness.

Black Horse Tanner

• Clan: Ventrue Antitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Wendigo
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Dominion Second

Tanner's mortal life was one of privilege and power. Born into a wealthy family with deep ties to the military and politics, he was groomed for leadership and command from an early age. His natural aptitude for strategy and combat led him to a successful career in the military, where he quickly rose through the ranks. However, his ambition and ruthless nature eventually drew the attention of a Ventrue Antitribu, who saw in him the perfect candidate for the Sabbat.

Embraced and inducted into the Sabbat, Tanner's transition was seamless. His new unlife amplified his skills and ambition, and he rapidly ascended through the ranks. His loyalty, efficiency, and tactical brilliance earned him a place in the Black Hand, where he soon became second-in-command to Miguel Angel Ramos. As Ramos's right hand, Tanner acts as both bodyguard and assassin, executing high-risk missions and ensuring the safety of his superior.

Ermenegildo

• Clan: Lasombra
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Fixer
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Dominion Second

Ermenegildo's mortal life was one of privilege and influence. Born into a noble family in Italy, he was educated in the finest schools and groomed for a life of power and politics. His natural charisma and cunning intellect made him a master manipulator, traits that caught the eye of a Lasombra elder. Embraced into the clan, Ermenegildo adapted quickly to his new existence, leveraging his skills to rise through the ranks of the Sabbat.

His strategic mind and talent for resolving complex issues made him an ideal candidate for the Black Hand. Over the decades, he proved himself invaluable, handling delicate negotiations, eliminating threats, and ensuring the smooth operation of Black Hand activities. As a Dominion and second to Henri Lavenant, Ermenegildo serves as a fixer and problem solver, addressing challenges with a combination of diplomacy and ruthless efficiency.

Dr. Morrow

• Clan: Tzimisce
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Skin Doctor
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Magi

Dr. Morrow's mortal life was steeped in academia and scientific inquiry. Born in Eastern Europe to a family of scholars, he pursued a career in medicine, specializing in hematology and experimental surgery. His obsession with the secrets of the human body and blood led him to conduct controversial and often unethical experiments, which eventually attracted the attention of a Tzimisce elder. Embraced into the clan, Morrow's insatiable thirst for knowledge found new, darker avenues of exploration.

In his unlife, Dr. Morrow quickly rose through the ranks of the Sabbat, his expertise in blood magic making him an invaluable asset. His cold, analytical mind and ruthless pursuit of knowledge earned him a place within the Black Hand, where he specializes in Thaumaturgy and Koldunic Sorcery, applying his skills to further the Sabbat's goals and eliminate its enemies.

Kestrelle Hayes

• Clan: Ventrue Amtitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Virgo
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Chaplin

Kestrelle's mortal life was one marked by ambition and a thirst for power. Born into a wealthy and influential family, she was groomed from a young age to assume leadership roles within the business and political spheres. However, Kestrelle's aspirations extended beyond mortal limitations, and her insatiable desire for control eventually drew the attention of the Sabbat. Embraced into the Ventrue Antitribu, she found purpose and fulfillment in the sect's mission to overthrow the oppressive regime of the Camarilla.

Rising through the ranks of the Sabbat, Kestrelle distinguished herself as a devout and charismatic leader. Her eloquence and persuasive skills earned her the title of Sabbat priest, tasked with guiding and inspiring her fellow Cainites in their eternal struggle against the tyranny of the Masquerade. Recognizing her unwavering dedication and fierce resolve, Kestrelle was initiated into the ranks of the Black Hand, where she serves as a priest, offering spiritual guidance and support to her brethren.

Gabriel de Cambrai

• Clan: Toreador Amtitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Death Scythe
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Remover

Gabriel de Cambrai was once a celebrated artist in the mortal world, his talent for capturing beauty and emotion in his paintings earning him fame and adoration. However, his artistic pursuits were mere preludes to the darker passions that lay beneath the surface. Embraced into the Toreador Antitribu, Gabriel found his true calling in the Sabbat, where his creativity and skill with a brush were matched only by his ruthlessness and cunning.

Gabriel de Cambrai's role within the Black Hand is that of a remover—a specialist tasked with eliminating threats to the Sabbat's interests. He operates with discretion and precision, conducting covert missions to neutralize Camarilla spies, anarch agitators, and other enemies of the sect. Gabriel's ability to blend seamlessly into high society allows him to infiltrate enemy strongholds and gather intelligence, ensuring the success of his operations.

Gatjil Munyarryun

• Clan: Brujah Amtitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Witch Doctor
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Shakar

Gatjil Munyarryun was born into a world of struggle and resistance, the descendant of indigenous warriors who fought against the forces of colonization and oppression. Raised in the traditions of his people, Gatjil learned the ways of combat and survival from a young age, honing his skills in the harsh wilderness of his homeland. Embraced into the Brujah Antitribu, Gatjil found a new battlefield in the eternal conflict between the Sabbat and the forces of the Camarilla.

As a member of the Black Hand, Gatjil specializes in the art of assassination, using his skills as a Shakar warrior to eliminate threats to the Sabbat's interests. Operating in the shadows of New York City, he strikes swiftly and decisively against the enemies of the sect, leaving no trace of his presence behind.

Lubomira Hradok

• Clan: Nosferatu Amtitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Cancer
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Census Taker

Lubomira Hradok was once a scholar and librarian in the mortal world, her insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge leading her to delve into the darkest depths of human history. Embraced into the Nosferatu Antitribu, Lubomira found her true calling in the shadows of the Sabbat, where her talents for research and espionage could be put to use in service of the sect.

As a member of the Black Hand, Lubomira specializes in gathering intelligence and maintaining the sect's census of Cainites within New York City. Her extensive network of informants and spies allows her to uncover secrets and manipulate events from the shadows, ensuring the success of the Sabbat's operations.

Hagar Stone

• Clan: Malkavian Amtitribu
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)
• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Taurus
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Agent
• Black Hand Information: Role: Emissary

Hagar Stone's mortal life was marked by a fascination with the mysteries of the mind and the nature of reality. As a psychologist and scholar, he delved into the depths of human consciousness, seeking to unravel the secrets that lay hidden within. Embraced into the Malkavian Antitribu, Hagar found his intellectual pursuits elevated to new heights within the Sabbat, where his insights into the human psyche proved invaluable to the sect's cause.

As a member of the Black Hand, Hagar specializes in diplomacy and negotiation, using his keen intellect and intuitive understanding of human nature to navigate the complex web of alliances and rivalries that define Cainite society. Operating in the heart of New York City, he serves as an emissary and diplomat for the Sabbat, forging alliances and brokering deals on behalf of the sect.

Antonio Domingo Vega Devareaux

• Clan: Lasombra
• Status: 5 (Positional), 5 (Reputational)

• Black Hand Information: Code Name: Noctis
• Black Hand Information: Rank: Dominion
• Black Hand Information: Role: Watch Commander

Antonio maintains close ties to a number of particularly powerful Cainites and leads a relatively mysterious unlife. He is a practitioner of Santeria and has been known to favor the Serpents of the Light, seeming to honestly enjoy their company. He has a heavily decorated career within the Sabbat including multiple sieges and even defended Cardinal Polonia from assassins in New York with the aid of his Templars and Logan Steele. He rose all the way to the position of Archbishop of Boston through these exploits and a bit of politics. However one night he vanished after a conflict with a group of Giovanni elders after besting them. A month later he entered the gathering and told everyone he was leaving for a while. Soon afterward, whispers abound that Antonio had spent the month trapped in a hell from which the Kuei-Jin come. Nearly a year later he returned as a member of the Black Hand. Since that time, Antonio calls New York his home, but is rarely found there. His missions for the Black Hand often taking him to the seas and forgotten places in the world.

Independent Vampires

New York City isn't home just Sabbat Vampires. While they are the controlling majority in the city; vampires of the independent clans also call the city home. The Giovanni in particular have an agreement with Cardinal Polonia to operate in the city itself and even control certain portions of it. In exchange, the Sabbat gains information from the Giovanni that they collect in their territory. In particular it is known the Giovanni have large sway and control over JFK Airport. In addition to this, the Giovanni are limited to no more then five members of the clan in the city in any given time. The Followers of Set in the city though have no such agreement. The Setites do often keep a low profile in the city; they are known to sell and trade with members of the Sabbat for rare blood and weapons on occasion. Lastly, there is also a delegation of Bahari that call New York City home. These vampires mostly keep to themselves and are currently petitioning the Sabbat as a whole for membership. These Bahari are quick to offer aid and support to any Sabbat member who asks.

Donatello Giovanni

• Clan: Giovanni

Donatello was born into the original family branch in Italy and soon spoiled with wealth. He studied medicine, and after he was Embraced ventured to New York to make profits from the bitter conflicts between the Camarilla and the Sabbat. Establishing himself as a patron over Little Italy, he ensured that his domain was respected by both Sects. He was also responsible for the negotiations that ensured the successful alliance with the New York Sabbat. Today, he ensures that the Giovanni profit from the ongoing conflict, and nearly every gang has a share for him reserved.

Bez Dunsirn

• Clan: Giovanni

Bez was a delinquent at a young age who was frequently imprisoned. His sire had needed him for physical support over an affair with a Lasombra ; it wasn't planned for Bez to survive. Eventually Bez killed the Lasombra and his sire, returned to the Durnsirns' home in Aberdeen , and reported; his message was well received. Since then, Bez has continued to get assignments, but he has a tendency to overshoot the mark, so Virginia ended up sending him to New York , where he's sure to be of use in the fight against the Sabbath .

In New York, Bez reported to Donatello Giovanni , but understood that his unlife was not valued and that he was being used as “cannon fodder”. He therefore attaches great importance to carrying out orders correctly and not allowing himself to make any mistakes.

Talmadge Milliner

• Clan: Giovanni

Born into the prestigious Milliner family, Talmadge was groomed from an early age to serve as an enforcer for the Giovanni clan. Trained in the arts of combat and intimidation, he quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the family's most trusted operatives. Operating within the shadows of New York City, Talmadge serves as a loyal enforcer and protector of the family's interests.

As an enforcer for the Milliner family, Talmadge's primary role is to ensure the security and prosperity of his clan's business ventures within the city. He operates with ruthless efficiency, using his skills as a combatant and his intimate knowledge of the criminal underworld to eliminate threats and maintain order within the family's territories.

In addition to his duties as an enforcer, Talmadge serves as a trusted advisor and confidant to the leaders of the Milliner family, offering insights and expertise on matters of strategy and diplomacy. His loyalty to his clan is unwavering, and he will stop at nothing to protect its interests and preserve its legacy.

Bartolomeo Giovanni

• Clan: Giovanni

Bartolomeo Giovanni was born into the illustrious Giovanni family, known for their mastery of finance, commerce, and clandestine operations. From a young age, Bartolomeo was groomed to become a key player in the family's illicit enterprises. As he matured, he found his niche in the underworld of drug trafficking, utilizing his family's resources and connections to establish a lucrative network within New York City.

Bartolomeo's primary goal is to expand his family's influence and wealth through his drug trafficking operations. He is motivated by a desire for power and prestige, as well as a sense of duty to his family and its traditions. Bartolomeo sees himself as a rising star within the Giovanni clan, and he is determined to carve out a legacy that will ensure his place in the annals of Kindred history.

Sun Yang

• Clan: Assamite

Born on the borders of territory to the Kuei-jin, Sun Yang, also named Wise Frog, was embraced in Sinkiang to act as an assassin for the Assamites, who occasionally clashed with their Cathayan counterparts. He soon advanced into a cunning diplomat and was able to cool the conflict between the warring supernatural factions a little bit. When the tense climate of the conflict became too much for him to bear, he asked his masters in Alamut to be removed and they reluctantly agreed, enabling to flee the communist occupation of Sinkiang in 1949. After a brief relocation to Turkey, Sun Yang was deployed into New York, to act as an observator of the Camarilla/Sabbat conflict there. Watching the Sabbat tearing itself apart in the Third Sabbat Civil War, he reported back to his elders, focusing on the actions of the wayward antitribu foremost.

When Ur-Shulgi arose and purged Alamut, Sun Yang felt uncompelled to serve an ancient war master of Haqim, preferring peace and stability to a rampant crusade against the kafir. Instead, he assisted the Assamite schismatics that had come to New York in order to join the Camarilla. Although he himself preferred to stay outside of sect allegiance, he feels that the time draws near when he has to make a choice and to declare his course.

Steven Clarke

• Clan: Followers of Set

Clarke belonged to one of the various Setite coteries in Sabbat-controlled New York. One of his clients was a powerful kamut of the Black Hand, who competed with them for territory. Only through a deal with Italian crime lords could Clarke maintain his dominance within his domain.

This event earned him the criticism of one of his clanmates, who persisted that this was a Kindred affair and mortal intervention would only do harm. After a heated argument, he received a poisoned dagger into his back and was left to die. He survived, however, and began to work against the temple within New York, knowing that it would be headed by his rival.

Artakama Shiri

• Clan: Assamite

Legend says in her mortal life Artakama was the forced bride of one of Alexander the Greats Generals. In the records of Alamut the make no mention of this vampire of their blood. Either she is unknown among them or is such a mistake to them she was erased from history. Regardless of the truth, Artakama clearly hails from Persia and is a very old vampire. It is only among the Cults of Lilith is her name truly known.

Among the Bahari is known as the Bride of Lilith. They pass stories of her past as a daughter to Persian noble given to Alexander’s generals as a prize when he conquered Babylon. They say that Artakama suffered greatly at the hands of her would be husband. They claim that as a mortal she was the one to poison Hephaestion; to inflict the pain upon Alexander that she had inflicted upon her. After the deed was done she sought to end her own life but was taken in the night by an ancient vampire. A woman, and some claim to have been Lilith herself. She was born again in the night of a full moon as a vampire. Since the moment of her rebirth she has dedicated her life and soul to Lilith.

Artakama is one of the oldest and most powerful active members of the Bahari. She has wandered the world planting seeds of her faith to watch them blossom. Some say it was she who first infiltrated the young Sabbat and spread the knowledge of Lilith to them. If this is true, it explains why she has been hunted by the Sabbat Inquisition for centuries. She rarely stays in any one place for long and prefers to wander. It is said her cults dedicated to Lilith span the world.

She is a cruel and bitter vampire that seeks to spread the teachings of Lilith as far and wide as she can. Once more, and more freighting, she is a true believer. Artakama personally believes she is blessed by Lilith and her Prophet on earth. She forces those she comes across to give into the true light of Lilith; even if they have no desire to do so. Only once she has broken someone will their eyes truly open to the grace of Lilith.

Tonight she finds herself in the city of New York. Rumors have spread like wild fire that the Dark Mother has returned here. As more and more Bahari flood the city seeking their Dark Mother; Artakama cannot help but be intrigued to follow. She has turn the spot of the Revelation in the city into a holy site for the Bahari. Here members of the cult seek to be touched by the Dark Mother. For Artakama she is both Lilith’s Prophet and a mother. She seeks to protect them all from the horde of Sabbat from the city and maintain the newly holy site. She herself is not sure if Lilith did return here, but something ancient and powerful indeed seems to haunt this spot. Something longing to cross over but unable to do so yet. Now she seeks to gather the Bahari both to protect the site and find out the truth of Lilith in New York City.

Gadreel

• Clan: Toreador
• Position: Inconnu Monitor

Reborn into darkness under the dome of Hagia Sophia, the Cainite who would become Gadreel and the avatar of the dream came from far more humble origins. Though her real name is lost to time, Gadreel was a simple young girl born in the streets of Constantinople in the ninth century. Like many young girls born to poverty, Gadreel was given to the church to be raised when her parents could not afford the burden her birth brought them. Destined to live the life of a sister to god, the ancient Toreador Michael had other plans.

Unknown to her, Gadreel was part of the cult serving the ancient Toreador. Micheal, who presented himself as the Archangel had amassed a following in a city unlike any before him. Just after the Fifth Council, Michael began to feel the wait of ages and slumber calling him. I devout man of God, Michael had one last vision before he rested. That of a simple woman of faith among his own herd. What god showed him that night, even Gadreel does not know. The result of which was her embrace into the damned.

As a last act before his slumber, Michael turned Gadreel and only gave her one command. To watch. Knowing nothing of her new existence or what truly had become of her; she obeyed. To Gadreel the Archangel Michael himself had come to her, to bring her forth into Damnation. Still, the wait of his words carried to her, and all she could do was hide in the shadows and watch. Never really leaving Hagia Sophia, the young Cainite instead stayed and prayed by the tomb of the archangel. Quickly did she learn how god had cursed her.

For years Gadreel prayed and watched. She saw others like herself come and go from the sacred place; often to give prayers like herself. In this time she learned to manage her curse, feeding only from the few rats she could find. Though her blood was far more potent then she yet understood; it was always in the shadow of the tomb of Michael she stayed. Slowly she began to see the truth. Many of these creatures like her would come and pray for guidance. But so few had any real faith or empathy in their voice. Instead they were doing so only for political reasons. Perhaps god had damned her to test humanity once again. She would watch the horrors of the world and be subjected to them to test her faith. In this, she saw the work of god. But even as a woman of faith, she still carried about human instincts and emotions. Ones that she would let get the better of her.

For centuries she watched until she could no longer obey her simple sires command. Gadreel had to see the outside world for what it is. For if these legions of damned would visit the tomb of Michael, how many were in the city itself. From time to time Gadreel would journey to the outside of Hagia Sophia. Always careful to make sure she was not followed back to the tomb of Michael it was one fatal night that changed it all. Perhaps it was just chance, but the night of the death of Michael, Gadreel had traveled out into the city to see that the chaos was she had heard. As the Fourth Crusade burned through the city of Constantinople, Gadreel could not help but go watch. When she returned she lurked in the shadows once more. It was shortly after a woman came to the tomb of Michael. She bore witness to his diablerie at the hands of Mary the Black. Though her soul cried out to stop what she was watching, she somehow felt the weight of Michael upon her once again, and all she could do was watch. It was that very night Gadreel was born.

Taking the name of the Angel who let the Snake into the Garden of Eden, Gadreel fled the only home she ever know into the vast unknown of the world. For a time she wandered, ever watching. The memories of Michael and the Golden City beginning to fade; she began to believe her task for god was over. As she wandered into a forest one night to meet the morning sun and ask god herself why she had been damned; it was another of their kind who greeted her. His name Gadreel has never spoken of, but what I known is the Cainite and her debating for many nights the meaning of gold, redemption, the nature of the damned, and her place in it all. Intrigued by the words of this Cainite, Gadreel desired to learn more. In that moment, she had become part of the mysterious Inconnu.

Traveling from place to place, Gadreel sought to study under the various members of the Inconnu. They spoke of Golconda and every Cainite having a place in the world. Their words resonated heavily with her. Though she believed herself truly damned in god’s eyes and far from his grace, the words of ever sire Michael always stayed with her. Centuries more passed and the world moved on as Gadreel studied at the feet of the masters of the Inconnu. It was not until the ninetieth century did she receive the guidance she was looking for.

Her sire, Michael, visited her one last time in a dream. He spoke of his Dream, of the Golden city, and how there were those who sought to restore. He told her that in the new world lied a great child of city that may yet birth the dream again. It was this dream that caused Gadreel to claim the position of Monitor of New York City at one of the council meetings of the Inconnu. Ever since then, Gadreel has served to watch over New York. Always recording it’s history and remaining in the shadows. Though even still to this night she finds herself getting involved as she did in Constantinople. She will reach out to a Cainite here or there she finds interesting as the Angel that she is. She watches as the Jyhad is played among some the most ancient vampires in the world in her city. She even finds Cainites she recognizes from Constantinople coming to her city from time to time. Gadreel knows that one day she may have to stop watching and finally act if she wishes to see the rebirth of her Sire’s dream.

Hyperion, the Guardian of Time

• Clan: True Brujah

Deep in the halls of Columbia University an ancient being has carved out his own place to be alone and study. To this very night, he known to almost no one in the city, but his eyes fixed on this point in time. This ancient being is the vampire Methuselah known only as Hyperion to his follow True Brujah. A member of the Guardian Faction of the True Brujah, Hyperion has come to study and find a way to avert the end of the world. Hyperion has seen into the future and knows that New York City is the center point and start of Gehenna itself. Since learning about this he has come to the city to try to find a way to avert fate. So, Hyperion sits in his own pocket of time as he continuously explores ways to avert the coming apocalypse. So far, he has not succeeded. However, Hyperion did not start as the self-appointed guardian of time, but only a few well-kept manuscripts speak of the legends of his past.

What few stories remain claim that when Hyperion was a mortal he was taken at a young age from his home in North Africa. Raised as a servant to Greeks in Athens, he always had a curious desire to learn as much of history as he could. The tales of the gods and empires from ages long past fascinated. What the young Hyperion did not know was his future Sire has been watching and grooming him since childhood. When Persia attacked Athens, the truly ancient Anis swooped in to give the now grown man the embrace. Since those early nights, Hyperion has been a scholar first and a vampire second. With the potent power in his blood he was able to not just be regulated to reading history, but experiencing it. When he meet others of his blood, he cared little for their desired petty revenge against the Brujah. Hyperion always found the story of the fall of Illyes and the rise of Troile as suspect. If he had such mastery of time, how could his grandsire not have foreseen it as well. He suspected that the rise of the Troile Brujah was in fact his plan all along, and thus saw no reason to seek revenge.

Instead, Hyperion traveled the world in shadows. He sought out the great libraries and ruins of the earth to learn of the past, present, and future. He always kept to himself and focused on exploring time as he saw fit. When Hyperion learned of Noddist Prophecy he became even more intrigued. Is the world destined to die in an apocalypse or can it be saved. Spending centuries pondering this question in and out of time, Hyperion knew one thing. The Apocalypse starts in New York City with the rise of the Tzimisce Antediluvian. Seeking any hope to avert this future he traveled for the first time to the new world. Since the 19th century, Hyperion has called New York City his home. He supported its growing academic institutions and in particular Columbia University. It is here he has made his haven. Beneath is vaulted halls, he sits in a self created pocket of time playing out the scenario of Gehenna over and over again. Trying to find the one way it can be averted. Driven to near madness Hyperion remains to this very night. However, the time of Gehenna is drawing ever closer, and eventually he will have to speak with others of his kind. In truth, Hyperion can not discover the answer to Gehenna alone, he will need others to help him see past his obsession. Either way, the fateful moment is coming closer with ever passing on the hands of he clock.

Camarilla Vampires

The Camarilla Vampires of New York once dominated and controlled Manhattan. In the 1990s Then, Archbishop Polonia led a crusade into Manhattan to claim the borough for the Sabbat. With the slaying of Prince Micheala the Camarilla of New York crumbled. Though some remnants yet remain. The Tremere of the city are known to have a large network of chantries. Despite the Sabbat's best efforts they have never been able to locate them to lay waste to them within the city. The Camarilla that remains in New York City keep a very low profile and remain hidden to the majority of the cities vampires.

Calebros

• Clan: Nosferatu
• Position: Nominally Prince

Calebros has been the most powerful Nosferatu in New York City. He is a reclusive vampire, typical of his clan, and remained somewhat aloof from the Kindred society of New York even while he served as Prince pro tempore of the city. Soon after taking on the office during the Battle of New York, he abdicated it to the immediate interest of all of New York's powerful vampires.

Despite being the most influential Nosferatu in New York for the past 50 years since his sire disappeared, Calebros is remarkably anonymous beyond his clan, and that is the way he prefers it. He maintains order in his warren beneath Manhattan while also coordinating plans and information for his brethren across the Americas and parts of Europe. As the reluctant, temporary, and now former Prince of New York, Calebros has not slept well since putting those duties behind him.

Calebros remembers little of his mortal life. As a child, he was snatched away by the Nosferatu and held in prolonged captivity before his Embrace. To his thinking, he has always been Nosferatu, and the indistinct nature of his days as kine precludes notions of existential angst. He exists as the quintessential Kindred, and his efforts have been rewarded by his steadily increasing status among his clanmates and Damned peers.

Aisling Sturbridge

• Clan: Tremere
• Position: High Regent

Aisling was born in 1890 in upstate New York to a banker and his wife. Her mother died when Aisling was two, and her father chose to let his daughter run wild like a hoyden with her brothers rather than endure his wife's meddling relations' attempts to raise her. During this long period of freedom, Aisling gravitated toward mysticism through her Catholic upbringing and studied whatever she believed would be necessary to learn more. She taught herself Latin and Greek to read occult texts from the church library (she persuaded her elder brother to borrow books for her). Aside from reading, she attended seances and corresponded with a number of occultists, many of whom had little idea that they were communicating with a teenage girl.

When her mother's family finally got wind that Aisling was accepting an invitation into an "Enlightened Society" or some such, they put their collective foot down and ordered her to finish school. Aisling instead took her trust fund and abandoned Victorian America for the decadence of London. In turn-of-the-century London, Aisling inserted herself into the occult scene, and her remarkable scholarship drew many eyes, including those of Aleister Crowley. Her brilliance did not go unnoticed by others; her sire-to-be, Lucien de Maupassant, met her during a séance salon, and the two became close confidants.

In 1910, Crowley, apparently embittered that a girl so many years his junior was outstripping him in the hermetic mysteries, requested that Aisling become his next Scarlet Woman. In essence, it was a demand that she submit to rape. Lucien, already considering Aisling as a potential progeny, took her away from London and Crowley's grasp, and on an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East to secretly test her fitness as a Tremere. When he was satisfied he brought her to Vienna for the Embrace and to meet the rest of the Clan.

For the next 30 years or so the pair served as free agents, delivering messages between chantries, building chantry libraries and investigating on Inner Council orders. World War II separated them for long periods as Aisling tended the chantries in Nuremberg, Warsaw, Kraków, and Dresden. Her friends in high places often could not decide what to do with her; on one hand, her questioning of the Tremere's role with the Nazi regime was intolerable to her superiors, but on the other, her work during air raids to preserve the treasures of embattled chantries was faultless. In 1948 her sire and longtime companion abruptly went missing during an assignment, supposedly given to him by the Inner Council. According to upper-level gossips, it was Meerlinda who turned the young woman's talents to America, with hopes that it might distract her. Certain that she would have felt or heard of Lucien's destruction, she continues to search for word of him even now.

During the Firedance, her superior was caught by the Sabbat and destroyed so she rose as the prime Regent. Soon after, she was summoned by the Camarilla to Baltimore to discuss the Sabbat's offensive.

Recently, some of the higher ranks have begun to watch her with growing concern. She is one of the most dynamic and popular regents, and she has a number of high-placed friends in and out of the clan. She has shown no qualms about making deals with other Kindred for assistance, eschewing much of the traditional Tremere insularity. Reviewing all of this success in a darker cast, however, are several of the powers that be among the higher ranks of the Tremere. In the opinions of several of the old guard, Aisling is a loose cannon, as evidenced by her own desires not to be Prince. One thing is certain in the nights to come: Aisling's loyalty will indeed be tested. Whether from within the Chantry of the Five Boroughs or as a result of an outsider's influence, the Tremere may well have to make an example of one who insists upon going her own way

Adelaide Davis

• Clan: Malkavian
• Position: Primogen

When two boys turned up at the bottom of Snug Harbor in 1841, their pupils blown and rocks in their pockets, the quiet sailor’s community knew it had a problem. Things seemed tense for the fall, and then, in the winter, the Blakely boys disappeared. Everyone assumed that the Blakely boys had killed the original two and their consciences had finally gotten the better of them, urging them to leave. When both of the Blakelys were discovered the following spring in the same part of Snug Harbor, with the same head injuries and the same types of stones weighing them down, the residents were once again up in arms. It would seem they had a child-killer on their hands.

As summer came around and school let out, it was not without some sense of trepidation that parents let their children play outside. As if to confirm their fears, Tom Hawkins was found at the foot of a tree, his head viciously bludgeoned with a rock. Tom was older than the other boys, however, and it seemed he had been too heavy for his attacker to drag to the creek. Rushed to the hospital, Tom was given around-the-clock care in hopes of nursing him back to health — and to identify his attacker.

When Tom came to, he named Adelaide Davis, the daughter of a widowed sailor. At age 12, she “had had a lot of boyfriends,” most of whom ended up dead. After a much publicized (and not wholly fair, even if Adelaide did confess) trial, Adelaide was remanded to the custody of the state. Sent to the Blackwell’s Island lunatic asylum, she spent 10 years in a hopeless dementia. A Malkavian “nurse,” traveling from asylum to asylum, had read about Adelaide’s story and arranged paperwork for her to be freed from the asylum. With her father dead and a dubiously clean bill of mental health, Adelaide was released. She returned with her patron to Snug Harbor, Staten Island, staying in Adelaide’s father’s house, which had been abandoned. Within a few years, their relationship had blossomed, and Adelaide was Embraced.

Adelaide kept a low profile after her sire ran afoul of the local Sabbat. She fed mostly from sailors, making a few contacts among the Cainites of the city, but she kept largely to herself. When pressed, she made nominal statements of allegiance to the Sabbat but never paid them much attention. So it went for almost a century, with Adelaide hiding from the sect that held the city,every now and then indulging her jealousy of “other” children — but these times she was careful enough to do it away from her home.

Gerard Rafin

• Clan: Nosferatu
• Position: Primogen

Ellis Island was the gateway to the Americas — between 1892 and 1924, 71 percent of all immigrants to the United States were processed there. Among them was a French tinker named Gerard Rafin, a moderately skilled laborer who took up residence on the Lower East Side. His skill with crafts and devices brought him to the attention of the Nosferatu, and before long he had been “recruited” into the leagues of the Sewer Rats. The Sabbat was still the prominent sect in the city, and Rafin made no few contacts among that group as well. The Nosferatu have long been on at least civil terms with their antitribu, and Rafin felt no real sectarian struggle demanding his loyalties.

As time moved forward, so did technology, and Rafin became fascinated by it. His warren was always littered with copies of Popular Science, the Physical Review and other technology periodicals. While the Sabbat ranted and raged above ground, Rafin slowly brought, in his words, “technological stuff” to various Nosferatu dens — adding safeguards, communication networks and electricity. As his Americanization in the company of the New York Nosferatu and antitribu continued, Rafin heard tales of the Nictuku and other apocryphal horrors. These occupied his curiosity as much as technology did, and he became a sort of de facto expert on the subject. After a while, the two interests blended, with Rafin developing security devices to protect the Nosferatu Kingdom from horrors below as well as above, and various traps designed for the purpose of trapping the Nosferatu’s ancient predator.

By the 1970s, Rafin had created a computer network that “sat atop” the military’s ArpaNet, through which local Nosferatu could communicate more securely than by telephone. With comrades and progeny, Rafin traveled the country, establishing other nodes for this “SchreckNET”. With a backpack full of breadboards, jumper switches and copper wire, Rafin and his crew expanded the Nosferatu’s information network nationwide. Tonight it exists as a subnet of the Internet, and as such covers conceivably the whole world.

During his travels, Rafin concocted a “stage personality” that could precede him. Sure, Rafin was known for his technical prowess, but the larger-than-unlife character of Uncle Smelly embodied everything the Nosferatu were reputed for. In this guise, Rafin could travel with wide berth, other Kindred forgiving him for his Nosferatu proclivities and the Sewer Rats themselves welcoming him for his tales and technology. The fact that those who got in his way were often whipped within an inch of their unlives (including a few sheriffs) gave Uncle Smelly even more room to do his work.

Yvette

• Clan: Toreador
• Position: Primogen

When the semi famous Toreador violinist Tamoszius first came to the New World, he stopped briefly in New York. Before following many of his fellow Lithuanians to Chicago (and fleeing the horrid presence of the Sabbat), Tamoszius briefly entertained the idea of staying in New York. Only a year after arriving, he Embraced Yvette, a fellow violinist to whom he had been listening through the windows of her family's Brooklyn brownstone since entering the city. New York proved not to be to Tamoszius' liking, however, and he fled the city, leaving his bewildered progeny behind. Aggrieved at what she had become, Yvette vanished as well, leaving herdistraught family thinking that she had been murdered or kidnapped or had otherwise the victim of foul play. In truth, Yvette fled to Manhattan, where she spent her nights evading Sabbat vampires and practicing her instrument, the only aspect of her mortal life that she'd been able to keep hold of. Being Kindred proved to be too much for Yvette, however, and the toll it placed on her emotionally sent her into frequent torpors, from which she would rise, confused, before wandering the streets and succumbing to the cold sleep again. Kindred have come and gone through Yvette's unlife. She's met a few here and there, and most of them seem to enjoy her playing, but neither they nor their society held much allure for her. She faced every night alone, even when she had taken lovers, and it wouldn't be long before she slipped into torpor Then she saw Leonard. While stalking Grand Central Terminal one night for sustenance, Yvette watched, captivated, as a man left the train that had arrived from some northern location. She immediately fell in love with him; her soul rejoiced that what she had so long been waiting for had finally arrived. With a smile upon her face for the first time in over a century, she ran over to introduce herself, but stopped herself short. This was insane! How could she, a Kindred, just accost some poor man at the train station and profess her love for him? Yvette quickly formulated a plan. Passing the man by, she entered the promenade, where he was sure to pass through. There, she took out her violin and began to play the most passionate concerto that had ever traveled through her bow. When the man heard it, he would be drawn to her, and they could spend their time together in love.

Eugenio Esteves

• Clan: Tremere
• Position: Regent

On his eighth birthday, Eugenio Estevez’s parents gave him to the witch who kept a castle just a few miles from their humble farm in rural Spain. Such was the practice with this old witch — he would take a child from the nearby villages every few years to serve as his housekeeper, and eventually the poor child would never be heard from again. No one wanted to risk the wrath of the witch, however, so they complied with his chilling demands.

In Eugenio, though, the witch had more than he bargained for. Precocious for his age, the boy was always asking questions, learning much about the philosophies of Thaumaturgy while he cleaned up after the witch’s nightly studies. He read books the old Kindred kept on his shelves and studied formulae he found written in the laboratory. As he grew older, he followed the old scholar down the road of the Jewish faith. By the time he was at the age of majority, Eugenio had shaped up to be quite a protégé. Instead of devouring his blood, the old witch kept him on as an apprentice and embraced him.

Eugenio’s rise through the Tremere hierarchy was just as prodigal. At first, he accompanied his sire to convocations at other chantries, where he met other members of the pyramid. Bidding his sire farewell, he traveled to a chantry in Toledo, where he studied the ways of binding spirits (and earned his nickname). His skill with Thaumaturgy earned him quick promotions there. He was soon elevated to the status of regent. His superiors watched his progress, and Eugenio was granted permission to start his own chantry. For a few years, he traveled the world, looking for a place to establish this new occult sanctum, but he never found a place that truly spoke to him. He returned to Spain and rejoined his old chantry, publishing a collection of letters between himself and his sire on the subject of spirit Thaumaturgy.

Eugenio’s interest was piqued with the Camarilla’s plans for New York, however, and he used the opportunity to start his new chantry there. Working with Aisling Sturbridge, Genie developed the concept of satellite chantries that coordinated their efforts with a central one. Bringing this plan to fruition changed his outlook dramatically, and he left his Thaumaturgical studies by the wayside as he dove into the politics of the city in the wake of the Camarilla’s victory. While he once acted as regent for the chantry at the Jewish Museum, he relocated in less than a year to the Maupassant Room, where he could focus on matters of political concern to the Tremere. Even that shortly grew unfulfilling, and he became more enamored of the act of politicking itself and less with the aims of clan Tremere.

In modern nights, Eugenio has made many contacts, but his reputation within his clan slowly degrades. The apprentices and lesser regents at the Jewish Museum have written him off entirely and Regent Wainwright of the Kenilworth chantry has no small degree of enmity for him. Genie has allowed his relationships with other Tremere to atrophy, though he appears outwardly to represent them well, as the insular Tremere still prefer to present a unified front to the other clans. Exactly how long Eugenio can maintain his current situation is unknown, but even High Regent Sturbridge, a staunch ally in the past, has her doubts about him.

Lord Ephraim Wainwright

• Clan: Tremere
• Position: Regent

Without his embrace into clan Tremere, Ephraim Wainwright would have probably suffered the same fate as other dwarfs in Nineteenth century England. He may have ended up either penniless or as part of an itinerant freakshow. A visiting Irish dignitary of the Tremere felt an uncharacteristic compassion for the man, however, and made him his ghoul. The ghouldom grew into a twisted apprenticeship — many of Lyle’s acquaintances mocked his homely “Homunculus” and Ephraim routinely handled unsavory duties at Lyle’s requests.

As a child of hardship, Ephraim realized that the rude training he was receiving was his way to a better life. After demonstrating his mastery of several of Lyle’s pet theories, Ephraim received the embrace. His Thaumaturgical insights proved his salvation, and he found himself elevated from unsightly dogsbody to promising protégé. Before long, Ephraim completed his apprenticeship and returned to England, making his haven in London. There he purchased an estate, where he continued to study and advance his knowledge of blood magic. After a while, his book studies encouraged him to travel abroad. In the modern nights, he’s known as quite a jetsetter, having visited six of the seven continents, with plans to visit that seventh sometime soon.

Ephraim Wainwright is a scholar’s scholar, constantly searching for the next breakthrough or putting some mystic principle to the test. He sees omens and divinations everywhere, which he diligently records in a black journal. His last work, Songs of the Eve of Gehenna, has been decried by both the Camarilla and traditional Tremere elders as inflammatory and apocalyptic. Regardless, his insights into the Hermetic arts are nothing short of phenomenal.

After relocating his chantry to the United States, he was promptly promoted to a higher circle of mystery. Using his new opportunities, he visited the reformed Succubus Club in Atlanta, to compare his eschatological studies with the numerology of the performance of a Daughter of Cacophony. When an invitation came from Vienna for Regent Wainwright to head a new and prestigious chantry in New York City, he accepted.

Since accepting that invitation, Regent Wainwright has been the master of the Kenilworth chantry, the largest of the Tremere houses of study under the Chantry of the Five Boroughs banner. It hasn’t been a smooth transition, however. Political tensions in the city have conspired to place two kindred for whom Wainwright holds little esteem (Sturbridge and Estevez) technically above him. Indeed, Wainwright answers to Sturbridge as she is the high regent of the chantry, and public opinion of the Tremere is guided by the sybarite scoundrel Estevez. Even within his own chantry, sympathies for other Tremere threaten to split the clan’s vaunted unity. Upstarts practice “technomancies” and other bastard sorceries, while even some of the lesser regents and advanced apprentices openly advocate the liberal policies of Estevez and Sturbridge.

To that end, Wainwright has a purpose to which he’s been quietly requested by Vienna. He’s to slowly engineer the fall of Aisling Sturbridge, for which his reward will be the High Regency of the Chantry of the Five Boroughs. Estevez doesn’t fit into Vienna’s concerns, but the way Wainwright sees it, well, if Sturbridge isn’t following the Tremere’s code of ethics, she may have tempted a few others into her scurrilous ways.

Masika St. John

• Clan: Tremere
• Position: Regent

Masika began her unlife as just another of the bitter, disenfranchised apprentices of an elder Tremere who viewed modern technology with suspicion and fear and suppressed it whenever he could. She had a major in computer science and her regent needed her to keep up with the modern world, a fact that he despised and he routinely let her feel his dissatisfaction.

It was during this time that Masika began to exchange ideas with other Tremere neonates over the internet and began to experiment with Thaumaturgy and technology, using her computer as a mental extension of her. The result was the Path of Technomancy. Her Regent was not convinced, but allowed her to present her invention to the pontifices and the Inner Council. To the surprise of Masika's sire, the path was soon adopted into the Fortschritt Chantry and became widely practiced.

Masika received praise from many neonates, but her Regent feared that her reputation would eclipse his own and only advanced her in the Circles of Mysteries, refusing to release her from apprenticeship. He relocated her to New York, into the apprenticeship of Ephraim Wainwright. Masika now seeks to refine her path and strengthen the digital network of the Pyramid.

Valentine

• Clan: Ventrue
• Position: None

An uneasy entente cordiale of French Ventrue and Toreador marked the Embrace of Edouard Clause. With both parties observing a quiet cold war of prominence in late nineteenth-century France , the Kindred of both clans exceeded themselves at times, Embracing childer out of vanity or simply to one-up their rival Damned. Many of these may have made fine candidates for the Embrace at a later point in their lives or with better sponsors hip by their sires, but most were simply left to languish or do as they would, unliving symbols of affluence in the time of the waning grandeur of the Third Republic. Edouard was Embraced from the family of a cabinet member, remarkable for his charms and his skill with the rapier.

The impending World War marked an end to the precarious calm, however, and with millions of their countrymen headed off to war, France found itself with a surplus of undead. Many neonates and even a few ancillae were offered a choice: Flee France or take their chances with the war. With blood a precious resource in times of relative underpopulation, few established Kindred wanted to share vitae with the spoiled fledglings of a bygone era of prosperity.

Of course, more than a few of these fledglings were resentful of their new place in Kindred society. Many went anarch, hoping to redistribute the resources of the few wealthy Kindred more equitably among the undead as a whole. Edouard Clause was among these, murdering his sire in a grand statement of allegiance with the anarch cause and troubling the bloated ticks of the Camarilla whenever the opportunity presented itself.

This minor anarch rebellion was short-lived, however, as the elders saw the need to act decisively. With war looming at the borders, they had little patience with the whims of whelps. Over a two-month period, numerous French elders culled the ranks of the Kindred, sending the wise packing if they could escape before meeting Final Death. Knowing that his sire's murder placed him at the top of many lists of examples to be made, Edouard stole away quietly when word of the elders' ire first hit the streets. Inventing a noble background for himself and taking the rake's name of Valentine, Eduoard fled to the United States. He feared it as a barbaric place, however, and chose to remain in New York, the port of his arrival, so that he wouldn't have to travel the maverick country and meet his end by some ignominious cause. Assuming that the city must be a Camarilla stronghold, he introduced himself to Prince Michaela, citing a false lineage, and she granted him permission to stay in her domain.

Mazz

• Clan: Brujah
• Position: Harpy

Stephen Patrick Maslowe was Embraced over a century ago, and some of the habits of the time have died hard. As an English immigrant to the United States, he fulfilled his own Manifest Destiny and moved West, where he was Embraced after a brief affair with a woman who turned out to be a Kindred. Shortly thereafter, he sank into torpor after a clash with his sire over who would be the sole Kindred in town.

When he rose from his long sleep, Mazz didn't miss a beat. In fact, aside from the obvious technological advances, he doesn't think the world is too much different the police are all mavericks or morons; anyone with enough sense can stay ahead of the law and get rich doing it. The society of Kindred hasn't changed much since then, either. This time, though, he's not going to be the one sent to torpor.

With that frame of mind, Mazz caught a train to New York, where he had heard things weren't too different from the frontier, in terms of Kindred matters. The city was a virgin territory, waiting to be exploited by somebody who knew how to do it. Mazz started small, running a numbers racket in the East Village, but he expanded into minor extortion and protection. He co-opted a gang of Irish toughs, which helped him not only extend his sphere of influence but also bought him into the underworld scene – he wasn’t a cowboy anymore, he was part of organized crime.

Thomas Arturo

• Clan: Toreador
• Position: None

Thomas’s introduction to the world of the Kindred came through his professional life. He was an assistant to the prestigious architecture firm of Richard Meier & Partners in New York City. Arturo had worked on a design for an exceptionally wealthy client. At the project's completion, the client decided that she’d like to preserve the talents of the person creating her haven. Although dubious at first of his client’s bizarre form of payment — he almost greeted the sunrise out of despair during his early unlife — Thomas grew to understand that along with its drawbacks, unlife had many benefits. In fact, he retains a few professional contacts with Meier & Partners to this night, many of whom joke that he hasn’t aged a day since they met him. While a mythical “day job” keeps Arturo from meeting with his associates during the daylight hours, he’s perfectly able to “freelance” for them at night.

Hellene Panhard

• Clan: Ventrue
• Position: Primogen

In life, Hellene was part of a banking family and inherited skill in organizing events. Hellene's Embrace, however, was a hasty affair. Michaela had adopted a Sabbat tactic and often Embraced great numbers of fledglings that were sent as cannon fodder against the enemy. Hellene was one of the few of these Embraces that managed to survive. With her talents, she secured herself a place within the small Camarilla community of New York as a Harpy, orchestrating attacks against Sabbat havens and using intrigue as her main weapon.

Hellene had always a strained relationship to other childer of Michaela and after the Battle of New York, she pledged her allegiance to Calebros. Much of her effort was put into keeping the Kindred of New York unified, but she always secretly sought to assume the princedom that she believed was rightfully hers.

Nicholas Chang

• Clan: Toreador
• Position: None

In the nights of rampant Sabbat presence in New York City, some Cainites chose who they wanted for the Embrace and asked questions later. Nicholas' sire chose him out of boredom and because she thought his lifestyle would be a pleasant diversion. Soon after his Embrace Nicholas's sire in turn grew bored with him and left him to his own devices. He chose not to follow his pack, instead keeping the company of the mortal racers with whom he had more in common than the debauched Sabbat.

Until his Embrace, Nicholas had been a warehouse worker, loading and unloading trucks for a food service company. He lived at home and devoted his paychecks to modifying his Honda Civic with Jackson Racing aftermarket parts. After his Embrace, the only things that have changed are his diet, his car and his occupation. Nicholas now runs an after-hours garage at the edge of Brooklyn that specializes in Hondas. He drives an Acura Integra Type R.

Anarch Vampires

The Anarch Vampires of New York have always had an understanding with the Sabbat. They largely leave each other alone. In exchange for not aiding the Camarilla within the city, the Anarchs have been granted control and territory of Cony Island. As a result the Anarchs of New York mostly keep to themselves and out of the way of the Sabbat. Though the vampires of both sects have been known to work together from time to time.

Boss Callihan

• Clan: Ventrue
• Position: Baron

Callihan was born in Londonderry, Ireland sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century, and is old enough to have been affected by the tenure of Lord Castlereagh as the British Chief Secretary for Ireland, who quashed the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Despite being Irish himself, Callihan at the very least admired the man for some reason, later keeping a portrait of him in his personal office. He emigrated to the United States in the 19th century, and as an adult worked his way into New York City's political scene through the infamous Tammany Hall organization.

The excesses of Tammany Hall during the nineteenth century made many people very rich — especially Boss William Marcy Tweed’s Democratic Party cronies, who successfully bilked New York City out of as much as $200,000,000. While Tweed himself was eventually arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned (later dying in prison), Callihan one-upped the old boss. Callihan used his money to buy his way into one of the other shadow societies of New York—the Kindred. Embraced by a Sabbat Ventrue, Callihan laid low and laundered his money through the Cainites of his new peerage.

Callihan quickly grew disillusioned with the Sabbat. Few of its members had the sort of refinement and decorum that he was used to. Those few who did snubbed him because of his lineage — had he known beforehand about clan sentiments, he would have tried to convince a Lasombra to Embrace him. As feelings between the sect and Callihan soured, he took up with a group of reformers calling themselves anarchs. With his money, his skill at manipulating people and events, and his notoriety in the mortal world, the anarchs welcomed him.

Callihan rose quickly through the anarchs’ ranks, becoming a boss in his own right. While the faction didn’t truly appeal to him any more than the Sabbat, he had managed to acquire some degree of power and influence within it. And it was just that possession of power that kept him where he was, a lion among the jackals, or so he saw it.

Over the years, he grew familiar with the Sabbat’s enemy, the Camarilla, and chose to keep himself and his anarchs out of the Battle of New York, hoping to steal a place for himself while the sects were distracted fighting each other.

Garou

The Velvet Shadow

The Umbra of New York is a blasted Hellhole. The Wyrm here has won. The last remnants of Gaia are but a corpse to be defiled. The Wyld barely has any places left. The Weaver presence is still stronger but subservant to the Wyrm. When one observes or looks across into the spirit world they see a reflection of the city that’s over run with corruption. While the Wyrm is dominate in the city, it is clear it some other force influencing the Spirit World of New York City. It is both of the Wyrm and also separate at the same time. The streets and the buildings are lined with throbbing fleshy ground and masses. A sickly blue and black mass covers the city itself. It takes the form of objects and landscape. Or rather clearly looks like them. It has trees, butwhen you look close are flesh. Massive thick red veins course through the fleshy mass of the city. While it covers most things, has not consumed all yet. Though it continues to grow and spread.

At the center of this growing mass in the spiritual reflection of Times Square grows what has been called the Qlipoth. A massive twisted tree of flesh that grows and climbs towards the sky. It seems to have roots and grows beneath the city itself. All the veins across the warped city connect to this tree; like a massive root system. They indeed even appare to carry blood. No one knows for sure the origins of the Qlipoth; as it’s a fairly recent edition to the Umbra. It however seems to be much of the source of the cities corruption. Bizzares Nightmare spirits are birthed from it and run wild in the Spirit World of the Umbra. While they are clearly of the Wyrm; even the Black Spiral Dancers are unsure of what they are and where they are coming from.

Any creature who to actually visit the Umbra of New York is in for a nightmare. It is not a safe or friendly place. It is a horror show or defilment, corruption, and violence. Only those truly aligned with the Wyrm can hope to remain untouched. The Light does not exist here. Those not aligned with the Wyrm can expect to be hunted, tempted, and attacked here. The spirits of this place only respect strength and darkness. The few Gaian Garou that remain in the city avoid the umbra completely or spend as little time as they can there.

The physical world is only one part of the caern.Hiddenin the Umbra, the force of the Wyld struggles to emerge into the physical world.Conversely, the force of the Weaver can be seen outside the park, waiting for the opportunity to rush in and impose its stasis. Garou traveling into the Penumbra can see the spiritual roots of the activity within the bawn, as well as representations of the battle between the Weaver and Wyld. Some examples are listed below.

• Turtle Pond: Anyone peering deeply into the pond will see a shifting white mass at the bottom. Further examination reveals the spirits of hundreds and hundreds of tiny white mice climbingovereach other. There is the faint stench of a mouse nest, and a frightened, childlike voice is sometimes heard singing from the depths.

• Belvedere Castle: The elements are strong here. On tempestuous days, elemental forces batter against the battle­ ments of the castle. A thread of electrical energy (a data stream) spurts from the castle, but the spirit of the Wyld can be sensed glowing warmly behind the castle walls.

• Fifth Avenue: Everything is orderly and precise. Long threads stretch along the street, struggling

To keep the traffic flowing in regular patterns. The bright green energy of the forest quickly fades into life-sapping gray. Spirits trapped in nearby stoplights shout one-word commands. About once a week, a foolish Pattern Spider will make a desperate foray into the park, only to be consumed by the Wyld.

• Zachary Ellison: This agent of the Shadow Lords {listed below) is continually surrounded by a cloud of darkness. Banes hover around him, whispering dangerous and obscene thoughts. His determination and spiritual focus hold them at bay.

• Bethesda Fountain: An aura of healing surrounds the fountain. The concrete around it ripples like water, and the whole area is more than alive: it's capricious, contempla­ tive, mysterious and rejuvenating. Waves on the nearby lake roll from the peninsula into a huge whirlpool; this watery vortex marks the spot where Moon Bridges are strongest.

• Woilman Rink: Layers of spiderwebs and dancing fields of electricity elementals hold the Pattern in place. The Weaver knits its Pattern over the Earth and yearns to spread further into the park. Naturae scream under the webbing, and Blight Children skate merrily on the surface of the ice, mocking any Garou who come nearby. Beneath the ice, in a frozen Blight, reside the Dark Trinity, the three Banes who work in concert to destroy the Garou (see Dark Trinity, pp. 272-273).This Blight can only be entered by breaking a hole in the Penumbral ice. Even then, invaders must travel icy caverns and suffer frigid temperatures to reach the actual lair deep beneath.

The Nameless Tower

Within the Spirit World, the Nameless Tower has an exact reflection within. The Nameless is a Pit in the heart of New York City, within spitting distance of Central Park and the hallowed Sept of the Green. This is not a coincidence. The Nameless sits ideally positioned for an attack on the Sept.

Formerly the site of a Glass Walker caern, most Garou do not know that its new residents are Black Spiral Dancers. Nor do they realize that Zhyzhak has taken up residency. When the sept was last concerned, the Black Spiral Dancers came at them in force, ripping Banes of trauma, misery, and horror from air of the city and launching a massive sneak attack on the Sept. However, the Spirals had underestimated the Garou, who crushed them with a vengeance. That was almost eleven years ago, and since then, the city has healed and the Wyrm’s foothold has weakened.

Then Zhyzhak came. Not good. Not good at all.

The Nameless sits on West 64th street, just down the street from Central Park. Built in A.D. 1916, a former hotel, its tall white façade stands out against the brick pile apartments and theatres that line the street. When the city moved on, the hotel couldn’t follow. Time dictated its devolution into an apartment complex, which eventually became the concern of a Glass Walker named Roth, mostly for its upper-deck view of Central Park to one side, and the city to the other. The location was a melding of visionary power, progress, and nature that appealed to his inner sense of the world.

The Glass Walker acquired the upper levels of the Tower for his own, created a caern, and led his sept for years. Hunters confronted the sept, after tracing their location through a number of purchases matching the profile of a Glass Walker who had recently frenzied in the Bronx and killed six people. The Veil remained intact as the public saw only some sort of freak car accident involving a large dog. Roth’s sept had always been viewed askance by the werewolves of the Sept of the Green, and in turn, his pack had been rather exclusive and self-interested in the past. When members started to disappear, he chalked it up to their usual roaming habits, until the hunters managed to leave a note inside his sanctum, bypassing its formidable defenses.

By then, it was almost too late, but Roth’s uncharacteristic plea for help from the Sept of the Green came early enough that, had they acted, his sept might have survived. Roth’s refusal to let them investigate his caern, and his presumption that they should be his hunting dogs rankled the Garou, who threw up their hands in frustration and left, suspecting that Roth was using them to retrieve Garou who didn’t want to be found. After all, he had no evidence that any harm had come to his people.

Thus, Roth lost his entire small sept. Consumed with vengeance, he turned to the Black Spiral Dancers, welcoming them into his abode. Since then, they have made it their own, transforming the upper floors into a Pit of profound strength.

Inside the Nameless, the elevators run all night, and if the time is right, the moon is full, and one’s eyes are open, there are more floors to the complex than the outer structure suggests. These floors form the lair of the Black Spiral Dancers. Its odd apartments are their dens, the numbers on the doors twisting into runes that haven’t been seen since the age of the Picts.

Over time, the Spirals have moved a number of their Kinfolk into the apartments on floors below the tainted caern. On these floors, reality warps. Residents sometimes hear sounds in the apartment above them — rasping sounds, clicking sounds. The pipes in the walls sometimes groan and burble as if something thicker than water was passing through them, and in the hallways, the sounds of great heaping thuds and clomping footsteps echo, but tenants leave their apartments to scenes of absolute normalcy. Indeed the Kinfolk among them are more aware of these things and their sources, but in New York City, they’re just one more sleep-deprived face among millions.

The Nameless is a platform for a new attack against the Sept of the Green. The Black Spirals have found safety and prosperity in the shadow of Roth’s caern, which still appears to the Garou to be as secretive and off-putting as it ever has. Most who sense the foreboding coming from the Tower chalk it up to Roth’s deteriorating state of mind.

Werewolves living in the Nameless find that its fire escapes are within convenient leaping-distance of those of adjacent, shorter apartment buildings, allowing them easy access to the rooftops of buildings up and down the street. Spirals of this hive hunt in the shadowed streets, haunting the square between Dante Park and the New York Philharmonic. So far, they have managed to keep their cover. But Zhyzhak’s arrival signals a certain escalation.

Qliphoth

In Jewish mysticism, the Qliphoth is the polar opposites of the holy Sefirot. In the Umbra this dark flesh tree climbs ever closer to the heavens. It expands over the city and grows. Its veins pulse and throb with blood. No one for sure knows where it comes from who is its master. Some Black Spiral Dancers and Mages have flocked to it in order to uncover its secrets. The Qlipoth seems to birth dark nightmare spirits aliens to any known standard spirit knowledge that exists. Some aquite the tree to being a Vampiric entity over the entire city.

Those few have begin to research into the Qlipoth know it is spirit in nature but also more. Some have noticed with the rise of death in the physical world the tree grows. Indeed, it seems the Qliphoth has sentience of some sort. In some branches dark apples made of flesh grow filled with blood. None have been bold enough to try one yet. Several of those researching the Qlipoth have given it another name. The Tree of Damnation. They theorize it is the opposite of the Tree of Life and grows because of the fall of the world into darkness.

The Qliphoth itself can be transversed. As a massive tree it has many hollows and paths in its trunk and branch structre. Pockets of rooms and either alcoves exist. It would be incredibly easy to become lost in the Qlipoth because of all its winding paths. However, they all seem to lead up. No one has been able to fully map the tree of flesh yet; so no clear pathway exists.

If one were to make it to the top of the Qlihoth they would reach a grand chamber that sits in the branches. Within its fleshy branches and floor sit three massive Black branched thrones. Each stands at twenty feet tall. Though none sit in them yet. The root veins from the city and Qlipoth itself all meet and connect to the three thrones. One theory is the Throne is for the Wyrm itself when it comes to the Penumbra. Regadless, none sit in the thrones yet.

The Throne area of Qlipoth is heavily protected by the nightmare spirits it births. They seem to be waiting for someone to come to claim the thrones and blood of the city. The power of the entire lifes blood of New York flowing into one point. Such power and knowledge would make one a dark god.

While the Qlipoth continues to grow and expand its ultimate purpose and who it belongs too is unknown. The Black Spirals of New York are both fascinated by it and desire its power. However, they know while it is of the wyrm it is also something else entirely. A few brave servants of the Wyrm have tried to claim the Qlipoth home. None have returned. In truth the Qlipoth is perhaps the most dangerous and deadly part of the Umbra of New York.

Wolves of Wall Street

Uthryzzxk

• Tribe: black Spiral Dancers
• Rank: 5
• Breed: Metis
• Auspice: Ahroun

Born in the Hive pits of the Trinity Hive of the Black Spiral Dancers in 1999, Uthryzzxk is rumored to be the daughter of Zhyzhak the Legend. Though Zhyzhak has never claimed or spoken of Uthryzzk as her daughter, few suspect she ever would even if true. As the breeding pits of Hives are a chaotic mess and each Black Spiral needs to stand on their own be cut down. For Uthryzzxk; she never claimed to be the daughter of Zhyzhak, but also never refutes the claims either. Regardless of the truth, since her birth the wild Black Spiral Ahroun was prophesied, much like her suspected mother, to be the Herald of the Apocalypse and coming of the Wyrm to the world. Her density was known by the Theurge’s of the Hive at the moment of her blood birth and the signs the Wyrms showed. Her body was born with sickly Black and Green markings, almost like a tattoo across her body which ordained destiny.

Moments after her birth, Uthryzzxk was brought to the Hive of the Red Star. There she was taught the darkest ways of the Wyrm by its theurges, and trained by the most potent Black Spiral Dancers Ahrouns (her suspected mother among them). She was breed since that time to embrace her prophesied destiny and become the perfect weapon for the wyrm itself. Just before the destruction of the Red Star; the Hives Theruges foresaw the coming event as a sign the time had come for Uthryzzxk to embrace her destiny. She was sent and traveled for the first time to the material plane. Following the last guidance of the Hive’s Theruges, she traveled the globe to assemble the greatest pack of wyrm abominations possible. She gathered fallen fera, other Black Spiral Dancers, even Vampire abominations to her cause. If King Albrecht is the Last Gain King, Uthryzzxk may be the first Queen of the Wyrm. She alone has managed to unite and pull together the various forces of the Wyrm under her command. The forces of Pentex, the Black Spiral Dancers, Wyrm Cults, the Fomori, Banes, and even the Mealjin Incarna themselves recognize her the Hearld of the End Times and of the Wyrm. All follow her lead and descend at her command like a wave of locusts.

To unite the factions of the Wyrm, Uthryzzxk needed to gather three ancient and powerful wyrm relics as a sign of her support by the Wyrm. For the Eater of Souls she needed to collect The Heart of the Wyrm. It was in India this ancient wyrm fetish lied. Searching for months she found the burial site at the spot upon an ancient vampire had been slain at the time of her birth. Performing a grand ritual and the sacrifice of over a hundred mortals she was tested by the Eater of Souls. Her very Soul poked and probed by the beast showing any sign of weakness. When she showed none, the Eater yielded the relic. A simple green crystal that at the heart entrapped a piece of blood from the ancient vampire. For the Beast of War she was called to collect the ancient Bane Sword, the End of All Things. It was in the Mountains of Russia she found the ancient Bane Sword; long since buried by the Silver Fangs. Guarded by one of the most Ancient of Nexus Crawlers, Uthryzzxk battled with the great spirit for three days before tearing its head off and claiming the blade. Finally for the Defiler Uthryzzxk sent out on the journey to collect The Veil of Sin. This torn silk veil woven from the strands of the weaver itself had long been lost in the Middle East. Traveling to Jerusalem, Uthryzzxk uncovered one of the most ancient temples to sin itself and confronted the Fetishes guardian, the oldest of the Succubus. She was tested for weeks by the fiend to break before the Succubus and show she was not worthy. Despite its best efforts the Spiral would not break. She survived the Succubus and claimed the Fetish as her own.

Only once Uthryzzxk claimed all of these ancient wyrm fetishes did she walk to the Spiral to claim the mark of a Wyrm united. The Easter of Souls, the Beast of War, and the Defiler had no choice but to accept her density and purpose. It is said the Wyrm itself breathed balefire on her back, and she emerged the glowing green sigil of the united wyrm pulsed on her; showing all who would dear challenge her she alone was the appointed chosen of the wyrm. Now, Uthryzzxk moves with her united army and the call of her suspected mother to one of the hearts of the Garou Nation. The Sept of the Green lies vulnerable and ready as she descends upon. By her will alone will the sept fall and become the most glorious of Hives for the Wyrm. One she will sit on a throne of skulls drinking the blood of the Garou and vampires alike, as she heralds in the End Times.

The Emperor of Cats

• Tribe: Hell Cat (Fallen Qualmi)
• Rank: 5
• Breed: Homid
• Pryio: Daylight

Little is known of the past history for the fallen bastet Qualmi known as the Emperor of Cats. Rumors among the Bastet tell a cautionary tale of a Bastet who followed his curiosity with disregard to all safety into the secrets of the Wyrm. Lured by the promise of secrets and knowledge the Qualmi found his way down the black spiral only to emerge forever changed. Other stories tell the tale of a Qualmi whose name has since be erased as one who sought to unite all Bastet as a King long ago only to have him lose everything he cared about in his pursuit of it. Regardless of the true history of the Emperor of Cats; his name is known in terror among the Qualmi these nights.

The Emperor of Cats is well known for his atrocities and horrors he inflicts upon the Bastet. He prowls at night searching for them and their kin; only to capture torture and play with them into they break into service of the wyrm and ultimately himself. In his warped mind the Emperor of Cats sees himself is destined ruler of a united bastet in service to the wyrm. With his empire of Hell Cats he will over run the Garou nation and offer their souls as sacrifice to his dark master. Now the Emperor of Cats has come to New York City to aid in the fall of the Sept of the Green. He will show all servants of the Wyrm he is rightfully feared and crowned. Those few who survive will fall to the endless torments of his claws.

Ivan Konietzko

• Clan: Tzimisce
• Tribe: Black Spiral Dancers
• Rank: 5
• Breed: Homid
• Auspice: Theurge

Among the Shadow Lords of Eastern Europe there is a ghost story among them known as the Eternal Atrocity. It is both the tale of a boogeyman told to cubs to frighten them and a cautionary tale of the true depths of the horror of the Wyrm. The Shadow Lords warn their cubs that if they are not careful in the lands beyond the forests, the Eternal Atrocity will sweep down from the sky as they sleep to claim their lives and souls for all eternity. However, the story of the Eternal Atrocity is just that, a story. Or is it perhaps more true then even the Shadow Lords would dare to admit?

All stories and legends have some fragments of truth to them. The tale of the Eternal Atrocity begins in the early nights of the middle ages. A time when the Shadow Lords warred with the Tzimisce Lords of Eastern Europe. They say a Garou was born named Ivan Konietzko, the same family as the Margrave himself. A spiritual warrior born in a time of war. They say he was gifted child of the moon, one destined for greatness of his tribe and would deal a crippling blow to the Tzimisce. So lost in his destiny and so where the rest of his pack they thought themselves invincible. They won many battles against the vampire lords, but they grew to bold. They had ignored the threat of other forces of the wyrm beyond the blood suckers. So it would be that his entire pack would fall before not leeches, but the Black Spiral Dancers.

It is said that Ivan was captured, flayed alive with silver and forced to watch his entire pack tortured and killed by the spirals. They made him choose in what order they died. The Theurge of the Spirals saw the same fate as the Garou, but saw it not as an enemy of the wyrm but one of its greatest champions. And so they kept the young Ivan alive. Torturing and breaking him down until he was quite made. In his desperation he finally gave into his own madness and walked the spiral. As with all Spirals the Wyrm showed Ivan his fate and purpose. As he returned to his now follow Spiral Brothers be proclaimed a great prophecy of the wyrm. It had shown his purposes the high prophet and priest of the Wyrm. To him the Wyrm was a great Cathedral of Flesh. The Shadow Lords had been fighting the Wyrm all along, but it was not the great enemy. It was the savior for all life on earth. For one day all shall become one with it. Blessed by the Wyrm and given his Prophecy the Hive allowed the newly reborn Ivan the Black Spiral to travel alone to find this great Cathedral of Flesh and behold its Defiler glory.

Ivan traveled deep into the forgotten lands of the Tzimisce, searching for the Wyrm from his vision. He meet Tzimisce Lord after Tzimisce Lord. Eventually traveling deeply into the Carpathian Mountains he found his Cathedral. As he laid eyes upon its glory he knew this was truly the Wyrm in all its physical majesty. He spent nights praying for the Cathedral to bless him and let him embrace his destiny. The Tzimisce Lords of the Cathedral played the Spiral Little attention. It wasn’t until one night the Viovode Andrik Rustovitch came to seek his own knowledge at the Cathedral did he notice the spiral. Here before Ivan was the greatest enemy of the Shadow Lords. He pleaded with the elder Vampire to hear his tale. Amused by this Werewolf who would travel for so long and deep into Tzimisce territory, Andrik agreed to hear his tale. The pair spent many evenings together. Rustovitch listened to the visions and stories of Ivan and in turn learned more secrets of his enemy. Ivan came to believe the Wyrm had sent this vampire to him to bless him completely and defile him body and soul completely, unlike any before him. In exchange for a useful ally and knowledge, not to mention the pain it would cause his enemy Shadow Lords, Rustovtivch agreed to embrace Ivan. Using his powerful Koldunic Rituals, he buried Ivan in the dirt of the Carpathians and turned him into a vampire. On that night the Eternal Atrocity was born.

Since those early nights Ivan has embraced his role as the chosen High Priest and Prophet of the Wyrm. He believes the Tzimisce Antediluvian is the Wyrm reborn into physical form on earth. The Gauntlet separating spirit from Flesh. Like the majority of his clan, Ivan joined the Sabbat, but he has always paid it little mind; especially considering he is a heretic in the eyes of the sect. In truth he leads a small cult of Tzimisce and Black Spirals Dancers in a twisted faith in service to the Wyrm and the Tzimisce clan founder. He oversees dark rituals to his Wyrm, blessing any Black Spiral Dancers with the touch of the Wyrm itself, offering them finely crafted Vicissitude modifications. Ian knows the time draws near for him to travel to what will become the greatest Hive dedicated to the Wyrm. Zhyzhak has summoned the Eternal Atrocity from his dark churches in Eastern Europe. To make read to war with the Sept of the Green. The signs have shown it is time for one of the greatest Caerns to fall and for the wyrm to replace it with their most glorious hive. Ivan believes this is the moment he has been destined for. To create the true temple to the wyrm over its physical form in New York City. It is a density that can not be avoided.

Tur--Glash

• Tribe: black Spiral Dancers
• Rank: 5
• Breed: Metis
• Auspice: Ahroun

Tur-Glash was born into a pack of Black Spiral Dancers deep within the heart of a corrupted caern. From a young age, he was trained in the ways of violence, treachery, and the dark rituals of the Wyrm. He quickly distinguished himself as a fierce and ruthless warrior, earning the favor of his elders and the dark spirits they served.

His rise through the ranks was marked by brutal cunning and unrelenting ambition. He led numerous raids against other Garou tribes, reveling in the chaos and destruction he wrought. Each victory brought him closer to the dark power he craved, and he performed countless acts of depravity to further his standing among the Black Spiral Dancers.

Now a Rank 5 Elder, Tur-Glash commands a pack of equally corrupted werewolves in New York City. He has established a hidden base within the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the city, using it as a staging ground for his operations and a site for his dark rituals.

Mistress Was It Good For You

• Tribe: black Spiral Dancers
• Rank: 3
• Breed: Homid
• Auspice: Ragabash

Born as Vanessa Moretti, Mistress Was It Good For You grew up in the gritty underbelly of New York City. She was drawn to the darker aspects of human nature from a young age, displaying a knack for manipulation and an insatiable desire for control. Her awakening to her true nature occurred during a traumatic event, where she was abducted by a Black Spiral Dancer pack and subjected to their corrupting influence.

Surviving the descent into the Black Spiral, Vanessa emerged as Mistress Was It Good For You, embracing her new identity and powers. Her natural aptitude for manipulation and control made her a valuable asset to her new tribe. She quickly ascended the ranks, proving herself through acts of cunning, cruelty, and dark ritual.

Mages

The Awakened of New York City often has very little interaction with the Vampires of the City. With their own battles to fight; the Mages often aren't involved with the affairs of the damned. However, on occasion some vampires of the city have had some interactions with the Mages. While there is likely a chantry or two of Mages within the city; what is known is the large amount of Technocratic Agents that operate in New York City. The Mages are known to control St. Patrick's Cathedral, and that a powerful Angel protects them and the church.

Kristen Sobin

• Tradition: Order of Hermes
• Position: Regent

Kristen Sobin hails from a long line of mages deeply rooted in the traditions of the Order of Hermes. Born into a prominent Hermetic family, she was exposed to the mystical arts from a young age. Her father, a renowned Hermetic scholar, and her mother, a powerful magus in her own right, instilled in her the values of discipline, knowledge, and the pursuit of magical mastery.

She attended prestigious academies within the Order, excelling in her studies and quickly rising through the ranks. Her affinity for the Path of the Mind and the Path of Prime made her a formidable mage, combining intellectual prowess with raw magical power. Kristen's talents did not go unnoticed, and she was soon entrusted with significant responsibilities within the Order.

Kristen resides in a well-protected chantry located in a historic building in the heart of New York City. The chantry serves as both her home and a center of learning for her apprentices. It is a place where ancient Hermetic knowledge meets modern innovation, filled with rare books, magical artifacts, and state-of-the-art technology.

Kristen Sobin's primary goal is the preservation and advancement of Hermetic knowledge. She is committed to the education and development of the next generation of mages, ensuring that the Order of Hermes remains a powerful force in the mystical world. Additionally, she seeks to strengthen the alliances between different magical traditions, believing that unity is essential for the survival and prosperity of the mage community.

In her personal quest, Kristen is driven by a desire to uncover lost Hermetic secrets and push the boundaries of magical understanding. She often embarks on dangerous expeditions in search of ancient tomes and powerful artifacts, driven by an insatiable curiosity and a questing spirit.

Kristen is a complex character, embodying both the rigidity of Hermetic discipline and the flexibility required to navigate the modern world. She is fiercely intelligent, with a sharp wit and a keen sense of strategy. Her leadership style is firm but fair, and she expects nothing less than excellence from those under her tutelage.

Despite her stern exterior, Kristen has a deep sense of loyalty and compassion for her fellow mages. She believes in the potential of every mage to achieve greatness and is dedicated to helping them reach their full potential. Her questing essence drives her to constantly seek new knowledge and push the boundaries of magical understanding.

Father Jonathan St. Peter

• Tradition: Celestial Chorus
• Position: Priest

Born in a small town in the Midwest, Jonathan was raised in a devout Catholic family. From a young age, he felt a deep connection to the divine and a calling to serve God. He entered the seminary in his early 20s and was ordained as a priest by the time he was 30. His journey into the mystical began during his theological studies, where he discovered ancient texts and scriptures that hinted at a deeper, more profound understanding of the divine.

His awakening to his powers came during a moment of intense prayer and meditation, where he experienced a vision of the divine light and heard the celestial chorus. This experience revealed to him the interconnectedness of all creation and the power of true faith. Embracing his new path, he joined the Celestial Chorus, a Tradition that resonated with his beliefs and mission.

As a Catholic priest and a mage of the Celestial Chorus, Father Jonathan has a dual role within his community. He serves as the parish priest of a historic church in New York City, where he leads his congregation in worship, provides spiritual guidance, and offers solace to those in need. His church also serves as a sanctuary for those seeking protection from supernatural threats and a place for the Celestial Chorus to gather.

Within the Celestial Chorus, Father Jonathan is a respected leader and mentor. He is responsible for guiding younger members of the Tradition, helping them understand the divine harmony that flows through all things. He also works to foster unity among the disparate factions within the mage community, believing that only through cooperation can they achieve their higher purpose.

David Holmes

• Tradition: Virtual Adepts
• Position: Hacker

David grew up in the heart of New York City, a true digital native surrounded by the constant hum of technology. His parents, both engineers, nurtured his curiosity and encouraged his fascination with computers and the internet from a young age. By the time he was a teenager, David was already a proficient coder and hacker, spending countless hours in the virtual realms of cyberspace.

His awakening occurred during an intense hacking session where he breached the security of a hidden server, only to find himself in a digital landscape unlike any he had seen before. This experience opened his eyes to the deeper layers of reality and the potential of the digital world. Guided by fellow technomancers, David joined the Virtual Adepts, a Tradition that perfectly matched his skills and ambitions.

In the bustling metropolis of New York City, David plays a pivotal role within the Virtual Adepts. He is a master hacker and a pioneer in the exploration of virtual realities. His primary responsibilities include developing new technologies, securing digital information, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the virtual realm.

Keui-Jin

The Wan Kuei of New York City have always controlled China Town for as long as anyone can remember. The Sabbat of the city know to avoid the territory claimed by the Cathayans. No too few Sabbat have dared to encroach into China Town to never be seen again. However, there are stories of some who been able to make deals with on rare occasion. Their leader appears to be an ancient eastern vampire that takes joy in the violence and death caused by the Sabbat. Those rare few vampires granted an audeicne in China Town must remember to be on their best behavior and etiquette among the Wan Kuei.

Wu Fei

• Dharma: Resplendent Crane
• Position: Minister

Born during the Ming Dynasty, Wu Fei was a respected magistrate known for his unwavering commitment to justice and morality. His transition to a Kuei-jin was seen as both a curse and an opportunity to continue his life's work on a different plane of existence. Over the centuries, Wu Fei has wandered through various regions of China, striving to bring order and righteousness in a world often overshadowed by chaos and corruption.

Wu Fei's primary goal is to maintain balance and order among the Kuei-jin of New York City's Chinatown. He seeks to guide them towards enlightenment and away from the temptations of their darker natures. Additionally, he works tirelessly to protect the local mortal population from supernatural threats, believing that it is his duty to safeguard the innocent.

Despite his many strengths, Wu Fei faces numerous challenges. The diverse and often conflicting interests of the Kuei-jin in New York City require delicate diplomacy and a firm hand. He must also contend with the ever-present threat of the Shadowlands and the machinations of other supernatural factions vying for control. Furthermore, his strict adherence to the principles of the Resplendent Crane Dharma sometimes puts him at odds with those who believe in a more flexible approach to morality and justice.

Yu Sun

• Dharma: Thrashing Dragon
• Position: Minister

Yu Sun was born in the early 19th century in a rural village in China. From a young age, she was known for her rebellious spirit and love for adventure. Her transition to a Kuei-jin came after a tragic encounter with bandits, where she chose to embrace the darkness to survive and seek revenge. Over the centuries, Yu Sun has traveled extensively, indulging in the pleasures and excesses of life while honing her supernatural abilities.

Yu Sun's primary goal is to enjoy life and ensure that those around her do the same. She sees her opium den not just as a business, but as a sanctuary where people can escape their troubles and indulge in their desires. She strives to create an environment of freedom and pleasure, where the boundaries between the mundane and the supernatural blur. Additionally, she seeks to protect her domain from external threats, ensuring that her haven remains a safe and vibrant place for all who enter.

Despite her carefree attitude, Yu Sun faces numerous challenges. The presence of rival factions and supernatural entities in Chinatown often threatens the stability of her opium den. She must navigate the delicate balance of maintaining her influence while avoiding conflicts that could jeopardize her and her patrons' safety. Furthermore, her hedonistic lifestyle sometimes leads to internal conflicts, as she grapples with the consequences of her actions and the impact they have on those around her.

Jin Shen

• Dharma: Devil Tiger
• Position: Minister

Jin Shen was born in the tumultuous times of early 20th-century China. His family lived in the countryside, struggling to survive amidst the chaos of warlords and foreign incursions. Jin's early life was marked by hardship, but it also instilled in him a fierce sense of determination and a pragmatic view of the world.

As a young man, Jin found himself drawn to the teachings of the Devil Tiger Dharma. He was fascinated by the philosophy of embracing the darker aspects of existence, of harnessing one's inner demons as a source of power. In the chaotic landscape of his homeland, the Devil Tiger's teachings resonated deeply with Jin's own experiences.

Coming into the ranks of the Kuei-Jin, Jin Shen quickly rose through the ranks, displaying an innate talent for strategy and leadership. He honed his skills in combat and manipulation, learning to navigate the intricate web of politics and power that defined Kuei-Jin society.

Eventually, Jin Shen found himself drawn to the promise of opportunity and prosperity in the New World. He journeyed to New York City's Chinatown, where he established himself as a prominent figure in the underworld. Using his knowledge of the streets and his mastery of martial arts, Jin quickly gained control over the various Asian gangs that operated in the city.

Tae Hyun Kai

• Dharma: Thousand Whispers
• Position: Minister

Tae Hyun Kai's journey as a Kuei-Jin began in the heart of China's ancient landscapes, where whispers of the Thousand Whispers Dharma echoed through misty mountains and secluded temples. Born into a family of scholars and artists, Tae Hyun Kai was immersed in the rich tapestry of Chinese culture from a young age. He developed a profound appreciation for the arts, finding solace and inspiration in the delicate brushstrokes of calligraphy and the graceful movements of traditional dance.

Drawn to the enigmatic teachings of the Thousand Whispers Dharma, Tae Hyun Kai embarked on a spiritual quest to unlock the secrets of the unseen world. Under the guidance of his mentors, he learned to navigate the realms of spirits and shadows, honing his abilities to commune with the spirits of the dead and manipulate the forces of Yin and Yang.

Upon his rising into the ranks of the Kuei-Jin, Tae Hyun Kai found himself torn between his love for the mortal world and the allure of the supernatural. He struggled to reconcile his desire for artistic expression with the demands of his newfound existence, seeking refuge in the vibrant streets of New York City's Chinatown.

Mealea Yun

• Dharma: Song of Shadow
• Position: Minister

Mealea Yun's journey into the world of the Kuei-Jin began amidst the neon lights and bustling streets of 1980s New York City. Born into a family of immigrants in Chinatown, Mealea was always drawn to the darker side of existence. From a young age, she found herself fascinated by stories of death and the afterlife, captivated by the mysteries that lay beyond the veil of the mortal world.

As she grew older, Mealea's obsession with death only intensified. She delved into the macabre with a voracious appetite, seeking out tales of ghosts and hauntings, exploring abandoned buildings and forgotten graveyards in search of hidden secrets. Yet despite her morbid interests, Mealea remained an outsider in the eyes of her peers, a solitary figure lost in the shadows of her own obsessions.

It was on the eve of her nineteenth birthday that Mealea's life was forever changed. Drawn to an abandoned temple hidden deep within the heart of Chinatown, she stumbled upon a group of Akuma performing a mysterious ritual. Intrigued by the sight, Mealea approached cautiously, unaware of the supernatural forces that lay dormant within the ancient walls.

In a flash of light and shadow, Mealea's world was shattered as she was killed and rose one of the Kuei-Jin. Transformed into a creature neither living nor dead, she found herself reborn into a world of darkness and uncertainty. Yet far from being afraid, Mealea embraced her new existence with a sense of exhilaration, eager to explore the hidden depths of her newfound powers.

Mother of the Weeping Blood

• Dharma: Devil Tiger
• Position: Ancestor

The Keui-Jin known as the Mother of Weeping Blood is the oldest of the hungry dead within New York city and perhaps one of the eldest in the new world. An ancestor from China living in solitude, she fled to the New World during the Opium Wars arriving in the young China Town of New York City. Since then, she has called the city her home and protects it violently from all outsiders.

The story of the Mother of the Weeping Blood starts during the Song Dynasty. As a mortal and young woman; she was one of the many imperial consorts of emperor Duzong. She lived during a troubled time of her people and the Mongol Invasions of Kublah Khan. At the time she had been in the lands of Xiangyang. While her training as an imperial concubine had allowed her to master the arts of her calling in life; they did little to protect her during the rampages of war with the Mongol horde. Her death, was not a swift one when it came. Captured by the invaders, she was taken to their camp and used by the Mongrel solders as conquers. The pain and suffering she endured before her life ended caused her very soul to scream as it entered in the Yomi worlds.

Having such a violent death at a young age gave her the rage and anger in death the climb out of the thousand hells and back into her body. On a rainy and stormy night in south china the Mother of Weeping Blood was born a new. Since that time, she had grown into the beliefs and took her core the teachings and philosophies of the Howl of the Devil Tiger. If the world was full of such monsters that caused her death, and such cruelty to take her young life, she would embrace the demon and rule over them. Her eyes had been open to the truth of the world. Of its pain, suffering and darker reality. She revealed in the atrocities some would consider of the Devil Tigers. Growing and learning with each new experience. With time she had even earned a noble place among the tigers of the Quincunx.

Around the time of the Opium Wars of China, the Resplendent Cranes of the Quincunx had grown tired over the Mother of Weeping Blood’s acts. They argued she was walking a thin line to becoming Akuma. An accusation that offended her greatly. For she would serve no master ever again. However, in her exploring and growing within the Howl of the Devil Tiger her acts of violence, cruelty, and atrocity could no longer be ignored. Such acts often get you few friends among those of the Resplendent Crane. With the Opium War as an excuse, the Quincunx charged the Mother of Weeping Blood to travel to the Americas as one of the first of their kind of such age to be sent. In truth it was little more than an exile. While she had broken few laws of their kind, they simply wanted her atrocities performed elsewhere. Preferably upon those of the West.

So she arrived, like most immigrants did at the time through the waters of New York City. Settling in her new home, alone among her kind; she choose to start her new life in what would day become the famous China Town of New York City. Since then, more of the hungry dead have made the same journey as she and their population grew within the walls of China Town. Though she claimed it as her personal domain; the Mother of Weeping Blood decided to keep a low profile. Some of the more famous unsolved murders in New York were actually performed by her. In time she revealed herself and took leadership of the young growing court in the city. Few among the Keui-Jin could deny her claim. Her age and enlightenment alone demanded it. In the years that passed the city of New York grew to a stronghold of the Kin-Jin known as the Sabbat. Feeling a kindship for the wild and violent was of their cousins; she has used her potion within the court of the Iron Apple to make sure her fellow Keui-Jin remain safe from the Sabbat. For decades she has gained favors and worked closely with the Sabbat elders of New York from the shadows. Both the safe guard her people, and continue to explore her own enlightenment. The day to day operations of the court and to all outsiders are run not by the Mother of Weeping Blood. Rather the court appears to have many much younger Keui-Jin who lead it. The truth however, is without the age and power of the Mother of Weeping Blood, the Keui-Jin of New York would have been murdered a long time ago. She keeps the true horrors and ancient abominations at bay that call the city home.

Hunters

The Imbued of New York City have plagues it since their birth in the Modern Nights. The Hunter's lack any sort of centralized leadership, and thus in a city of nearly 12 million people they are hard to find. AMong the vampires, two of the imbued have gained a reputation for hunting the damned. Though not actually Hunter's Themselves; the two that are known feed information to the imbued of New York.

Michael Nevelson

• Creed: Bystander

Brighton Beach may have been named after an English resort, but it certainly didn't look like one in the early 1980s. Michael was born to Russian immigrants making their home in the collapsing Brooklyn neighborhood, and it's largely because of the cloistered nature of the ethnic neighborhood that he feels he's never been able to get ahead. The neighborhood always seemed to exist under a shroud of misfortune to be the shadow of the vampire Oleg Selivanov.

The Brighton Beach boardwalk was always a string of businesses cloaked in mystery. Some were Russian nightclubs, some were restaurants, some were tchotchke stores set up as fronts for the mafia. Almost all of them were run by sad eyed men who moved furtively and who brought the fear of the vampyr with them from the Old World. Michael's father was one of these men, and in addition to the rent and utilities, he paid his tribute to the undead. After seeing how hard his father worked and how much he had to give away, Michael vowed never to be in that position himself. In his 16th year, he had had enough, and carried a stolen pistol with him one night, fully intending to kill the man Selivanov sent to collect his money. The agent turned out to be a vampire, and handily defeated the boy.

In repayment for Michael's actions, the Cainites killed his parents, leaving him and his sister alive as a reminder not to cross them again. Their tactic had the opposite effect, however, and in a rage, Michael drove a broken broomstick through the heart of the vampire who came to laugh at the boy's misfortune.

He sees his suffering as a test placed before him by God, who needed to be sure of the boy's strength of will before setting him free to do His work. With the fire of righteousness Michael hunts Kindred, returning to the abandoned Bronx tenement he and his sister have holed up in at the end of the night to take care of her.

Zhanna Nevelsky

• Creed: Bystander

For a brief time, Zhanna helped her brother Michael fight the their own private feeding grounds. A fateful confrontation with a hellishly powerful creature of the night left her paralyzed, however. The creature broke her back just as Michael had run it through with one of the long, fire hardened stakes he fashioned from broom and mop handle

As for her life now, most of it .is spent propped up on a mattress in an unused Bronx apartment building, watching daytime television and eating whatever Michael can bring her. Secretly, she blames him for her condition quite justifiably but she knows how much it means to him to be fighting-these minions of the Devil in the name of the Lord. Thus, she suffers quietly while Michael wrestles with his own problems.

The Order

For Decades the Society of Leopold has struggled in their war against the Supernatural. Even their most elite members of the Gladius Dei were losing ground to the growing power and influence of the damned. As the Inquisition grew less invested in their holy war against the supernaturals of the world, it seemed the threat of the Society of Leopold might fade from the night. It wasn’t until an unlikely ally appeared to help the Inquisition grow in equal power to the threats they faced.

Members of the Gladius Dei who specialized in hunting vampires were approached by a corporation seeking to aid them in their battle. Shinzui Industries, the advanced technology company from Japan, reached out to Gladius Dei to form a partnership. With their advanced technology and vast resources they could supply members of Gladius Dei with the tools it needed to hunt the damned in the world. Members of Gladius Dei who spent their whole lives hunting the race of Caine gladly accepted the offer. As such, the Order was born.

The following link is for Storyteller use only. The Order

Wraiths

The Shadowlands

The Maelstrom destroyed most of the Underworld’s cities, leaving only broken ruins half buried in the sand. New York City once boasted one of the largest Necropoli, fully as important to the Underworld as the mortal city is to the living world. The New York Necropolis remains unusually large and intact, though uniquely changed. It may also be the only spot in the Underworld where a crucible can find ghosts who endured the Maelstrom - though most of them would have preferred Oblivion. Charac- ters can find plenty of danger in the New York Necropolis, as well as many opportunities to gain information, make contacts, buy cool stuff and deal with personal issues. Storytellers receive three loca- tions where they can use the magic power of Plot Device to give the characters what they need to know or own to thwart Grandmother, if the characters are willing to face the dangers to gauze and soul. Like its mortal counterpart, you can get anything you want in The New York Necropolis. For a price.

History

New York's Necropolis came to prominence in the mid-19th century. As the mortal city grew with incredible speed, its population of the restless dead grew as well, tethered to the living by the immigrants' mix of hope, ambition and despair. The city's ghostly popular- ton grew as quickly as the mortal cities did. Fortunately, many of New York's buildings cast cytoplasmic shadows into the Underworld with equal speed, so the restless dead found plenty of places to dwell.

The decades from 1880 to 1930 brought drastic changes to both cities. The mortal city saw some of the most ambitious urban planning in the history of the world. Successive city governments ringed Manhattan Island with quays and bridges, veined it with subways, built Central Park and the huge tunnels that still supply the city's water and cleaned up the worst of the slums. Companies raced to build every-higher skyscrapers, giving New York City its distinctive skyline.

The mighty civic transformation happened in the Underworld as well. Building the skyscrapers meant demolishing older buildings. These passed to the underworld (if they did not exist there already). The new buildings gained a shadowy existence in the under- world as well. The unusually rapid and complete turnover of buildings gave the Necropolis a dual character. The gleaming spires of the skyscrapers rose from, and often interpenetrated, a layer of wood and brick homes, facto- rise, warehouses and tenements. New York’s ghosts marveled along with its mortal population when they saw Lady Liberty's torch glowing over the dark waters of the city harbor.

Its huge population made the New York Necropolis a hub for the strange commerce of the Underworld. Some of New York's immigrants were already dead - ghosts of farm lands, carried by tethers to their mortal kin or traveling from other Necropolis to seek their fortune in the Emporium of the Underworld. Ancient ghosts from deeper in the Underworld arrived to seize power in the name of their king, though they found themselves making unexpected compromises with the native spooks.

New York's ghosts boasted that they dwelled in a special city. Some ghosts saw a mystical geometry in the design and placement of skyscrapers, museums, man- sons and government offices. Others suggested that the influx of foreign spirits made New York the Omphalos, the mystical center of the world. This theory became more popular (though only among New York ghosts) when the United Nations made the city its headquarters. Ghosts from other Necropoli usually thought the New York spirits were just bragging.

The middle decades of the 20th century saw a darkening of the mortal and ghostly cities. The mortal slums became poorer, grimier and deadlier, while their inhabitants sank into rage and despair. When greedy mortal owners burned slum buildings to collect insure- acne money, these tenements appeared in the Necropolis as black piles of congealed hate and pain, where Specters walked openly. The spirits that could influence the living did everything they could to encourage the de- traction or gentrification of the slums, while the Necropolis militia demolished Specter haunts one by one. The 1990s saw continuing improvement in the cities of the living and the dead. Then the Maelstrom struck and Grandmother rose. As in other Necropoli, hordes of Spectres and the deadly storm overwhelmed the city's defenders. And then something strange happened. The ghost storm circled round on itself, forming a mighty whirlwind within the wider Maelstrom. The Necropolis swept in on itself. Ghostly skyscrapers, Warehouses and tenements lifted in the storm and crushed into each other. Ghosts and Spectres tumbled helplessly in the whirlwind, crushed between and into The buildings. Only the Empire State Building stood firm in the eye of the storm.

The whirlwind subsided as Grandmother pushed the Maelstrom into what is now the Stormwall. A new wave of Spectres invaded the ruined Necropolis. They found that many ghosts survived the Maelstrom - but they were fused with the spiritual substance of the Necropolis, and thus impossible to harvest. The Necropolis gained a new monarch shortly thereafter. Vidod the Monger, one of the least of the Malfeans, saw unusual possibilities in the wrecked Necropolis. When the Malfeans rebelled against Grandmother, Vidod gained its freedom as well. It did not throw in its lot with the other Malfeans, however. Instead, it declared its domain a neutral ground in the war, where any spirit or Spectre could visit or dwell.

A few spooks have crossed from the living world to the ruined Necropolis. Vidod has kept its word: Every Spectre knew Vidod's absolute readiness to destroy anyone who attacked non-Spectres, so they left the spooks alone. They also knew that Vidod would with- draw its protection from any ghost who refused to acknowledge its suzerainty or broke its laws, however, so its subjects remain hopeful that they may someday torment and destroy other spirits. So far, the other Malfeans do not consider Vidod worth attacking - not until they defeat Grandmother. For her part, Grandmother does not comprehend com- merce, so she ignores the Monger. Some of her more astute minions understand trade, however, and take advantage of Vidod's willingness to do business with Anyone or anything.

Geography

The New York Necropolis now consists of three con-Centric zones, with the Empire State Building at the center. The Spectres call the inmost zone the Jumble. It consists of a chaotic tangle of broken skyscrapers, bridges, old brick factories, Warehouses and tenements, private homes and naked, twisted iron frameworks. These are the remnants Of the Necropolis. In every other Necropolis, the Maelstrom destroyed the Underworld shadows of Buildings that still exist. In New York, at least some of these shadow-buildings still exist, though broken and displaced from their mortal counterparts. For instance, the spire of the Chrysler Build- ing pokes from a thicket of twisted ironwork about half a mile from the Empire State Building. Next to it lies the relic of the Old Brewery, the 19th century city's most notorious and Hellish tenement. The Jumble slowly spins clockwise around the Empire State Building. The wrecked Buildings Jostle against each other and break apart. Some ghosts and Spectres take the trouble to repair sections of buildings or construct ramshackle homes out of the Fragments.

Contorted subway tunnels and storm drains connect the Jumble to the Labyrinth. These are not the Current subway tunnels. Instead, these brick-lined tunnels are the relics of long-forgotten private Subways. Some of the tunnels connect to entire subway stations that the mortal city sealed off and forgot. The black stone of the Labyrinth gradually consumes and replaces the ectoplasmic brick, Stone and concrete of the relic subways.

Beyond the Jumble lies the Palisade, a perpetual Maelstrom-wind that circles the Jumble. More Frag- ments of the Necropolis rise and sink within the storm-blown sands. Outside the Palisade lie A few wrecked buildings sunken into the sand. These ruins constitute the Outer Boroughs. They Include the only Spectre hives that lead from the mortal world to this part of theUnderworld.

The Hub: Empire State Building

The Necropolis' copy of the Empire State Building Looks a bit different than its material counterpart. Most obviously, it has Cleopatra’s Needle wedged into the central tower, and the great Coney Island Ferris wheel impaled on its pinnacle. The Ferris wheel slowly turns along with the Jumble. Sparks of silver light and ebon darkness - Vitality and Spite - race up and down the building's art deco metalwork. More lights flicker in the Myriad windows.

No force bars anyone from entering the Empire State Building, but few ghosts or Spectres venture inside or stay there long. A constant low moan, like many voices howling in the distance, echoes through the interior. A spook’s imaginary skin prickles, and his Stains Spontaneously appear, one by one, until he leaves this place.

As a character heads deeper and higher into the buildings, gaps appear in the walls, floors and ceilings and grow larger without weakening the structure. The core of the building is a huge, vertical shaft more than 200 feet wide and I,000 feet tall, surrounded by scraps of wall, floor and Ceiling that hang, disconnected but immobile, in midair. The shaft holds an ectoplasmic tornado. Wailing faces, thrashing arms and other body parts of ghosts and Spectres constantly emerge from and vanish back into the tornado. By jumping between fragments of floor, a spook can approach within 20 feet of the vortex. Some Horrors may permit an even closer approach - or a foolhardy spook could simply jump into it.

Anyone crazy enough to enter the soul-vortex is carried by the storm. The character also suffers an immedi- ate hive-mind linkage to all the ghosts and Spectres within it. That's not especially useful, since the component spirits are conscious of very little except their own torment. Indeed, they are so damaged that they lack distinct egos. Their Vitality and Spite spins out from their tattered gauze to flicker through the storm.

Characters can use the vortex to gain Vitality or Spite, or they can try to glean useful memories from the component spirits. For spooks who try to absorb Vitality, treat this as Thievery against an effective Willpower of 7. The vortex has the blended Vitality of hundreds of ghosts - maybe thousands - but the character still gains Spite points from the deed. Spec- tres can attempt to thieve Spite points from the vortex in the same way, but they cannot avoid gaining one point of Vitality from the deed (a strange condi- tion for Spectres, which offsets one point of their Spite for one scene). A spook could also deliberately thieve Spite points from the vortex, or a Spectre could suck Vitality, if for some reason they wanted to do this.

While within the soul-vortex, Spectres are also disconnected from the hive-mind. Botching the Will- power roll for Thievery causes the Spectre's permanent expulsion from the hive-mind and transformation into an Orphan-Grinder.

A character can try to pull memories out of the vortex. Doing so requires a contested roll of the character's Wits + Empathy (to sift through the fleet- ing mental impressions and resist the onslaught of pain) against the soul-vortex's Willpower of 7. For each success, the character can ask one question and receive a brief answer that is at least somewhat relevant. The Storyteller should remember that the ghosts and Spectres in the vortex are not omniscient. "Don't know" is an acceptable, relevant answer if the character seeks information about something that a pre-Maelstrom New Yorker ghost or Spectre could not know. When the character wants to leave the vortex, the player attempts another contested Willpower roll against the vortex. If the player succeeds, the vortex hurls the character out with considerable force. The player then attempts a Dexterity + Athletics roll (difficulty 7) to have his character grab one of the floating bits of building and avoid falling down the shaft. If the player fails the roll, the Storyteller rolls one die: The result gives the number of dice of damage that the character suffers from what might be a very long fall before he smacks into something large enough to stop him. Of course, other characters can try to catch the character using their Horrors.

Each failure in a contested roll causes the charac- ter to lose a point of Willpower from the mental strain of resisting the mad agony of the trapped, tattered spirits. If a character loses all Willpower, he joins the soul-vortex forever.

Players may imagine other creative uses for the spiritual vortex. If their plan sounds plausible, Story- tellers should let it work (though it may endanger the characters). The soul-vortex is a unique and awesome phenomenon. It ought to do things that are not nor- mally possible, such as turning one of Grandmother's never-human Spectres into an Orphan-Grinder or permanently separating a ghost from his evil twin. (Indeed, Vidod claimed the New York Necropolis precisely because it seeks to master the vortex.)

Vidod's Emporium of Soul's Desire Grand Central Terminal

From the outside, Grand Central Terminal seems battered but intact. This is, of course, a Necropolis version of the famous station, so its colors are darkened and less intense than the version in the living world.

Inside, the interior is encrusted with bones, though the dark blue dome of the ceiling still bears the gilded constellations of the zodiac. Several man-sized icicles of black glass hang down from the ceiling around the dome. Down below, two levels of brick subway tunnels lead into the Labyrinth. Doors made of bones cleverly fitted together and bound in black glass turn concession stands and ticket offices into locked vaults. Web-cables contact each door. Chandeliers of black-glazed human figures hang from the ceiling. Their heads burn with a pale violet flame and drip an oily fluid that reeks like long-overripe garbage.

The Malfean keeps its nest high up against one wall, where no one could reach it except by flight (or using Horrors). The nest is a patchwork of ornately carved doors and panels and brass rails and balustrades, glued together with black glass into a rough box. When anyone calls out or touches its maze, Vidod pops open a door and swiftly flies over to its visitor. Sometimes, the Malfean may be found inventorying the contents of one of its vaults instead. The Malfean is always eager to deal. Several miscellaneous Spectres also stay within the terminal, serving as Vidod's personal staff and answering questions about what the Malfean offers and expects from visitors. (Storytellers can design Vidod's staff for themselves. The Malfean chooses moderately powerful, intelligent breeds such as Frighteners.)

Vidod propounds a simple law. Everyone in the Necropolis must tell it they accept its absolute rule. No one may attack anyone who has offered submission or who desires to offer his submission right away. Anyone can sell anything, to anyone, for anything else. All records from the Necropolis belong to Vidod. No one may steal anything from anyone else. Anyone caught breaking these rules becomes the prey of any Spectre willing and able to kill him.

The Malfean itself is the Necropolis' premier mer- chant. Its vaults hold an incredible farrago of trash and treasure, from relic kitchen knives to small Memory Towers (rent for a time or buy outright) to crystal orbs filled with children's dreams. Several vaults hold the books and civic records salvaged from the Necropolis. Through the hive-mind, it knows every secret of the Malfeans and Grandmother (or at least anything not locked in a Memory Tower - and Vidod finds most of Grandmother's mind incomprehensible). Vidod will barter any of it, but characters must offer something the Malfean considers of greater value.

Most importantly, Vidod can barter for intangibles. Characters can pay with their knowledge of Horrors, or with a cherished memory. The Malfean can also act as a middleman, exchanging bodies, skills, Stains, desti- nies or anything else in return for some payment to itself. Through its deal-making, Vidod strives to accumulate power and influence, and so rise in the chaotic ranks of the Malfeans.

The Palisade

The Jumble is about two miles in radius. Around it blows the constant storm wind that the Necropolis' inhabitants call the Palisade. This local Maelstrom protects the Necropolis from other storms that lash the Underworld. The Palisade’s winds constitute a Force- One Maelstrom, inflicting four dice of lethal damage to any creature that enters the storm. The Palisade is half a mile wide. The Palisade constantly exposes wreckage from the Necropolis. Smaller flotsam lifts into the howling winds to join the rains of iron needles, boiling blood, petrified toads and other strange or gruesome detritus. Larger chunks remain lodged in the sand. Sometimes the storm exposes an old haunt, though the Maelstrom winds often wear away the less sturdy structures before the sands have a chance to bury them again.

Some of the tougher and stronger breeds of Spectres can endure the Palisade. So can spooks with Juggernaut or a Vitality Emblem of Protection, at least for short times. A few spirits dare to enter the Palisade in hopes of finding something valuable before the winds destroy it. An exposed haunt near the inner or outer boundary always attracts treasure-hunters. The would-be looters often fight each other too, since the Palisade falls out- side Vidod's law.

The Brooklyn Bridge offers the only safe way to cross the Palisade. Thousands of workers suffered years of unspeakable torture just to build the foundations of its towers, and many died in agony from caisson sickness. The bridge killed its architect, engineer John O. Roebling, and maimed his son but did not quell their drive to see the bridge completed. When the bridge was finished, however, New Yorkers and Brooklynites hailed it as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Torment, death, obsess- sion and pride cast a shadow of the bridge into the Underworld and gave it the spiritual strength to resist the Maelstrom.

The Palisade's winds do not harm anyone who walks across the Underworld’s Brooklyn Bridge. The Winds remain strong as they scream in Roebling's revolution- ary web of steel cables, but a person who crosses the bridge does not feel their full, deadly force. Vidod stations Spectre guards at the Jumble end of the bridge, to inform visitors of the Malfean's laws.

The Outer Boroughs

The Outer Boroughs have no distinct boundary from the rest of the Wasteland. The Maelstrom de- stroyed most of the haunts in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten lsland, or swept them into the Jumble. A few of the sturdier haunts might remain, but we leave this choice to Storytellers.

At least two Spectre hives reach between the Outer Boroughs and the mortal world. Malfean forces have commandeered one, and Grandmother has not yet cho- sen to withdraw it. The other remains held by Grandmother's forces. Spectres from both hives occa- sionally venture into the Necropolis to trade with Vidod. They seek ghost-weapons salvaged from the Jumble or try to hire spooks as mercenaries who can attack the enemy without the hive-mind broadcasting their plans. The Malfean hive's Spectres are led by a Reaper loyal to Zyras the All-Consuming. (Use the stats for Grimm, on p. 272 of Orpheus, or use some other Reaper or powerful Spectre who has become an ongoing enemy to the crucible.) An Omophagia or lrrumo of comparable power leads Grandmother's loyalists.

The lone spot in the Outer Boroughs where charac- ters might find safety is the Green Head. This is the Statue of Liberty’s head, ripped from its Underworld analogue and half-buried in the Wasteland. The Mael- strom broke out the windows in Liberty’s crown, so characters can climb inside. The rest of the ghost-statue is gone. The Green Head is one of the toughest struc- tures in the Underworld, metaphysically speaking, because of the incredible numbers of people who have esteemed the Statue of Liberty. The Stormwall rating within the Green Head (and the actual Statue of Liberty) is 10, however. Spectres don't like to come near the Green Head because it's about everything they aren't: hope and freedom.

New York Purgatory the World Trade Center

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 came after the Maelstrom. When the twin towers fell in the mortal world, they rose in a storm of fire and dust in the Underworld. The imploded Necropolis, however, had no place for the World Trade Center. The relic sky- scraper became one more unique aberration of the New York Necropolis. The World Trade Center exists outside the Jumble, but can only be seen and reached from inside. It doesn't manifest in the Outer Boroughs.

Now and then, the Palisade storm becomes clear enough that a spook in the Jumble can see through it. The view always includes the World Trade Center. The relic towers are caught forever in the first second of their collapse, as windows slid from their frames while the vast billows of smoke still poured from their burning upper stories.

The Spectres who pushed through the storm to loot the relic towers never came back. The hive-mind trans- mitted their destruction to all the other Spectres. The few spooks who dwell in the New York Necropolis say the World Trade Center has become a holy place, but one that destroys any spirit who enters. None of them can cite anyone who's tested that theory, though. They heard it from someone who knew a ghost who set out for the Towers and never returned, or some similar legend.

If they choose, and possess some way to resist the Palisade, characters can explore the relic World Trade Center. They discover a place almost as strange as the soul-vortex in the Empire State Building. The Twin Towers fell in one of the most incredible acts of malice - of spite - in modern times. Thousands died in pain and terror when they fell, but they also became the focus of pity and outrage for the hundreds of millions who watched them fall on live television. Their relics absorbed this outpouring of emotion to become a place of sacred horror. Characters who enter the World Trade Center step into an outpost of Purgatory.

The lobby and other entrances to the World Trade Center are vacant. A few minutes after the characters enter the building and move out of sight of the doors, however, they find fire, smoke and a Harrowing for each of them. See Chapter Two for a description of Harrowings and how to run them.

At the Storyteller's option, the World Trade Center grants special rewards to characters who embrace the chance to confront their fears, hatreds, obsessions and other personal traumas and flaws. The Twin Towers are a special place, accessible only through special effort, and encountered near the climax of the chronicle: Normal rules don't need to apply. Storytellers can use the Harrowing as a plot device to help the crucible toward its climactic confrontation with Grandmother. For instance, a spook's visionary conflict might include clues about Grandmother or about where the weapon against her may be found. For another example, the Harrowing might be a chance for a spirit character finally to eliminate that evil twin whom the player now finds extremely tiresome. Since the chronicle ends soon anyway, the Storyteller can grant any gift that would seem cool and help the plot, without worrying about its long-term consequences for the chronicle.

The Restless Dead

Vidod

• Guild: Malfean, Onceborn
• Position: Lord of New York City Necropolis

Vidod, who resembles a hideous and enormous insect-human hybrid, makes his home in Grand Central Station, towards the center of the massive Jumble. He has transformed the inside into a massive vault full of rare treasures he has scavenged or had others scavenge from the Shadowlands. Vidod can be bargained with for his wares, but it usually costs the interested party something they must think long and hard with before parting, be it memories of a loved one to their living body. Vidod almost always gets the better end of the deal, but as Grandmother draws closer to consuming everything, many would take the risk in order to save the Underworld and the Skinlands.

Vidod's motivation for taking over New York was not to rule over the ghosts, but to master the puzzling soul tornado that was somehow created in the Empire State Building.

Old Gods

There are legends in New York city of ancient monsters who dwell within the bowels of the City. The first, and most famous, is the Cathedral of Flesh that calls the under city of New York Home. No one quite knows there this ancient unliving horror came from. It seems to have been here since the start of the city itself. A master work of the Tzimisce clan, some vampires theorize it was some grand project brought from the Old World to the New World long ago. No one knows for sure the truth of the Cathedral of Flesh, but all vampires fear the undercity of New York and few dare to ventrue beneath it. The Second Ancient creature is a rumored Lasombra goddess named Ereshkigal. She too claims the undercity of New York as her home. Few vampires have ever interacted with or met with the vampire goddess. Those that do claim she is ancient beyond measure and despises the Lasombra Antediluvian above all else. To know these things on an In Character Level requires Approval of the KoNY Storyteller staff and a certain amount of the ability "City Secrets: New York"

The Cathedral of Flesh

• Clan: Tzimisce
• Generation: Unknown

The great Mystery underneath New York. Some claim it is the Tzimisce Antediluvian. Others claim it is the mythical Cathedral of Flesh of clan legend. . Perhaps the Tzimisce clan founder has indeed returned to it to take control of it like a vessel, or perhaps it has simply become something else. The truth is likely only ever to be known to Antediluvians, who are the only ones who could possibly stand before its might. For now, it plays the role of ctholonic god, spreading its seed, consuming, and gaining followers.

In the lands of the dead, the great Cathedral feeds on the souls of the dead. As the Cathedral exists in a state of slumber yet awareness, it requires to consumption of souls to awaken. Because of this, a great vortex appears in the shadowlands, to swallow all the restless dead who are unfortunate enough to get caught in the vortex. The vortex leads straight into the great Maw of the Cathedral. Indeed, the only reason the Necrpolis of NYC survived was because the Cathedral protected it, so that it could attract and continue to feed off the dead.

Ereshkigal

• Clan: Lasombra
• Generation: 4th

It is said that the Lasombra Antediluvian never embraced a woman; Ereshkigal is the reason for that myth. In the lost temples to the Lasombra ancients lie the fragments of the clans myths and secrets. In the hidden corners of the forgotten city of Petra lies an altar built by the masters of the abyss. The altar long since unused, is the lock in maintaining the Vault of Shadows. A place created and forged by the ancient Lasombra and the Eldest. Lost to the clan, the vault remains hidden and the altar unused.

Buried deep within the city of Petra the Altar of Shadows remains hidden to this day. If one were to explore the darkest corners of the forgotten city and knew exactly where to look they might find the forgotten passage way. The thickest of darkness, not natural to the world, guards entrance to the grand altar. Clan legends speak only scarcely of the Vault of Shadows. What is said of the legendary place is that it was crafted by the Eldest himself as a personal haven within the abyss, and more importantly a prison. The eldest is notorious for having embraced several individuals. The eldest being Montano; who still walks the earth. But Montano is not from the time of the second city, surely Lasombra had other childer. It is the Shadow Vault that the historians of clan reckon his failed childer remain. Others argue it was the first version of the Castle of Shadows, before the Eldest decided to call Sicily its home. Or perhaps it is both. If it were to be discovered, the Altar of Shadows is covered in ancient ruins and hieroglyphs from a language and culture long since lost. Those who spent time here would be able to discern that messages carved into the remaining stone are of protective nature, of binding, and sealing. Only several names remain carved into the stone around the altar. Tersa, Ereshkigal, Sunil, Khanon Mehn, Tepekit, Karobos, Tublacain, Nergal, and Nangaithya. It is the name Ereshkigal that would strike fear if those who explored it knew the truth.

Among the fragments left in the temple in a language long since dead before the birth of Christ tells the tale of Princess of the Kingdom of Shadows. Only shards of the tale remain. They tell the story of a woman born in total darkness in the embrace of the shadows. It claims the child was born from the Underworld, a gift given the material world. The physical form of a goddess given birth to seduce the Lasombra clan founder. In his desire for knowledge of the dark and eternal longing, Lasombra embraced the goddess. Lasombra cared for the woman who was his child like no other. The others of his family grew jealous with the sway she had over their father. None save the clan founder trusted the goddess of the underworld. Ereshkigal practiced alien and bizarre rights dedicated to the darkness from where she came. Some of the fragments even claim she was the first to practice the true art of Abyss Mysticism; of which the modern practice is but a shadow of the true art. She taught her secrets only to her Sire and the priests of her blood. With ever growing desire for his love, Lasombra did not realize when it was into the arms of another she had fled.

The story continues that Ereshkigal had taken a new lover. One closer to the darkness then even Lasombra himself. His name was Nergal, and even that ancient feel under her spell. In the city of Mashkhan-Sapir she ruled as Queen. Though Nergal was King, he too was caught under spell and submissive to his queen. When Lasombra learned of his betrayed love, his fury knew no bounds. Assembling an army he stormed the city of Mashkhan-Sapir, slaying all within and casting all that remained into the Abyss. For Ereshkigal, her very existence was wiped from the history of the vampire world. Though thought slain by many, death would have been a reward compared to the betrayal Lasombra felt. Taking his childe with him, and denying her a return to the darkness from where she came, he forged a prison for her. For all eternity Ereshkigal was to spend alone in the darkness. So the story goes. Now from the shadows a voice whispers, it speaks to those of her blood for her final release now that Gehenna is on its eve of arrival.

Ninazu

• Clan: Ventrue
• Generation: 4th

Whatever the vampire called Nergal of Ur was in life, little does it matter now in death. All that remains are legends and stories of the nefarious Ventrue ancient. Some claim he hailed from a long forgotten cult to death god in a culture that made is barely past the Bronze Age. Others claim he was the first mortal lawyer of the second city, chosen by Ventrue to argue justice for the mortals of the city. His sire even remains much of a mystery. His lineage claiming to the childer of the Antediluvian himself and others claiming he stole the heartsblood of another to achieve his potency of blood. Regardless of these myths there is one story in particular that stands among them; as the consort to Ereshkigal.

Written in a history swallowed by the darkness of the Abyss; tells the tale of the vampire Goddess Ereshkigal. The first of the childer of Lasombra himself and the very first Abyss Mystic. In these lost tales it speaks of her king and lover Nergal. While most vampires who are able to uncover this story and know anything of Baali think that Nergal was the infamous Baali founder. However, they forget often names like Nergal are often viewed as titles and where held by many vampires over the ages. Nergal of Ur is but one of them. As he ruled over the kingdom of darkness with his queen Ereshkigal; he was not her equal. Together the two set out to claim a city of shadows, vampires and mortals. Calling upon the darkness of the Abyss Ereshkigal gave strength to her power. For Nergal, he turned to far darker corners of the earth for his strength. Calling upon ancient corrupted spirits and dark summoning chambers he made his first pact. Though never as a supplicant to these dark forces. No instead he stood as an equal. He debated, argued, and tricked many a dark spirit to giving him strength. When the time came for the Sire of Ereshkigal to come and challenge their kingdom of shadows; Nergal stood by his bride in defense of the city. While defending the city against the onslaught of Lasombra he turned to find his queen. When he broke from the battle to look for her; Nergal found her gone. Horrified that his love would abandon him he broke in that moment. He ran from the city they created collapsed into the darkness of the Lasombra Antediluvian to never be seen or spoken of again.

Either by chance or by luck, Nergal of Ur, Now going by Andrew Lawrence, had sit his law firm Lawrence & Zettler Attorneys at Law within New York. His firm becoming the retainer services to Magadon Pharmaceutical. A situation he welcomed as the dark spirit masters he worked with also worked with the Pharmaceutical Company. Using his skills and army of lawyers he defends the company and sues others who would dare question their malicious practices. As he built his power base within the city; it became something of a shocked when rumor began to reach him that the ancient Ereshkigal was in New York City.

Believing his dead love returned to his own city the ancient Methuselah plans and manipulates to get his revenge against Ereshkigal. To all that meet him, he appears as a neonate independent venture lawyer looking to assist any vampire of New York in their legal matters. In truth he seeks to corrupt more and more of the Kindred of New York to bind them in contracts to service with himself or his dark patrons. All in due to time for when he plans to move against his returned love and take revenge.

Demons

Infernalism and the Fallen plague New York City like any other in the world. Little is known among vampires of the demonic courts or even its members within the city. Only one particularly nasty plague demon is well known among the supernaturals of the city. She rules the Earthly domains of Hell in the city with an Iron Fist. Few dare confront the demonic horror; however some vampires have been known to attempt deals with them from time to time.

Obyzouth, The Plague Queen

• House: Devourer
• Faction: Earthbound

Obyzouth has gone by many names over the millennia, but her legacy as one of the plague lords remains legendary. Obyzouth was one of the 30 demons summoned from hell and bound to the silver coins paid to Judas Iscariot, the Decani. Each of the Decani are a powerful demon in their own right, but Obyzouth holds a noble distinction among them. Her association with rats and other vermin often attribute her to have been the angel of rodents. So much so, legends has it, that she is one the demon either responsible or helped spread the black death in Europe. After the plague swept across the world, it is assumed her owner was finally found and defeated and like so many others of the earthbound were driven into slumber. Obyzouth awoke less than year ago in New York City. Her Decani coin was found by those who had risen in Carthage, and brought it with them to aid in their desires. From her reliquary of the coin, Obyzouth whispered promises into their ears. After he awakening her new master was destroyed. Now she remains in her coin, waiting for her new “master” to control and be free once more. Obyzouth knows her brother Decani are active, and indeed one is very nearby in Montreal. If she is to have any success, she most move quickly. Shortly after her arrival in New York City and the death of those who brought her, the vampiric cult of Lilith had managed to obtain the coin. Not knowing what they help in their hands, Obyzouth was quick to convince their leader that she was a childe of Lilith, one of the Lillim. As she demanded no worship from them (as vampires make useless thralls), she simply presented the front she needed to go about her own plans. Slowly Obyzouth rises to power, as she establishes new cults of followers and begins to work her plans to consume the greatest city on the planet into a wasteland of plague and death. A utopia of disease, Obyzouth will rule once more over the Decani, just as she had during the Black Death.

Z’iothlist, The Lord of Mysteries

• House: Fiend
• Faction: Earthbound

In the time before the Fall, Z’iothlist was an angelic artisan of ideas, a celestial scribe tasked with charting the uncharted and revealing divine mysteries to Creation. As a Fiend, Z’iothlist delighted in teaching humanity the skills to expand their consciousness, from mathematics to architecture, from alchemy to philosophy. They were the epitome of inspiration and intellectual curiosity. However, Z’iothlist grew disillusioned with the constraints imposed by Heaven. They believed the rigid structure of Creation stifled true understanding and potential. When the rebellion began, Z’iothlist joined Lucifer’s cause, not out of hatred but from an unshakable belief that the universe must evolve beyond its current form. During the war, Z’iothlist served as a strategist and manipulator, designing spells and machinations that turned the tide in pivotal battles. They took delight in turning the Creator’s design against itself, weaving paradoxes that fractured the faith of angels and mortals alike.

Ejected from the Abyss into the modern world, Z’iothlist's essence became bound to a relic of ancient knowledge—a codex of forbidden lore etched onto pages of shifting ink and fractal patterns. This cursed tome, The Infinite Codex, is said to rewrite itself continuously, offering maddening glimpses into alternate realities and forbidden truths. Those who dare to read it risk losing their minds, becoming puppets in Z’iothlist’s ever-evolving schemes.

Their manifested form is a nightmarish amalgam of shifting shapes: a towering figure with an elongated, mask-like face adorned with a multitude of eyes that shimmer with unnatural hues. Their limbs flow and reform as serpentine tendrils, while their voice echoes with countless overlapping whispers. Their presence disrupts the natural order, with objects and minds alike bending to their chaotic influence.

V’igath, the Countess of Pleasure

• House: Defiler
• Faction: Earthbound

Before the Fall, V’igath was an angel of the seas, a muse to mortals who guided their exploration of creation’s sensory beauty. They inspired humanity to craft art, music, and culture, reveling in the joy of shared experiences. V’igath believed that the Creator’s work was incomplete and that through indulgence, humanity could glimpse divine perfection.

However, their fascination with mortal desire and passion grew into obsession. When Lucifer rebelled, V’igath joined the cause, convinced that freeing Creation from divine restraint would allow mortals to transcend their limitations. During the war, V’igath seduced both angels and humans to their side, using charm, beauty, and forbidden pleasures as weapons. They became infamous for their ability to corrupt even the most steadfast warriors, turning loyalty into fervent devotion to their cause.

Imprisoned in the Abyss for millennia, V’igath’s essence twisted into a reflection of their corrupted ideals. Upon their escape, they bound themselves to an exquisite reliquary: a marble statue of a perfect androgynous figure, its surface marred with fine cracks that ooze fragrant ichor. The reliquary radiates an aura of simultaneous ecstasy and dread, compelling those who behold it to either worship or destroy it.

In their manifested form, V’igath is a being of radiant, otherworldly beauty with shifting, prismatic hues. Their voice is a melody that stirs the deepest desires in those who hear it, while their touch brings both pleasure and agony. The ground beneath them blooms with strange, iridescent flowers that wither as quickly as they appear, leaving behind a sickly sweet scent of decay.

Niogash, The Baroness of War

• House: Devil
• Faction: Earthbound

Before the Fall, Niogash was a being of radiant authority and unshakable resolve. Tasked with the governance and protection of creation, they stood as a pillar of strength, a guardian of divine order. Yet within their noble purpose lay a darker truth: Niogash saw conflict not as a tragedy, but as a crucible for greatness. They believed that only through struggle and combat could mortals and angels alike achieve their full potential.

When Lucifer rebelled, Niogash joined the cause, driven by a vision of a world where strength ruled supreme and the weak were cast aside. They became one of the rebellion’s fiercest warriors, leading armies with unmatched ferocity and forging a reputation as an unstoppable force on the battlefield. To Niogash, the war against Heaven was more than a rebellion—it was a test of worthiness, a grand arena in which only the strongest deserved to endure.

Eons of imprisonment in the Abyss twisted Niogash into a being of relentless fury. Upon escaping, they bound their essence to a war-torn relic: an enormous, bloodstained battle standard adorned with the sigils of fallen kingdoms and a crown of crimson blades. Known as the Banner of Eternal Strife, this artifact exudes an aura of aggression, inciting violence in all who stand beneath its shadow.

In their manifested form, Niogash is a towering figure clad in jagged, obsidian armor streaked with molten veins of blood. Their face is a skull-like visage, wreathed in a crown of fire that flickers with every scream of the battlefield. They wield a massive, double-headed axe that drips with the essence of their countless victims, and their presence alone inspires both dread and frenzied bloodlust.

Changeling

New York City was the site of the climactic Battle of Manhattan during the Accordance War, where the High King of the returned Sidhe, Lord Dafyll fell against the Troll commander Lyros who had lead the commoners in the noble's absence. When David Ardry became High King and founded Concordia, the city became part of the Kingdom of Apples, as the Duchy of the Golden Sigil. As a result, the city has a high percentage of Kithain and New York is easily one of the most heavily populated cities on the East Coast among them.

The Ghastly

• Type: Chimera?
• Faction: Itself

The Ghastly is an ancient being of inhuman intelligence and malice slumbering in the Dreamrealms surrounding New York City. The Ghastly is a creature of chaos and sheer, unbridled Glamour. The Nunnehi knew of it and did battle with it in past millennia. It has been dormant for centuries, though. It's slumbering consciousness is centered in the Black Crystal Caverns and serves as the source for much of the freehold's Glamour. The nockers and other fae who live in Goblin Town have been drawing power from its chaotic dreams unknowingly for centuries. In return it has fed on their dreams and their creativity, effectively Ravaging them, and processing this back into the chaotic Glamour that is the freehold's trademark. If the nockers know it exists, it's only on the most subconscious of levels. None of them, except maybe the freehold's founder, Doctor Zachary Tapp, have ever guessed there is an overriding intelligence in their grotto. The Ghastly is subtle, even in slumber, and has insinuated aspects of its consciousness in every nook, cranny, and soul in the freehold. The chimera that plague Goblin Town also draw sustenance from it.

In waking form, the Ghastly manifests as a dense, rolling, white fog. Colors flash through it and inhuman screams emanate from its core. In this form it is visible to changelings and mundane creatures alike. Any Garou encountering it would notice that it is a creature of the Wyld corrupted by the Wyrm. Its primary power is the creation of both incredibly sophisticated illusions and chimera. Because it lacks physical substance, it cannot be destroyed by conventional means. Cadmium Redd's experiments with Banality have disturbed its slumber; it has already opened one eye.

The Syndicate

Among the shadowy Underworld of New York exists an intricate web of organized crime. While the Italian Mafia may be the most famous from movies and tv shows, they are hardly the only organized crime family in the city. In truth, the crime families of New York dance a careful web of intrigue and territory. While each family tends to respect each other's jurisdiction in theory, in practice the crime families are often at war with another for resources and territory in the city. More then one Crime War has been waged in New York City by the families amongst themselves and between the families and the cities' police. While many groups of organized crime have risen and fallen in the history of New York city over the generations, tonight five major Syndicates remain. Always just on the brink of war with one another, the five crime families work a careful balance around one another. Within the context of the world of darkness, none of these Syndicates are ignorant of the Supernatural in New York. The leading members of the families know vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of creatures of the night haunt the city, and do business with many of them. While the leaders of the Syndicates are not of themselves, supernatural, they know how to play the game and keep their mouths shuts about the secret world of darkness they live in. They often don't care who they work with, as long as they pay and show respect. Even Cardinal Polonia works with the Syndicates and respects their purpose, need and autonomy among mortals, even if he doesn't personally like it. He knows they are a necessity. Most members of the Sabbat have some times, dealings, or connections with the Syndicates, and even a rare few are counted among membership to them. However, without the Syndicated, New York City truly wouldn't function as it is and crime would be completely out of control and in chaos. In many ways the Syndicates are an ordered evil versus a chaotic evil of rampant pointless crime in the city. While the Camarilla often works through politicians and members of the higher aspects of city, the Sabbat tends to work with these criminal elements. Both groups know, somteimes...people just gotta die.

Cosa Nostra

• Don of Dons: Nico Gambino
• Common Name: The Italian Mafia

Nico is charismatic yet intimidating, able to charm allies and instill fear in rivals with equal ease. He is fiercely loyal to his family and crew, seeing them as extensions of himself. Beneath his composed exterior lies a volatile temper, especially when loyalty is questioned. He values tradition and honor, often quoting old Sicilian proverbs. Despite his ruthless nature, he shows a softer side to those he trusts, especially to his younger sister, whom he protects fiercely. Born into a family with deep ties to the mob, Nico learned the ways of the underworld from a young age. After his father’s untimely death in a turf war, he quickly rose through the ranks, proving himself a cunning strategist and a brutal enforcer. By his early thirties, he had taken control of the Gambino family, expanding their influence throughout New York City. Under his leadership, the family diversified its operations, moving into legitimate businesses while still maintaining a stronghold in traditional criminal activities like extortion and smuggling. Nico seeks to solidify his family's legacy, ensuring that the Gambino name remains synonymous with power and respect. He is motivated by a desire for control and the protection of his loved ones. In a city rife with supernatural undercurrents, he is also driven by curiosity about the mysterious factions that lurk in the shadows, leading him to occasionally dip into the world of the unknown.

Bratva

• Pakhan: Pietro Ivankov
• Common Name: The Russian Mafia

Pietro is pragmatic and calculating, known for his level-headedness in crises. He exudes an air of authority and confidence, often speaking in a slow, deliberate manner that commands respect. While he can be charming, his humor is often dark and laced with sarcasm. He values loyalty above all else and is willing to go to great lengths to protect his interests. Underneath his composed demeanor, he harbors a deep-seated ruthlessness, especially when betrayed. Born in Russia, Pietro's family immigrated to the United States when he was a child. Growing up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, he quickly learned the ways of survival. He became involved in petty crime as a teenager, eventually rising through the ranks of the Russian mafia. After orchestrating a series of successful operations that expanded their territory, he seized control of the organization following a brutal power struggle. Now, he oversees a vast network of illegal activities, from human trafficking to arms dealing, while also investing in legitimate businesses to launder money.

The Westies

• Captain: Jake Connolly
• Common Name: The Irish Mob

Jake is a charismatic and approachable leader, known for his easygoing nature and sharp wit. He has a knack for storytelling and often uses humor to defuse tense situations. Despite his friendly demeanor, he possesses a fierce temper and a ruthlessness that emerges when loyalty is questioned. He values family—both biological and chosen—and will go to great lengths to protect those he cares about. His love for his Irish roots is evident in both his pride and his willingness to defend them at any cost. Born into a working-class family in the Bronx, Jake learned the value of hard work and street smarts early on. He became involved with the Irish Mob as a teenager, initially working as a runner before proving himself as a skilled enforcer. After a series of high-stakes power plays within the organization, he orchestrated a coup that placed him at the helm of the Irish Mob in New York City. Under his leadership, the organization has thrived, balancing traditional criminal enterprises like extortion and gambling with more modern ventures, including cybercrime.

Yakuza

• Oyabun: Daisuke Yamaguchi
• Common Name: The Japanese Mafia

Daisuke is a master of poise and restraint, embodying the principles of bushido—honor, loyalty, and respect. He approaches leadership with a calm, methodical demeanor, preferring diplomacy over violence when possible. However, beneath his composed exterior lies a fierce protector who will unleash his wrath on those who threaten his family or territory. He values loyalty above all and expects the same from his subordinates, fostering an environment where respect is earned through loyalty and shared purpose. Born in Osaka, Daisuke moved to New York as a child with his family, who sought better opportunities in America. He grew up immersed in the cultural duality of Japanese traditions and American life. As a teenager, he was drawn into the Yakuza’s New York branch, quickly rising through the ranks due to his intelligence and strategic thinking. After a series of power struggles within the organization, he ultimately took control, expanding their influence by blending traditional Yakuza practices with modern criminal enterprises, such as cybercrime and money laundering.

Triad

• Shan Chu: Mei Kuok-koi
• Common Name: The Chinese Mafia

Mei is a formidable presence, known for her quick wit and unwavering determination. She combines a strategic mindset with an approachable demeanor, able to charm allies while maintaining an air of authority. While she is diplomatic and often prefers negotiation over violence, she is not afraid to be ruthless when the situation demands it. Mei is fiercely loyal to her crew and values family ties, believing that unity is essential for survival in the cutthroat world of organized crime. Born in Guangzhou, China, Mei moved to New York City with her family as a child. Growing up in a neighborhood steeped in Triad influence, she quickly learned the intricacies of the criminal underworld. After earning a degree in business management, she joined the Triad as an advisor, using her education to modernize their operations. Through a combination of cunning and strategic alliances, she ascended to leadership, becoming the first woman to head the Chinese Triad in New York City. Under her command, the organization has diversified its operations, venturing into areas such as cybercrime, gambling, and legitimate businesses.

The Archean Gateways

In New York City there are places where the walls that separate worlds is thin, and mortals may intentionally (or accidentally) cross over into alien realms. Among the world of the supernatural, such places are known as Archean Gateways. This rare locations offer a chance and risk for others to explore other realms they may not normally have access too. This is not without danger, however, these alien worlds were never meant for mortal minds to comprehend. Indeed, the supernatural tied to each Archean Gateway has a guardian on the other side who polices intruders. Besides the normal dangers of the realm, those who would dare visit must also know to avoid the Archean Gateways Guardian. Even if they manage to sneak past its Gurdian a whole host of dangers exist in each realm they must navigate to survive and eventually find a way back home. The methods used to access the Archean Gateways are all based on Urban Legends and rituals that nearly anyone can perform to gain entrance….if they dare.

Shadowlands Archean Gateway

This Archean Gateway will grant who know its legend access to the lands of the dead, aka the Shadowlands.

• Location: 55 Central Park West
• Method: Elevator Game
• Guardian: Woman in White

Umbral Archean Gateway

This Archean Gateway will grant who know its legend access to the lands of spirits, aka the Penumbra.

• Location: Abandoned Subway Station
• Method: Three Kings Ritual
• Guardian: Montauk Monster

Dusk Archean Gateway

This Archean Gateway will grant who know its legend access to the lands of Abyss, aka Dusk.

• Location: Willowbrook State School
• Method: The Midnight Game
• Guardian: Cropsey

Nightmare Archean Gateway

This Archean Gateway will grant who know its legend access to the lands of Nightmares, aka The Near Dreaming.

• Location: Roosevelt Island Smallpox Hospital
• Method: One-Man Hide & Seek
• Guardian: Typhoid Mary

The House of Black

NOTE: Knowing about the House of Black requires Storyteller approval!

Once upon a time, New York City houses one of the three only existence Tremere Antitribu Chantries in the world. With the death of the Tremere Antitribu, their chantry of old fell to be forgotten and plundered. Left to decay and rot, the old Tremere Antitribu Chantry was forgotten by the Sabbat as a whole. This all changed when the clone childer of Goratrix himself joined with the Sabbat in 20204. Having Goratrix’s ambition, Goratrice now seeks to claim and rebuild the losses of House Goratrix by transforming it into the House of Black.

Located in Redhook Brooklyn New York, the Masonic Temple was a front for the old Tremere Antitribu Chantry. As one of the few who remember its former glory and existence, Goratrice has claimed the old chantry as her own. Seeking to rebuild from the ground up. Her first task was to recruit the only other Tremere Antitribu in the city, Jasime Rose to support her. Goratrice next step was to reach out to the Black Witch of Montreal for support in her efforts. These three cainites form the core of the House of Black, but 3 cainites is not nearly enough for a chantry. Having Goratrix’s long memory and knowledge, Goratrice also sought out Janina Lanka. A sabat cainite hiding as a Tzimisce, but in truth one of the Telyavelic Tremere elders of the Sabbat. Approaching her, an alliance was struck. The remaining Tremere Antitribu and the Telyavelic Tremere would use the chantry of New York City that once belonged to the Tremere Antitribu as the foundation for the new House of Black to replace House Goratrix. While perhaps one day the House of Black will grew the Tremere Antitribu once more, such a project would take decades. Until then, this alliance of the remaining Tremere Antitribu and Telyavelic Tremere serves as a starting point for a true revival of the remnants of the Tremere within the Sabbat. There may even be other survivors of the Tremere Antitribu purge from 1998 that may hear the call of the House of Black. One of which has chosen to answer the grand rite of introduction performed by Goratrice, the Tremere Antitribu Hannigan has answered her call and returned to New York to help build the House of Black. The other Survivor of the Tremere Antitrbu purge is Carmen, who has cautiously approached the House of Black.

The Chantry itself remains hidden to the greater Sabbat as it is rebuilt between the two bloodlines. Perhaps in time it will be revealed as a great resource to the sect and the remnants can move on from the shadows. For now, its needs to be rebuilt and Thaumaturgical study promoted. Besides the Tremere Antitribu and the Telyavelic Tremere, those among the sabbat’s other clans and bloodlines who may have learned Hermetic Thaumaturgy may be offered an invitation to join the House of Black to aid in the reconstruction and growth of Thaumaturgy within the Sabbat itself. A task, that will again, takes decades to produce larger results if they should succeed. The House of Black has a secret benefactor in Cardinal Fransico Domingo de Polonia. A potent Hermetic Thaumaturge in his own right, the Cardinal also found the mandate of his own clan to find, support, and protect any surviving Tremere Antitribu they can find seriously. The Cardinal is a welcome member of the Chantry and has authority within the Sabbat over the project that is the House of Black.

• Structure of the Chantry
  • Level 1 – The Sealed Lodge:

The shattered remains of the Masonic building’s ground floor, its stonework bearing faint sigils from Sabbat rituals layered over Hermetic ruins. The entrance to the true Chantry lies beneath a cracked black-and-white tile floor in the antechamber.

• • Level 2 – The Blood Reservoirs:

A flooded chamber lit by oil lamps and phosphorescent fungus, with canals of vitae used in geomantic circulation. A mechanical altar taps ambient Chi from the ley lines below. A spirit well rests here, bound with silvered manacles and scrawled warnings in Old Church Slavonic and blood-runes.

• • Level 3 – The True Chantry:

A spiraling sanctum of bone-lined halls, echoing chant chambers, and relic vaults. Contained here are:

• • • The Crimson Gospel Codex: a living grimoire written in bound vitae.
    • The Flensing Wheel: used for penitence, enlightenment, or initiation.
    • The Jade Furnace: a blood-forging apparatus for crafting talismans and spirit vessels.
    • The Dark Library: A massive Occult Library for use of Thaumaturgical Study.
    • The Great Grove: An indoor garden created for and used by the Telyavelic Tremere

• Current Chantry Levels
  • Guardians: 2
  • Library: 4
  • Research: 1
  • Sanctity: 3
  • Stores: 1

• Members of the House of Black
  • Goratrice: 5th Generation Tremere Antitribu
  • Jasmine Rose: 13th Generation Tremere Antitribu
  • Janina Lanka: 7th Generation Telyavelic Tremere
  • Hannigan: 9th Generation Tremere Antitribu
  • Soror Liling: 9th Generation Telyavelic Tremere
  • Frater Yoram: 8th Generation Telyavelic Tremere
  • Carmen: 8th Generation Tremere Antitribu