Madame Wu

Concept: Undying Madame (Jiang Shi from the Night Horrors book)

AKA: No one who has any interaction with her is aware of any other name for her than Grandmother or Madame Wu.   Young men of the Tongs tend to refer to her as “The Old Bitch” but none have ever said so to her face and lived.

Desc: her physical form is that of a typical Jiang-Shi. Clawed bird-like hands, nasty teeth, green and white fur and so on, She presents herself most often in the form of a Chinese woman in her 60’s. Still upright and thin, if a little bit birdlike. Her mien is fairly cold and stern and this is the face she shows to most of her underlings.   A visitor might be shown a markedly sexual seeming of a much younger Chinese woman. Likely to be scantily clad and seemingly ready for action.  If she shows you this face, she means to eat you.

History: Chinatown, in this city, isn’t exactly huge, but like most places that have one, it is, like unto another world entirely. And there ARE people who will be born, live, and maybe even die there without learning a word of English.

     Some decades ago, Grandmother was a living human woman. She wasn’t born or raised her, but she came here with her brother.  Her brother was working for the railroad company and met an ugly and unpleasant end. When this took place, Grandmother turned to the only profession that a young woman in a foreign country could turn to. Prostitution.

   It’s kind of rude to say so, but she had a talent for it. and soon, she was running her own place and her male children and female children kept the business running as she grew older...But as Grandmother grew older, her hunger for more life became an obsession.  Such obsessions lead to studying creepy old stories in creepy old books. And when she found what she was looking for...Or rather what she THOUGHT she was looking for.  She acted on that knowledge using the heart of a virgin would-be customer to the house.

From that point onward, Grandmother was a shadowy presence.  Never truly interested in running the Triad, she would often encourage one of her living offspring to seek that top spot and then would make certain that their competition would meet horrific ends. Usually under her own teeth.  Grandmother only wanted a nice little bordello of her own to run and maybe a few other little places as time went on. Grandmother isn’t greedy. She knows that she won’t be able to corner the market on  prostitution with other organized crime outfits in the city.  Although, she HAS been making it much harder for street hookers to stay independent.  The Black Feather Tong has orders that if they can take a street whore off the street without witnesses , that Grandmother will pay a bounty for each one they bring her alive.  Some of them, end up loaded up with horse and pressed into service in Grandmother’s low overhead porn production facility.  Those women are the lucky ones.

Occasionally, word gets around to the street pimps that Grandmother is making trouble for them. Usually, there are one or more pimps who try to go brace her in her lair.  They never return of course.

Attitude: I provide a necessary commodity to the community. In exchange, I expect to be left alone.

Skills:  Grandmother is a horror in combat, possessing the equivalent of 2 resilience, 2 vigor and,  3 celerity.  She also possesses the Jiang-Shi Abilities:  Dust on the Wind, The Hidden Grave, Mask of a Thousand Faces, and The Wicked Visage.   She has multiple instances of the Living Anchor merit (her mortal descendants in the triad and the tong.) and an unmarked grave in a disused and old corner of the oldest “potter’s field” in town. That grave borders on a part of town that sees a number of disappearances every year anyway.  She’s got decent dots in Brawl. And although her lower soul is in control, she’s taken the time and effort to acquire a business degree’s worth of knowledge.  Also: she’s got plenty of streetwise and takes the time to visit each of her living anchors surreptitiously. She tends to know what's going on in and around the neighborhood like a spider at the center of a great big web. She keeps an eye on her little empire and ruthlessly stomps on any incursions into it. The men who run the triad are terrified of her, but they are thankful that she doesn’t seem to want much or cause the sort of trouble that can’t be dealt with...so far.

Gear: Rarely needs more than a flip phone and a tiny notebook written in Chinese to get things done. In recent years, she’s returned to smoking because she can vape now. She couldn’t abide even the sight of an open flame.

Home: Owns most of 3 city blocks in Little Hong Kong. Her tiny empire is part of an amalgamation of tenement buildings. Tiny apartments cheek by jowl with a restaurant or two, and areas where her tong boys drink and play cards.  Her area is smack in the center of the joining of 4 buildings. This was done to enhance certain geomantic properties. (In fact, if you happen to possess the Ordo Dracul book with the merit “Geomantic Nexus” it would not be out of place here.)  The other benefit of this arrangement is that makes it very difficult for outsiders to even find ,much less assault  the place without having to deal with the number of innocent people, who have little to no idea what’s going on in their midst.

Circle: Grandmother takes a maternalistic  if utterly twisted, interest in her offspring. She’ll work tirelessly to smooth the road for her great and great-great grandchildren. Granted, they are only mortal and not very bright at that, but with Grandmother to show them the way, they cannot fail. Grandmother occasionally has trouble with blood relations of her doing things that she doesn’t find traditional. Like dating white women or having sex with men.  These things tend to get bloody fast.

Story Uses:

“Come in...I felt we should meet and clear up some misunderstandings...”

And then, of course, she’ll show you her nasty teeth.  If your character has anything to do with the skin trade, Grandmother is like one of those jerks in the prison yard. She’ll come around and fuck with you until you find a way to make her stop.

* “You are my favorite. If you want...I can make certain you will rise to the top of the Triad.”

It’s certainly possible that your character might be related to Grandmother by birth or marriage. This could make your life really complicated. Please note that I have made an understatement of some depth.

Connections:

*Has met Don Pentangelli at a function where the head of the Triad was making their annual renewal of agreements. The Triads produce opioid drugs and trade with the mob for guns. At the time, she was able to discern that mystically, the Don is well protected.

* The Vermillion House seems to be aware of her.  She is also aware of them. At present, there have been no overtures on either side.  Their spheres of influence haven't overlapped.

* If Detective Bela Janofski was aware that the legends about Grandmother aren't bullshit, he would likely be her own personal inspector Javert.  As it is, he is investigating hooker disappearances and Narcotics, and Organized Crime task force keeps getting in his way.

* Old man Parker had the first contract with the city for the burial of indigent persons. Grandmother's actual tomb is way out in the back 40 of Parker Mortuary and Black Creek Cemetery  

Don and Trudy Claymore

Concept: Twisted Love Story  (Blood Bathers)

AKA: Over the course of time, Don and Trudy have gone by a variety of names, But over the years they’ve gotten a little complacent and have gone back to referring to one another by their real names. Although they can easily make up a name or two on the fly. Each knows the other well enough that they pick up the others cues instinctually.

Desc: Don is fit as a fiddle with good muscle and plentiful energy. Springy even. He had warm brown eyes and an easy smile that can turn into an iron-hard line in moments. His grip is particularly strong.  Trudy is a real looker with a musical laugh and long brown hair that she normally keeps ponytailed or in boxer braids. She’s firm in all the right places and is as springy as her hubby. One can easily imagine that these two have AMAZING sex. Don smokes like a chimney.

History:Okay. It’s a little ghoulish actually. But It is undoubtedly a love story.  Don was a Marine Corpsman serving in the pacific theater. Trudy was working for the WAVES in that same theater. They met at a USO dance mixer, and although Don was a poor dancer, he WAS pretty handsome and he was smart.(He’s been to Arthur Murray since and is quite adept on the dance floor now.)  They talked long into the evening and found one another interesting.  Whatever else happened that night, Don and Trudy both went back to their respective barracks thinking of the other.  And it might not have gone all weird if not for a particular mission that Don got sent on.

Naval Intelligence had been tracking some signal traffic and had linked it to some specific naval movement. The naval movement led to an uncharted island somewhere 257 miles south and west of Okinawa. The signals traffic had a designator in code but that NI had broken months ago. It indicated that special weapons were being stored on the island. So it became a legitimate military target. A sortie group was assembled and Don was tasked with a group of hard-core marine bad-asses like himself.  They went to the island, made landfall under cover of a storm, and proceeded towards the target. A large temporary warehouse structure.

   Don saw things that day. Things that haunt him occasionally. The Nipponese troops guarding the place were very elite, but thankfully the Marines had brought enough men to do the job. But once inside the structure, the game changed considerably. The commander attacked the men of the fighting 46th with what Don can only assume was some kind of sorcery. He conjured dragons made of mustard gas and sent them screaming down on the marines.  Only 6 men of the sortie group managed to survive this assault when a stray bullet ricochet took down the commander and silence reigned once again.

   But that wasn’t the weird bit.

  The weird bit is that the place was floor to ceiling with books and assorted weird looking tchotchkes. “Special Weapons”?  What in the ever loving fuck was going on here? They got on the horn to the carrier group, who told them to sit tight. When they turned up they had a number of Science-y and academic-looking types with them. Who quickly loaded the place up and brushed off the Marines questions.  

Now in those days, it wasn’t uncommon in clashes with the Nipponese, for Navy and Marine guys to take swords and Nambu pistols off of the deceased officers.  But Don took something a little beyond.  While they were sitting tight, He looked at a couple of the books. There were some that were a bit stomach turning, The pictures I mean. Don doesn’t read Japanese, but he did notice a book with English letters and a title in Latin.  “Calicem in Fame”  To this day, he still doesn’t know what possessed him to stuff that book in his pack...

Don’t worry. That book will turn up again. The Sortie took place on July3 1945. About a month later Hiroshima and Nagasaki had become radioactive flatness and not long after that, Japan sued for peace and people began to be rotated home. Over the course of some weeks, Don and Trudy’s romance had blossomed and once he determined he wasn’t interested in being a career Marine, he got down on his knee and popped the question to Trudy.  Trudy said yes and they went home and began building a life with one another.

6 kids (Trudy’s Catholic) and about 50 years later, Don was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and he started to deteriorate. Refusing to die in some damn antiseptic hospital, he got himself released AMA and went home. While he was busy getting used to the idea that he was going to die. Trudy began going slightly sideways with desperation and of course, selling off heirlooms and stuff because the hospital bills had been nearly ruinous.  Which is how she ran across that copy of “Calicem in Fame”

Now, unlike Don, Trudy was perfectly capable of reading Latin, and out of curiosity began to read the book. It detailed horrific rites and rituals designed to steal the life out of the veins of others.  In fact, it should be understood that this book, was not just a blood bather ritual. it was a COMPENDIUM of blood bather rituals.

Trudy hatched a desperate plan. One dead hippie hitchhiker later. Don woke up refreshed and reinvigorated. and forty years younger. Both were horrified. The act was horrible all by itself. That Trudy had kept the plan from Don also meant that he was a bit in shock over what had happened to him.  And of course, neither one knew exactly what to do since it was now clear that Don would have to disappear before anyone in the family saw him. No. this had not been thought through.

But while Trudy broke down in tears, it became clear that she had done all this out of her love for him and her desire to see that they weren’t parted.

it took two days to liquidate their assets, buy a Winnebago, find a second hippy that no one would miss, burn down the house with both corpses inside (happily mistaken for their bodies) and hit the open road.

That was about 50 years ago. They’ve crisscrossed this great nation of ours, murdering lone travelers and couples whenever they can manage it. While they both are on the lookout for additional occult juice and the occasional book to nudge them in the right direction, they still come back to the “Calicem in Fame” over and over.   They think they may have doped out how to do one of the more powerful rituals in the book...the only problem is that it would take slaughtering about 20 people in one orgy of blood-letting. Granted, they’d have ten whole years and unguessed at power if they can pull it off.

Attitude: “Me and the Mrs, We’ve seen a thing or two on our travels. And you know, we just like trading stories with good Americans like yourselves. No. Go ahead. Bring the drinks along with you. We don’t mind at all.”

Skills: Both have decent dots of Athletics and neither one is weak or slow. Don is a seasoned brawler, knows his way around guns and is more than skilled with a KA-Bar in his hand.  Trudy prefers to drug them when she can and has learned a thing or two about concocting such things. Both have racked up some dots of Occult. One night they picked up a Vampire and had a long talk with him. (He was, by that point, chained up.) They ended up sheltering him for the day, but they parted company the next night.  They still exchange Christmas cards when they can get to the mail drop.  The hardest bit will be to see them coming. Both have learned to lie so well, that they can be smiling and laughing with you one second, and sliding an ice pick into your eardrum the next. Don has a dot or two in medicine. Although some of what he knows is out of date. Trudy has a business degrees worth of knowledge without any formal schooling. And she’s a great cook.

Gear: Both tend to prefer methods of killing that make it hard to mount an offense. Don’s KA-Bar has seen a lot of action. Both have pistols and Don has a rifle for the rare time when a target means to actually escape. He’s got a silencer on it that he built himself. In a pinch, either one is willing to whip off their belt and try to strangle you to death with it.

Home: “The Winnie” as they call it, has seen some modifications. Don’s pretty handy and Trudy is very organized and helpful, so they were able to install a trapdoor floor in the center of the Winnie. It’s sealed inside so you can dump a body in there and it won’t leak or smell. (Although a police dog might pick it up still.)  They tend to prefer to dump bodies at bodies of water. Don’s corpsman training comes in handy because he knows enough that he slashes the abdomen in the proper places so that it will sink.  He also usually cuts off the head and hands and dumps them in another place. He takes special care to do a number on their dental work first.

They also have breakdown shovels and plastic tarp in case things get messy.

Circle: Pretty limited. Moving around constantly and living under an alias all this time isn’t conducive to a decent social life. Especially when you’re constantly asking yourself if your new friends will be missed... Trudy has however bought a little laptop computer that she uses to move their money around (They’ve got quite a lot now.) and she’s doing a lively little travel blog which has a few devotees.  

Story Uses:

“Son. I just guess this ain’t your night.”

How dangerous can a human being be? Very. if you’re not seeing them coming. Even dedicated predators like Vampires and Beasts might have trouble with highly motivated and prepared humans. And that’s Don and Trudy all the way around.

“Oh. That’s something I haven’t seen before...Why don’t you come in and I’ll buy you a drink? I think you and I have some things in common.”

Oddly, when it comes to other predators, like other serial killers and monsters of a more supernatural bent, Don and Trudy are downright polite. even a bit chummy and folksy.  Don’t misunderstand. If they HAVE to, they’ll kill you without a moment's hesitation...But if they don’t. They’ll be interested in palaver. After all, gathering 20 people to slaughter might require some help. You know?

Additional Notes: Without getting too much into the mechanics of their particular blood ritual, They have to perform it quarterly at the equinoxes. they only have to coat the skin, and the victim will die from it.  Both Don and Trudy heal twice as fast as normal but can be killed.  Additionally, each of them has derangements But their obsessive/compulsive love for one another helps them keep it together for one another. If one dies, the other will die trying to kill you.

Connections:

*Once, some time ago. Officer Wesley Ullman pulled Don over because of expired tags. They came within a hairsbreadth of killing him. It probably wouldn't have been a good play for either of them.

* Like most students at the academy Special Agent Owen Maccready has been exposed to the legends of the agency. One talks about a serial killer that operates with utter impunity and has killed everywhere in North America and has been doing so for decades. Every once in a while, Don and Trudy's M.O. pops up and the Feds aren't really sure what to do. But usually, the area gets flooded with Specials Agents. This can't be fun the supernaturals who live in town. Norman Cayce might also get into the act here too.

*They've bought documents off of Clavo Hernandez. The only reason they even know about Clavo is because they used to buy off of his mentor.  Clavo has NOT put together that these people are those same people.

* They are "Buried" at Parker Mortuary and Black Creek Cemetery. Once about every five years or so, they like come back to their home city, nose carefully around their old family, and fuck on a blanket on top of their shared grave.

* They occasionally come in a browse at The Grimoire. They seem perfectly pleasant, but Penny gets a bad vibe off of them. And Bear pays attention to that stuff. even if he says he doesn't.

Alex Mahoney

Concept: AM radio talk show host/ The Voice of Hate (Spirit-Claimed Human)

AKA: No known aliases

Desc: Bulbous nose that appears to have been broken twice. Ruddy skin. Beefy frame with thick wrists and ankles. A golden Timex on his wrist that his father gave him when he graduated high school. Still keeps good time too.  Dresses a bit like a professional engineer most of the time. (Khaki pants, polo shirt, work boots.) Part of an effort to look as blue collar as possible and yet not lose any social status. Short hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Capped teeth.

History: Some years ago, Alex was an actual honest-to-god journalist. Sure, he was somewhat right wing, but not to the right of Genghis Khan.  He’d grown up in a part of the country that was fairly rural and while he wasn’t exactly stupid, he did grow up in a culture that valued simplicity over nuance.  If something was hard to explain, then it was usually wrong, and of the devil beside, was the way the reasoning went. But as Alex found he was having trouble navigating the world of radio journalism something happened to him that changed the course of his destiny.

   He went camping.

Normally, of course, that wouldn’t have done it.  But he was near a place where the walls of reality were a bit thin and also close to an area where the KKK liked to have their little retreats.  A spirit spied Alex Mahoney, looked into his heart and found the sort of materials it could work with. So the spirit took him...

    That was 20 years ago.  Since that time, it’s been difficult to stop the runaway freight train of the success of Alex’s radio show, “A Call To Arms”. To be sure, there have been people who have TRIED to stop him.  And yet people who argue with him publicly always seem to run out of juice. Funny that. People who have tried stiffer measures have found things working against them and some of them have even gone mad.

It is absolutely true that he’s got a genuine gift for stirring up crowds. There’s even talk of a run for Governor...

Attitude: “Look. This country used to be great once. And all I want is to make it a great one again. But there are people who stand against me. Who stand against my efforts and yours. You know who these people are. People who constantly have their hand out, taking from this great country instead of giving back....But we can stop them.”

Skills: On the human side, Alex is actually fairly well read and although he went to community college, his degree in Journalism isn’t bullshit. Occasionally he’s able to shut down arguments and protesters using nothing but facts and statistics. It’s usually a rude shock.  He’s got good socials and strong charisma and he’s got a pistol that he runs 7 boxes of shells through every single week.

On the spiritual side of things, He’s about a middling rank spirit with the following Numina (from the Book of Spirits) Possession, Claim, Dement, Harrow, and Drain.  He usually uses  Drain in an up-close and personal fashion stealing willpower right out of the people who are trying to argue with him.

Gear: Mahoney carries a smartphone and an RFID-proof wallet. As mentioned, He has a chrome-plated 45 with a laser sight and Glaser slug rounds, that he is very adept with. It’s all very macho. His real weapon though is his non-trivial bank account and a team of very hungry lawyers.

Home: Mahoney has multiple places to hang his hat, but his primary home is a palatial suburban fastness in one of the uber-rich man-made lake-side homes.  The security system on the house is non-trivial and the yard is motion sensor active. Big bright lights. Seriously.

The place has MRE’s, stockpiles of water and medical supplies and enough armament to wage a small war in Kosovo.

Funnily enough, he bought a little farmhouse that he visits once a year. It sits right next to an old site where it’s rumored that the KKK used have their little retreats.

Circle: Alex Mahoney is a known name on the national scene. He may not be the biggest name in talk radio but he’s not some morning show shock jock either.  As such, he’s got fingers in many varied pies with a very elite crowd. And the talk about him becoming governor. There are a number of personages, some claimed, and others not, that would like to see it happen.

Story Uses:

“Coming up next, our in-depth look into the world of welfare cheats” 

Alex is the sort of character that is a nice form of background noise in the World of Darkness. Would that guys like him were only possible there.  The main difference between him and some of the pundit class here in our own world is that most of those douchebags don’t necessarily believe ANY of that stuff they are peddling. It’s just the easiest way to separate idiots from their cash.

That’s not the case with Alex. Alex IS hatred personified.

“Tonight is the night when we take back our country”

Of course, if you’d like Alex to be a bit more active, it could be that he triggers some sort of racial incident. He can’t do it alone, but he can warp the right people who CAN make it happen. Or worse, he might actually become Governor.

Connections:

* Has met Robert Nathan Herbert who has been a faithful listener for YEARS.

* Lawton Krase is a listener, Thinks that Mahoney has some great points and would likely vote for him.

* Ezekiel Stubbs and his boys are listeners. He tends to spark debate amongst the Gallowsbait MC. Some of it gets a bit heated.

* Reverend Mike Plumber knows him personally. Has even invited him to a few of his little barbecues. Alex thinks Reverend Mike would make a lovely home for one of his brethren. If only he could talk him into one of his farmhouse retreats...

* Lambrose Karanikas has had him in his limo. And agrees with him on a number of key issues, but still has troubles with some of his stances on any ethnicity other than W.A.S.P.

* Bryson Import/Export gets the same order every single time. "Send me a blonde white woman who likes to be flogged."

* Remember those hungry lawyers I mentioned? Holmes, Gillis, Baker, Savage, North, and Dean are the ones.

*  The Vermillion House is interested in Alex. They know what he is, and they like his ideas. They're a little split on whether they should make him governor, though.

* Homer Conway is one of the faithful. Not that Alex would necessarily have public contact with him...But through a proxy? oh yeah. Sure.

* Officer Honus Brightwater is a faithful listener too.  If Alex goes on the campaign trail, It's going to need a head of security.

* Meredith Shaw has noticed that he's unmarried. And seems to want her... Sadly their respective kinks won't mesh well. But by that point, they may be living in the governor's mansion.

Vuldoruss (A.K.A. The Sinkhole)

Concept: Hungry Hole  (Hunter: The Vigil style Elder Demon)

AKA: Third lord of the mark, Battle marshall of the Eighth Infernal Legion. 

Desc:  In his manifested form he appears as a mottle-skinned man with a bright, far too wide, smile. Usually, if he’s trying to be charming, he’ll only show you one set of eyes. His ears are a bit upswept, and his form is covered with scars and rank markings.  

History: Vuldoruss sleeps a lot. He’s not the most active demon.  This is mainly a function of the fact that Vuldoruss ended burning out the body that he was in, in a spot way out in the sticks, He was lucky insofar as he found a place that was amenable to his habitation. But again, it was way out in the sticks.

It’s a bit of a bring-down because in his dreams he remembers the old day of the wars. He became Battle Marshal by dint of the fact that he ate his angelic enemies.  There was so much blood and glory and mayhem...At least, that’s the way he remembers it.

Now Vuldoruss lives within the heart of a sinkhole, caused by a mine collapse that swallowed a house killing all of its inhabitants. And he’d probably just slumber if it weren’t for the Rancher.

There was something about him that roused him from sleep. He too had a hunger and it rang in Vuldoruss’s head like a bell. So he showed his face, and they talked a bit. And then he showed MORE of his face, and for some reason, the rancher didn’t run or show fear. And so, they decided to do something for one another.

And that’s how Elijah Van Doren and Vuldoruss became friends...Well, Okay. Maybe that’s overselling it. But since that fateful day, the Van Doren family and Vuldoruss have worked together.

Once a quarter at very least, Someone comes around and dumps bodies for Vuldoruss, and he, in turn, rains his blessings on the Vermillion House.  Occasionally, he even gets a live one tossed down to him. Those are the best nights.  And you know, he’s a bit more active than he used to be. It seems like he’s gathering his strength.  He’s still bound by the same rules that all Elder Demons are bound by, but he has hope in his dark heart that there will come a time where he can finally find a body that can house his raw power.

Attitude: “Once...In the time before time...I was an avatar of destruction. A ravening engine of consumption.  There will come a time when I will once again stride this world and drink its marrow.

Skills:  Vuldoruss possesses the following Dread Powers: 3 dots of Confuse, 2 dots of Drain, 4dots of Dread Attack (his rather nasty bite) 3 dots of Lurker in Darkness, and Tendrils. The mystical boons that he confers on the Van Doren family and by extension, the Vermillion House are outside the scope of demonic abilities as given in the Hunter: The Vigil book. They are in the realm of Storyteller Fiat.

Gear: Demons don’t really need much gear

Home:  The mine actually runs a fair piece in a lot of directions, The mine hit some patches of limestone and they had to close it because it was structurally unsafe. The house that fell into the sinkhole broke into pieces but Vuldoruss has reconstructed it for the most part. It sits at the bottom of the sinkhole. The house and the whole mine smell of natural sulfur.

It should be noted that the bones of about 500 people litter the floor of the sinkhole. An amount of physical evidence of crimes stretching back decades and pointing directly at the Vermillion House.  This would be thoroughly damning in any court if it weren't for the fact that the House has gone to great lengths to make sure that the judiciary in the region wasn't already suborned.

Circle: While at present, his social circle is confined to the members of the Van Doren family and the occasional demon who is passing through and might want to visit and talk about old times. (I.E. Pick Vuldoruss's brain for a bit of ancient lore.) Vuldoruss himself is not closed to the idea of making new friends.  Anyone looking to dump a body in the sinkhole might find themselves with a new demonic acquaintance.

Story Uses:
" Come closer. I want to taste you."
Vuldoruss would be a nasty and unpleasant unplanned encounter, but it may be that the players are looking into the affairs of the Vermillion House.  If that's the case, They might just be armed with proper knowledge and equipment.

"Ordinarily, you'd never have seen me. But you went and fell asleep"
Right on the very edge of his demesnes, there is a patch right near the highway that they are thinking of building a gas n' go on. If that happens, the employees of that gas n' go, will likely be snacked on by Vuldoruss. Naturally, weird goings on at the Circle K will bring hunters and then...Who knows.

Additional Notes: Vuldoruss has the Demonic Flaw: The Malodor.

He also has the following bans: He cannot have a living creature asleep in the area he has claimed. Normally, this invites attack. Also, if anyone sings he can’t attack them. And lastly, If anyone consecrates the ground of his sinkhole and the surrounding environs, he will have to vacate. an attempt to do so will ALWAYS rouse Vuldoruss from his slumber and bring him on the hop and furious.

Connections:
*As mentioned above, Vuldoruss has only one real connection, at the moment, and that is to The Vermillion House

Chris Murphy

Concept: The usual dead unarmed black man

AKA: None

Desc: Kind, but pain-filled eyes. Heavy-set although the media painted him as “Hulking” Booming laugh, not that there is much to laugh about these days. The hands of a skilled machinist. The left side of his head is a bit ragged and still leaks a bit.

History:  These are the facts: Chris Murphy was driving home from a worksite. He was stopped along the interstate, The reasons for it are sadly lost as the officer's cameras malfunctioned. Whatever took place, Mr. Murphy was shot dead by the officer.

Everything that comes after is speculation.  Mostly by talking heads in the media, you know, the sort of people who talk a lot of shit about people they don’t know, and sadly never will.  They dredged up all the things Chris had done as a teen. They slandered his wife. Speculated irresponsibly about the “Actual” parentage of his kids.  Speculated about what could have possibly been running through his head that night. Chris could have been the actual second coming of Jesus Christ, and they still would have painted him as everything wrong with “Black America”

The truth is this, Chris was fighting off sleep. He got stopped because he crossed the center line. Without a moment’s worth of thought, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet, and the officer drew down on him. It’s even remotely possible that the officer in question was, for a hot second, scared shitless.

    But after that hot second...Well. Let’s just say that the M.E found cuff marks on his wrists. He didn’t own the gun they “Found” in his glovebox.  The LEO community closed ranks and the officer dummied up, and about a year and change after the fact, after the memorials and candle light vigils died down, they quietly found the officer not guilty at the grand jury.

And Chris...Well. He’s had to watch his wife’s tears. And his daughters.  He’s watched as his son got into fight after fight at school. He had a ringside seat for watching the officer thank Jesus on local tv for his acquittal.  

Is he pissed off? I’d say so. In fact, “Livid with Rage like a head full of radioactive bees” Might be a mild description. But so far, he hasn’t found a way to revenge himself...

Yet.

Attitude: “I don’t honestly know why I should care if you’re a good cop or a bad one. Nobody gave a shit that I might have been innocent. You just had the bad luck to see me.”

Skills: Chris is not a particularly old spirit so his stats aren’t great. He has trouble manifesting at the best of times.  He has learned Ghost Speech and Telekinesis.  Since he doesn’t have a lot of juice, he focuses on using his TK and he uses his knowledge as a machinist and jack-leg engineer to jack up police equipment and vehicles. It always gives him a pretty good laugh when brakes fail. He’s also caused an occasional jam or misfire that has saved a life or two.

Gear: Not being exactly carnate, Chris doesn’t exactly need gear of any sort, but it bears mentioning that he has numerous Anchors.  The gun that was planted which sits in a box in evidence lock-up. The set of cuffs that he was wearing when he was slain are riding the hip of another officer now. No one’s put it together yet that bad shit seems to follow those cuffs.  That officer. He’s still out there and while Chris hasn’t been able to kill him yet, He does have a plan.  The only other anchor he has is his old car, which his son is trying to fix up.  It’s the only way the old man can spend time with him now.

Home: While he makes time to spend looking in on his family, He spends more time roaming around the police station which is the home of the evidence lock-up. He gathers intel. He works on the equipment. He files conversations away for later use...  Sure...There are a couple of the police working there, that he isn’t interested in harming...But if he happens to see one of THEM covering for a bad cop...Well. That’s sad. Sad for them.

Circle: Chris has made a few acquaintance among the ghostly community. Most of them are kind of wrapped up in their own thing. Chris is beginning to realize that’s par for the course.  He’s not entirely sure he’s willing to get involved with some sensitive or a Sin Eater.  On one hand, it might be good to have some help. On the other hand, he realizes that any living person isn’t going to be as..Driven as he is.

Story Uses:

“I’m not interested in your excuses or your life...I don’t have one of those.”

If your PC is a cop or cop friendly, Obviously this man is going to be a problem.  If not, You might find yourself sympathizing...especially if he can tell his story himself.

Connections:

*Knew Darla Grumman in life. Liked her just fine. Although, like most people who know Darla, wishes that she'd stop dating women who are bad for her.  While Chris is a church going dude and is pretty conservative about SOME things, He also has a gay cousin who's been through some real shit.

*He's buried at Parker Mortuary and Black Creek Cemetery. He goes strolling around the grounds when he needs peace. He's met a few of the unquiet dead round there.

* Officer Honus Brightwater Oh come on, you had to know that this guy was going to turn up. You HAD to know that this human waste dump was the guy who pulled the trigger. Someday, there's going to be a day of reckoning for Honus, and if Chris has anything to say about it, he's going to make his afterlife a unliving hell too.

Rupert Lowdermilk

Concept: Troll/Scriptkiddy

AKA: Rupert has a bewildering number of online guises. His favorite handle is Mechassassin and he tries to get people to call him that. It hasn’t really stuck yet,

Desc: Pale. Curly blond hair. A face that has had, and will have, the ravages of puberty-based acne likely for the rest of his life. Piggy little eyes. There’s some intelligence in there, but not nearly as much as he thinks. Heavy. He’d likely be a school bully but for two things. He gets winded really easily and he’s not very physically imposing at all.  His voice is pretty grating.

History: Rupert’s father decided to hit the bricks one night and left his mother Pam holding the bag. That’s pretty hard. Also, Rupert was just old enough to sort of know what was going on.  Also pretty hard.  Pam is kind of a dishrag. Tired all the time from work. Struggling to pay the bills. Doesn’t really make much of an effort to parent anymore. In fact, the only real interaction they have are screaming arguments about... Well, it doesn’t really matter.  The only time he’s ever nice to her is when he wants something. 

       Rupert is, to put it mildly, a real piece of work. He’s not smart enough to code. But he’s smart enough to use tools he’s bought online. He’s smart enough not to hack anything like a bank or a serious corporate target, but he does have enough ability to make a person’s life a living computational hell. 

   And he does. Drove a fellow classmate to suicide. Outed another one by editing the text of the school news blog. Makes enemies at school and online during his Call of Duty games. 

   It’s just barely possible that he’ll grow out of it. Maybe even feel sorry for the things he’s said and done. But that’s not the way to bet.

Attitude: “FUCK YOU SHITLORD! I’M GOING TO ANAL RAPE YOU TO DEATH AND THEN RUN YOUR IP ADDRESS, FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE AND DO THE SAME TO YOUR FUCKPIG MOM!”

Skills: He’s got a real gift for invective. That much is for sure. He has enough computer knowledge to be really dangerous to anyone who isn’t actually skilled. Mentally, he’s got some decent wits and Intelligence, but no resolve to speak of. Socially, he only has some manipulation to work with.  Physically the kid is a mess.

Gear: He’s got good gear. He’s stolen identities and used re-mailing services to commit mail fraud. He’s never really done it for cash, but for gear, oh yeah. Pam bought him the X-box but she has no idea where he got the money for the computer. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to know. She thinks he’s in a gang and is selling drugs or something.  Pam has never actually seen a gang member.  

Home: They have a small house in the lower middle-class burbs. Pam’s home-life is a constant struggle to take care of the place in the face of Rupert’s slobbish indifference. Her bedroom is her only real retreat. Rupert’s, by contrast, is bordering on biohazardous and a lot of the common areas of the house fluctuate between messy and clean. Rupert is firmly of the opinion that if you can still balance stuff on the pile, then the sink isn’t full.

Circle: To put it mildly, Rupert is a candidate for a future school shooting. He loathes most of his classmate, even the ones he secretly wants to fuck.  They, in turn, loathe him, when they can be bothered to think about him at all. The only social group that he actually wants to be a part of, The hacker community, want nothing to do with him.  They can see him coming from a mile off. He’s bad news and they don’t want to be anywhere near him when he goes off.

Story Uses:

“I think I'm just misunderstood.”

No. He’s not. He’s a venomous little toad. But maybe you’re a friend of Pam’s or maybe you see something of yourself in the little scumbag, and maybe if someone puts forth some effort, he might be saved... Hey, It’s not impossible.

“NO PAM, YOU FUCKING BITCH! I TOLD YOU THE BRAND OF CHOCOLATE MILK TO GET! NOT THIS SHIT!”

If you happen to be a Beast. Rupert Lowdermilk is an all you can eat buffet.

“Kiss your credit rating goodbye dickbag.”

I don’t know what might cause you to run afoul of him. Maybe you have a child or child friend that he’s causing problems. Maybe you’re an adult who jacks him up something fierce on social media or Call of Duty, by pointing out how his running commentary falls squarely under the rubric of terroristic threatening. The problem is, the little shit can actually cause you a host of problems before he can be rooted out and hopefully stopped.

Connections:

*Rika Martinez and he, attend the same school. You should probably understand, that any abuse I could heap on this little shithead pales in comparison to the cold, hard, fact that even Rika doesn't like him.

* T.C. Mitnick uses him as a beard for hacking jobs at the Donut Hut. He hands the kid the shit jobs that his skills can handle and has him pass the interesting work up to him.  T.C. also figures that anyone willing to put up with the kid is fairly desperate.  T.C is also the guy that has warned other hackers off of Rupert. Not because he has no skills, but because the kid can't keep his mouth shut. Rupert has never actually met T.C. in person. And if T.C. gets wind that Rupert's got himself in trouble, all the means that Rupert has to contact him will cease to exist in four minutes.

Boolie Hinson

Concept: Black Hat

AKA: Boolie’s given name is Parker. Boolie is short for “Boolean”

Desc: Skinny as a rail. Partakes of caffeine, truckstop uppers, and on the occasions he can afford it, cocaine. African American. Keeps his hair putting green short. Thick glasses. Fairly youngish. While he prefers to have his mind go a thousand miles a minute, he’s not generally a talker. Not because he’s shy or introverted or anything like that, but because most people, in his opinion, are monstrously stupid. Fastest typist you ever saw. Hums while he works. Constantly tapping his fingers or wiggling his feet at his desk.  If you see him in anything other than a T-shirt and sweatpants, it means someone has died.

History: While Boolie isn’t exactly the most stable guy you’re ever likely to meet, he has a particular flavor of smart and he has it in bucketloads.  Never all that good at the softer academic subjects, he excelled at Mathematics and when he got his first computer, well...it was on like cheap on a K-mart.

   Boolie came from a poor family and the only way he was going to a decent school was with an academic scholarship. So not only did he begin popping Dexatrim to be able to stay up late enough to get the AP course work done, but he became very adept at test cheating on subjects that he wasn’t so hot on.  He got that scholarship and he went away to become a CS major. He even finished his degree in 2 1/2 years.

    He came home with a newly minted CS degree from a top school in the region and found, as you sometimes do, that you had put forth a LOT effort to attain a certain amount of mastery in a field that wasn’t hiring.

  Well, it wasn’t that they weren’t hiring exactly.  But they wanted the fucking moon in terms of qualifications. Boolie didn’t read a single job application for an IT position that didn’t require deep knowledge of a dozen separate pieces of software, a half dozen programming languages, 5 years of experience, and oh yeah, you should probably be white.  All this, for a job that pays a couple of bucks over minimum wage and will eat up every scrap of your free time if it can.

    Boolie did eventually get hired. He’s got a gig as a junior IT guy with a statistical analysis company. He does a lot of work because frankly the senior guy doesn’t do fuck all.

   But that period where he couldn’t even get arrested in this town changed something in his attitude. He’d worked hard all his life to master the one thing that he loved, had been told all his life that if you worked hard and put the effort out, you could achieve anything...And of course, once he was out of school it turned out to be bullshit.

   Well if that’s how the world is going to be, FUCK it.

Boolie began using his mad skillz to make himself rich. He’s done a lot of reading and he’s talked to a number of hackers online and has honed his skills considerably. And while he’s impatient about a lot of things. Spending the money he’s making on the side is not one of them. He’s found that amassing a small fortune tends to create a certain amount of Buddhistic calm. and when his Mama needs something for her diabetes or her glaucoma, somehow those bills get paid.

   The means by which he manages these feats are multifold.  Like T.C. Mitnick, he’s got his hooks into the systems he uses at work so he has all the computing power he needs.   He buys Terabytes and 30 gig thumb drives in bulk.  He loads virtual machines onto those drive along with a few custom scripts and crypto-breaking scripts of his own design.  He constantly tinkers with his own, but he sells these tools on the dark web for serious bitcoin.

   He’s also set up his iPad as a mobile RFID collection station. Did you know that you can hack phones and even credit cards in unshielded wallets?  He’s very careful to make his identity theft as unobtrusive as possible. He uses multiple re-mailing services for the goods he purchases online, and he’s careful to disguise his chipping away at people bank accounts as charges they are likely to have on their bank statement anyway.  Almost all the executives at his firm have a Brazzers account so he’s been quietly ripping them off for years now. It makes it easier when one of those dudes is dressing him down for some damn thing or another. He can still smile.

Attitude: “Nearly every point of sale device in my neighborhood is in my pocket. I’m not hurting by any stretch and I always get my lunch for free. Fuck corporate America.”

Skills: While Boolie is no great shakes physically, he can type and run like the wind. He’s also not terribly great on the social front having only a few friends that he can really talk to. However, on the mental front, he is damn near unbeatable.  He’s trained himself to speed-read and he can do math almost as fast as a calculator. His personal computer is set up for voice commands and he can even dictate code strings into it.  He’s a genius with scripts and he has automated a number of his processes to such a degree that he can call his home computer on his phone, dictate an IP address to it and launch a series of hacks against that IP address. When the system in question is owned, it will even text him back to let him know.  Boolie has a few plans in place should things go south of course, and while he does own a gun or two and has shot it before, he isn’t really a combatant. Boolie’s best plan is to leave the country immediately for a place that has no extradition treaty. He’s even thinking about converting to Judaism “on paper” just that he can utilize Israel’s “law of return” you know, just in case.

Gear: Boolie’s home system is a thing of beauty. Three full machines networked together and connected to 4 separate storage units (each about 8 terabytes apiece) It is inhumanly fast and he pays top dollar for a T3 connection. He’s faraday caged his room. He also keeps a microwave in the room and a power drill for his hard drives should the authorities break down his door.  His laptop is mostly specced out for media watching as he rarely uses it for anything like hacking. But he can run all the processes on his home system from either his laptop or his iPad. His phone is a dumb phone oddly enough. He tends to carry 3 burners in his oversized tool bag.  He usually has about 8 thumb drives in there along with a tool kit, sour apple Bubble tape, a couple of canned sodas, and a few other odds and ends. 

Home:Boolie, like most hackers, knows that if you steal big you’re liable to get caught. But if you can steal small, over a long period of time, then the sky is the limit. Boolie currently owns 3 separate business licenses which he uses to lease his home, car, and pay for his mama’s expenses. Mama thinks that Boolie makes WAY more at the company than he actually does. Boolie does what he can to keep a low profile, living-wise.  He doesn’t want to attract IRS attention.

Circle:  Boolie has only a couple of friends from the old hood, 3 women from his past that he is still kind of obsessed with, (He’s very repressed) and a few people he liked in his CS program at school. The rest of his social circle are hackers and as a group, are obsessively protective of their anonymity. He’s even met a couple of them in real life and didn’t know it.

Story Uses:

“So I stole his identity. He wasn’t really using it.”

Boolie is a career criminal and an unrepentant one at that, but he isn’t a monster. He’s not one to steal money from people who can’t take the hit and he’s more likely to rip off corporate targets than personal ones.  That said, he’s not a nice guy and supernatural people have uses for not nice guys.

“Don’t you worry mama. I’ll make sure that the insurance company pays...and pays...”

Even a bad man loves his mama. and even a bad man can feel outraged for the occasional injustice done.  Pity the poor fucker who runs afoul of either if Boolie is on the case. His intellect cuts like a knife, and he never ever fucking sleeps.

Connections:

*Grew up with Grace Cook. Was at the wedding. Has heard the stories. Feels bad for the family because everyone knows ghosts aren't real.

* Has two sets of class-A documents from Clavo Hernandez. Best guy in the business as far as Boolie is concerned.

* Knows and yet has never actually met T.C. Mitnick Along with Ramirez, Doctor Cero, Pengo, Arcangel, and that whole crew.

*Has done occasional contract work for Holmes, Gillis, Baker, Savage, North, and Dean They pay on time and never change the details of the deal. That's all that matters to Boolie.