~ Circus Vampires ~
Dear Akhenmosis drew 4 of our PCs from our VtM in Y2K Germany Campaign from the OrkenspalterTV Live Stream. Didn't she just NAIL the art style form 1990s Vampire: The Masquerade source books?! She really got that Tim Bradstreet vibe working here, I think. So meet our circus of misfits: Irina the contortionist and founder of the Circus, her daughter Lizzy, the mentalist (both Tzimisce), Arnauld the knife "thrower" (Tremere) and Marius (Lasombra)
Those characters are vampiric Circus Artists trying to somehow avoid being claimed by either sect, avoiding Camarilla, Sabbat and Anarchs alike - and working as entertainers for all of them, if they pay.
Irina is the oldest of the bunch. Today a powerful Tzimisce, she was born an albino and sold to a circus as a sideshow attraction by her own parents when she was a child, about 300 years ago. For a while she tried to follow the path of an aristocratic monster to become just like her Sire, but having spend most of her concious life within a Circus, she really struggled to stay in line with his expectations. In the end, she founded our little Circus as a save haven for outsiders, vampires and humans alike, because outcasts are the only humans maybe worth saving in her mind. She is very protective over her artists and workers. Within the Circus ring she acts as a very effective contortionist, using her profession in fleshcrafting. In fight, she's a terrifying force to be reckoned with, using Blood of Acid and Zulo alike with no remorse. Irina became the diablerist of the bunch when Marius convinced her diablerizing a Tzimisce Methusalea they made a deal with was the only way to win against an even older Malkavian... and she endured to tell that tale... She's my PC.
Lizzy is the youngest and newest addition to the Circus, acting as a mentalist within their show by simply working with Auspex. Originally, she didn't survive an intense encounter with the circus, yet was the only dead left in one piece after the event since the group's Gangrel (no depiction of him, sadly) had quite his fun with the group of anarcho goth punks... Irina embraced the recently deceased young woman to question her about their group's motives and decided to keep her afterwards - much to the dismay of her companions, since they were working with the Camarilla at that point and this was a breach of tradition. Lizzy had a kind of sixth sense when she was alive, which manifested into her being exceptionally talented in her use of Auspex. An encounter with the mind of a Malkavian Methusalea left Lizzy blind. However, at one point her mother harvested the eyes of an Assamite Assassin who was paid to slay mother and daughter and gave her child their eyesight back.
Lizzy started of as a throw away NPC we basically recruited and became a new player's character from the following session on.
Arnauld is a Tremere, using Movement of the Mind to pose as a knife thrower, who joined the Circus, pretending to spy on the Tzimisce and her Lasombra accomplice. He and Irina have a strange dynamic going on, since they both cannot leave the old feud of their respective bloodlines alone. However more often than not, they end up strangely in line with their approaches, prooving that in the end, Tzimisce and Tremere really are offsprings of the same source. They often fight about the interpretive authority when teaching Lizzy about vampire history. Over the campaign, Arnauld came to the realization, that the person he acted as, was nothing but a construct his clan created to get him into the Circus and at the necks of Irina and Marius. In a spectacular twist of fate, the "false", artificial Arnauld who was made being on a quest for true freedom and liberty, ended up "killing" the real Arnauld and claiming their shared body as his own. Now he most likely got all his clan hunting for him.
Marius, the Lasombra, is tattooed all over his emanciated body, giving him a skeleton like look. Noone really knows where the ink ends and the shadows hugging his body start. He might be the most enigmatic of the bunch. Originally raised by a Camarilla Toreador, he develloped a deep passion for artistry and beauty, yet always felt somewhat out of place, leading to him joining the Circus. He's Irina's closest confidant in many regards because they both painfully understand the burden of existing right between two worlds without any chance of finding a place they really belong. However, he's still Lasombra after all. Scheming runs through his blood just like the shadows he controls with horrifying precision. He came up with the idea Irina, as the leader of the Circus, could achive the power they needed to get the Camarilla's job done, by diablerizing a Sabbat Tzimisce Methusalea who tried to use them for his own goals. While being anxious about that mere idea at first she finally agreed when their chances became increasingly grim. After the final fight where Marius demonstrated how well he had mastered his shadow war form, he finally left the Circus. Since that day, Irina wonders if he might have planned for her to not survive the diablery, using her protective instincts for her Circus against her to get rid of the Tzimisce and take over her legacy - and left once his plan had failed, only erroding Irina's mental stability yet making her even more powerful. - The Campaign: GM: Mháire Stritter from OrkenspalterTV Players: Irina: Mircalla Tepez Marius: Ben&Paper Lizzy: Lili Arnauld: Eric The game was played at the German channel OrkenspalterTV and can be watched as video on demand on the Youtube Channel "OrkenspalterTV spielt". The playlist "World of Darkness: Vampire V20" contains 11 episodes featuring the 4 characters.
