January 29, 2010

Last week Monica filled everyone in on Lavender the Daeva; this week I’m here to tell you about the next member of the coterie: Blake Porter, Ventrue bon-vivant.

Most of this week was taken up in getting a prospective new player up to speed on the setting and situation of our game. As a result, not as much happened as usual this week, but here are some of the highlights:

The Prince held court this week, as is usual for the last Friday of the month. Lavender took her young ward Kyle — also a Daeva — along with us to court, and he was dressed to the nines. Several of the prominent female Kindred at court proclaimed Kyle the “best-dressed man in the room.” Blake will have to put some effort into contesting that title in the future.

Several announcements were made at court; the blood hunt called against those responsible for diablerizing the Regent of the Chicago River is still active, and it was clear from the nature of his comments that Prince Maxwell is growing impatient with the apparent lack of progress. Likewise he is showing little patience for the Carthians at this time, and word seems to have gotten around; very few of that covenant are in attendance this evening. In fact, overall attendance is sparse; bad weather at the time in real-life Chicago (Events of the day in real time have an affect on our game) makes hunting more difficult, requiring many Kindred to spend more time on the hunt, limiting their availability for other activities.

Kyle came to us by chance; our coterie was involved in a raid of a group of Kindred who were messing with the status quo; Kyle is a recently embraced Daeva who was part of that group. Since the raid was successful and the group broken up, Kyle and a friend were on their own. They were attacked by Kindred who appeared to be from the same group as those who killed the Regent of the Chicago River; Kyle’s friend was (he thinks) killed by them, but Kyle escaped. The only people Kyle could think of who were bad enough to protect him was us; it should be clarified that, while were are not terribly tough in Kindred terms, we were part of the group that took down Kyle’s coterie, and that seems to have made an impression on him. In any case, he is now another pair of eyes and ears working Division Street for us — something we could definitely use at this time.

A bit more about Blake. Blake Porter (who used to be called Anton Porter) was sired during the night of indulgence called by the Prince three years ago. Otherwise, siring childer is forbidden in Chicago. For one thing, there’s already a lot of vampires in town; too many are an obvious threat to the Masquerade, so keeping a low profile is desirable. Blake’s sire — a member of the Invictus, just like the Prince — went north to Milwaukee to expand the Prince’s influence, leaving Blake a bit high and dry. Granted a boon by the Prince, Blake has been declared independent of his sire – effective ending his period of “apprenticeship,” so to speak. This means that there’s a lot Blake doesn’t know yet. To help combat this lack of experience, Blake’s sire left behind a trusted ghoul, lawyer Morton Carpenter, to keep an eye on Blake. Since Blake was still relatively young at the time of his embrace, he had only begun to make arrangements for the time when he would have to appear to die and assume a new identity. Fortunately, those preparations were well advanced. In discovering the culprits behind the Regent’s demise, Lavender and Blake (then Anton) were attacked by them. Blake was hurt badly enough that he couldn’t escape on his own before the police arrived; he voluntarily fell into torpor and played “dead” to make for a convincing crime scene. When revived, Anton assumed the identity of his fictitious nephew, Blake, and after laying low for a while began life as his new identity with the help of Carpenter.

Blake and Lavender intend to start up a business tracking down occult items for the Invictus; since this was previously the purview of members of the Lancaea Sanctum, the Circle of the Crone, and the Ordo Dracul, Blake and Lavender hope to open a new market and carve a fresh niche for themselves — as well as a unique way to earn themselves status in the Invictus and the City. In all likelihood, such status will earn them a few enemies, too…

If you’re interested in catching up on what’s happened so far, read:

Tags | game night, vampire the requiem