# Thousand Year Old Vampire: Guillaume d'Orléans



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

I love vampires and I suffer from seasonal affective disorder.

I've embraced my gloomy end of the year mood (while still seeking ways to ameliorate it, never fear) in the past by running Do Not Let Us Die in the Dark Night of this Cold Winter as a prelude to Death Frost Doom (purchased before all of the stuff about the writer of the second edition came out). If you're going to have winter-time depression, I figure, you should get something out of it.

I've had a copy of the Ennie award-winning Thousand Year Old Vampire on my shelf for about two years, but work has prevented me from digging into it before now. I wanted to make this a daily writing exercise, like NaNoWriMo, but with no pretensions that it would lead to anything publishable, just (I hope) an interesting vampire story. So from Nov. 1 through Dec. 4, I played one turn each day. Everything is very much a first draft, and if there's things that make you cringe in this, they make me cringe, too.

I approached this like a Dollar Store version of Tim Powers, smashing together everything I thought was interesting. I realized pretty early on that this isn't an entirely solo affair, and that Tim Hutching's prompts in the game were going to drive the story to a greater degree than I had expected at first. I've done collaborative fiction before, so you will see me throwing hooks into my responses to prompts. Often, I initially had no idea what they meant (the thing Julian presents the protagonist, at first, was just "ooh, here's something cool; I'll figure it out later"), only to realize in the shower later in the month "oh, yeah, _that's_ what that is all about." Sometimes, the hooks lead somewhere. Sometimes they don't. (I know what was going on in Rome, for instance, but it never seemed natural for the story to go there.)

The heavy use of the internet to research things on nearly every turn will either impress you with how it makes the world beyond the edges of the story feel fully fleshed out or make you roll your eyes at some of the cheesiness. It does the same for me, too.

The game's mechanism is relatively simple: There are 80 pages of prompts in the book, with each page having between one and three prompts. The first prompt is the player character being turned into a vampire. After that, the player rolls 1d10 and 1d6, subtracting the 1d6 from the 1d10, to figure out what prompt to go to. If the player goes backwards and lands on the same page again, as happened several times to me, they go to the next prompt down on the page, which is usually related to the prompts above it, creating a plot thread.

There are also rules about NPCs (mortal and immortal), resources and the traits that make your vampire what they are. They mostly work very well, although some of them I didn't grasp fully early in play. Those should all be clear enough when you look at my turns and the attached character sheet for each.

There are 35 turns, although one about midway through got eaten by my software, so you just have the character sheet for that.

But that's OK, because one of the biggest mechanisms in the game -- and thus the story -- is about the loss of memory. Your vampire can have five capital-M Memories at a time, each with up to four linked Experiences, and you're expected to write an Experience onto the sheet each turn. In other words, by the end of the game, there's no way my vampire, Guillaume, could remember everything about who he was as a mortal. Up to four Memories of three Experiences each could be shunted off into a diary, but diaries can and do get lost in response to prompts. By the end of the game (which occurs on prompts 72 through 80), it is very likely your vampire will have lost large chunks of their identity over the years, including of once-critical things.

It would not be hard to run this as a game about aging and dementia, although my playthrough is a tiny bit more upbeat than that, as I bring to the game a lifetime of constant moving and thus having people pass out of my life, which this game also does a good job of embracing.

Anyway, if anyone cares about any of this stuff, please save your questions for after turn 35, which takes place in 2022.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1022*

"You seem shaken, Guillaume," Father Guiscard said in my ear, leaning in close to be heard over the screams. "Do you wish the heretics' suffering to stop?" 

"N-no, father." 

I stammer, covering my mouth and nose with my sleeve, unable to tear my gaze away from the burning cottage. 

It was surrounded by soldiers in the service of the Church, who faced  both away from the flames, from stopping townsfolk from intervening. very other soldier faced inwards, though, to keep those burning alive from escaping. 

"I am shaken by the experience, that's all," I said, my voice thick, untrustworthy. 

"So you should be," Guiscard said, smiling as he stepped away to speak  to other townsfolk. "Remember this, all the days of your life." 

Once he was out of sight, I turned and fled, pausing only to notice the other soldiers, standing shoulder to shoulder, their shields gleaming as they protected a veiled woman standing tall as she watched the flames  roar upwards into the dark sky. The crest on their shield was unknown to  me -- I had no cause, then, to know of such things. 

As I raced home, I pulled my smoke-stained sleeve from my face and  gulped air. What would Father Guiscard have thought if he'd known that my mouth watered at the scent of living human flesh cooking? I would  have been cast into the fire alongside the heretics -- an abomination. 

The flames still danced before his eyes, and smoke obscured the night sky, making the dim, muddy streets of Orléans even harder to make out in  the dark. 

After several minutes of running, I stopped to get my bearings. I was lost. 

This time, it wasn't the priest who spoke in my ear. 

"So now," a voice like stone sliding across stone murmured, "the heresy is just us two." 

I shivered. 

"I never ... I just ... I listened to what the canons said, but I never ..." 

The unseen speaker -- it was black as night here, although that did not seem to bother the other -- shushed me. 

"Estienne and Lisios were spreading my word and partook in the sacraments as I taught them to. Now, it is only us." 

I stepped back. My heel struck something hard and unyielding in the  dark, and I almost fell over. A hand steadied my and I almost screamed  as arms wrapped around my from behind. 

"We must enter into a covenant, you and I. And our covenant is written in blood." 

A hand like that of a statue was over my mouth. 

Pain like knives cut into my neck. 

I screamed and screamed. 

But no sound escaped.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1022*

In the days that follow, Father Guiscard is more emboldened than ever, regularly visiting the homes of parish members, giving extra attention to those with teenaged daughters, insisting on questioning them privately for anything they might know of the heresy.

I had begun to work strange hours, leaving for the scriptorium before dawn and the wretched sun, and only returning home after sundown, never leaving the blessed darkness of the scriptorium during the day and insisting on working by the dimmest of candles.

But one night, I returned home to find my father absent, although a candle is burning inside the family cottage. I could hear voices from inside. And then the voice of Cateline, crying out in fear and pain.

Carnutes has cautioned me about controlling myself: We only feast on travelers on the road or poachers in the woods.

But all of that is forgotten in an instant.

Guiscard is on Cateline, who weeps in terror, but is unable to stop what's happening. And then Guiscard is against the wall, now terrified himself.

I sink his teeth into the priest's neck, forgetting the niceties of how I normally feeds, the lies I tell himself about who and what I am.

When I am done, Guiscard is dead, his blood running down my mouth and chest, soaking my clothes.

In the family bed, Cateline lays, pale, eyes wide in terror. Saying nothing. Having seen everything.

I managed to dispose of the body before my father returns and conceal all evidence of the attack. But Cateline is mute, saying nothing, but shaking in fear whenever I draw near.



Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 0 + 2 - 5 = Prompt 1

_In your blood-hunger you destroy someone close to you. Kill a mortal character. Create a mortal character if none are available. Take the skill Bloodthirsty._

*Guillaume d'Orléans*

Skills: literate in French; literate in Latin; a capable gardener; bloodthirsty

Resources: a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight; a penknife; a small bronze crucifix

Characters: Onfroi, my father, an ambitious farmer who has pinned the family's hopes on me (mortal); Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal); Carnutes, the center of the heresy and vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Rome (immortal)

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times

Memories (five, up to three Experiences each):
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I read to Cateline from a book I had been copying in an attempt to teach her to read
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: Father Guiscard invites himself into our home, openly lusting after Cateline, which neither my father and I can do anything about; I kill him when I come home to find him raping Cateline, which she watches in mute horror
5. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1025*

Desperate to escape me, Cateline marries the first man who asks our father for her hand in marriage: Anouilh, an aged merchant who needs a new mother for his children, who are only a few years younger than Cateline. Their mother was consumed by some sort of brain fever; she saw visions and everywhere saw the work of the devil before she finally took her own life.

Cateline is like a ghost in her new house, eyes haunted, still terrified of me, unwilling to be alone with me now, even though I have never shown her any violence nor exposed her to what I am now since the night I killed Father Guiscard. She takes to Anouilh's little boy, whom she carries everywhere, the boy clinging to her like the baby he no longer is, big brown eyes watching me over his shoulder. They whisper confidences to each other and withdraw from everyone else.

But Anouilh's daughter is very different and very strange. Cateline is the third woman of the house in her lifetime, with her mother dying years before her half-brother's mother did. Constansia is literate and musical: She sings sad songs she says her mother taught her, long ago. Her hair is black and long, eyes dark as well. She pays no heed to Cateline, coming and going as she wishes, taking with her a riding crop from her father's stable and savagely beats the men who approach her in the streets of Orléans.

From the shadows, I follow one such man who thought a young girl, alone at night, might fall victim to his lusts. Instead, I drag him into a darkened corner of the church's graveyard, Since Guiscard's death, I have had trouble controlling myself, and I slash open the man's neck and torso with my claws. I am less human all the time and only my elderly father's failing eyesight keeps him from realizing what shares a home with him. I have stopped going to the scriptorium altogether.

As I drink from the would-be rapist's blood, slurping and chewing hungrily, I look up and see Constansia watching me, calmly. My bloodlust sated, for the moment, we sit and watch each other, colorless figures of black and white in the pale moonlight.

Finally, the girl drops to her knees in the graveyard, raising her arms up to me, her face a mask of ecstasy.

"Master," she calls me.

Constansia knows me for a monster and is entranced by it. She believes me to be an agent of the Devil himself, a notion that amuses Carnutes, who quotes some doleful Ovid when I tell him.

In the coming nights, Constansia lures victim after victim to me, wandering along the trade roads or lurking in alleys, enticing soldiers to follow her into the shadows or highwaymen to give chase, each time leading them into my waiting arms. She watches, enraptured, as I devour them in turn. It takes a great act of will to not give into my gluttony and draw the attention of the duke or church upon me.

It is a simple matter to overwhelm the mind of Constansia's father, Cateline's husband, and officially, Constansia becomes my wife, moving into the large, empty house I now share with my father. As I go to sleep each dawn, Constansia is there beside me, whispering blasphemies in the dark.



Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 1 + 9 - 4 = Prompt 6

_A mortal Character begins serving you. Who are they? Why are they drawn to you? Create a new mortal Character._

*Guillaume d'Orléans*

Skills: literate in French; literate in Latin; a capable gardener; bloodthirsty

Resources: a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight; a penknife; a small bronze crucifix

Characters:
Onfroi, my father, an ambitious farmer who has pinned the family's hopes on me (mortal);
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Carnutes, the center of the heresy and vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Rome (immortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times

Memories (five up to three Experiences each):
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: Father Guiscard invites himself into our home, openly lusting after Cateline, which neither my father and I can do anything about; I kill him when I come home to find him raping Cateline, which she watches in mute horror
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness
5. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed;


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1030*

The house I had moved my father and myself into was already a fearful spectre in Orléans, a moldering wreck of dark windows and rotting roof timbers.

But Constansia makes it into something even darker. The basement becomes an abattoir. At first, I think it's for my benefit, but I soon realize she's seeking something more, reaching out to powers that I cannot afford to believe are not real, but which I dread her succeeding in contacting.

Many nights, I return just before dawn to hear the sounds of my young wife and her companions -- a coven? a cult? -- chanting in Latin, performing Black Masses and other rituals, beseeching things that make my cold flesh run even colder.

One morning, I lurk in a darkened doorway, sated by drinking from one of the sacrificial victims Constansia has had secretly brought here from another city, when I realize she's using my old penknife from my days at the scriptorium to peel back the skin of another unfortunate. I feel rage flash through me, even though that old life is years behind me, dead and buried, when something begins to fight its way out of the dead body. A black cone pierces the abdomen, forcing its way outward.

A moment later, a black feathery head, streaked with blood follows, and a raven claws its way out.

It takes me a moment to realize its first sound is not the croak of a bird, but its name,

"Raum! For what purpose have you called me up from Hell?"

Constansia positively writhes in ecstasy and the debased men and women who serve her moan and cry out in triumph. It takes all my self-control to not tear their throats out, one by one, disgusted as I am by their presence.

"Great Raum!" Constansia cries, "You are to serve as my great husband's eyes and ears during the daylight hours and provide infernal counsel to him in all matters!"

The raven looks from her to me and cocks its head.

"Of course. Let us begin."

Looking at the creature and this stinking room full of blood and madmen -- and none madder than my wife -- I realize for the first time in years that I want none of this and that if I could take back what Carnutes did to me, I would. But then I remember my father, blind and deaf and near death, several floors above, and the idea of aging and dying like he is holds its own terrors for me, not least because I know that Hell awaits me -- has always awaited me -- and that this existence that passes for a life is the best possibility left for me.

I say nothing and stalk out of the room. Behind me, the cult shrieks praises to Satan before slinking back to their ordinary lives with the sunrise.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 6 + 3 - 2 = Prompt 8

_You are recognized for what you are by another creature like yourself. Create a new immortal Character. Lose a Resource and gain a Skill. What did you lose to them?_

*Guillaume d'Orléans*
Skills: literate in French; literate in Latin; a capable gardener; bloodthirsty (checked); knows secrets he should not; 

Resources: a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight; a small bronze crucifix

Characters:
Onfroi, my father, an ambitious farmer who has pinned the family's hopes on me (mortal);
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Carnutes, the center of the heresy and vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Rome (immortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil (mortal);
Raum, a demon in the shape of raven, summoned by Constansia to serve as Guillaume's familiar (immortal)

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times

Memories (five, up to three Experiences each):
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: Father Guiscard invites himself into our home, openly lusting after Cateline, which neither my father and I can do anything about; I kill him when I come home to find him raping Cateline, which she watches in mute horror
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness
5. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1032*

The madness and bloodlust threaten to overtake me.

I go to seek Carnutes, to learn how he has managed this, since the last days of the Roman Empire in our lands. But I cannot find him anywhere; I know he sometimes retreats into caves in the hills and spends weeks there, sleeping and dreaming of his past.

Instead, I seek solace where I once did, in gardening. Our crumbling house has extensive gardens behind it, and I venture out in them at twilight, after the sun has set, seeking to bring order to the gardens and make something grow. Raum hops along beside me, watching curiously, unsure why I would waste my time in this manner.

I spent a week at this, planting vegetables and flowers and pruning back bushes and trees, envisioning a space I can walk through at night to escape the restless need to hunt and kill that's constantly with me, a slobbering hound waiting to be unleashed.

But I am a killer now and death is all I bring to the world.

The gardens sicken and die where I've touched them, plants withering away into shriveled husks as if poisoned. Those plants I didn't touch directly die too, days later, as though salt has seeped from my skin into the earth itself.

One more connection to my mortal life has been cut, leaving me more of the monster I've now become.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 8 + 7 - 4 = Prompt 11

_How did you find solace from the raging hunger within you? You may lose one checked or unchecked skill_

*Guillaume d'Orléans*

Skills: 
Literate in French;
Literate in Latin; 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows secrets he should not; 

Resources:
a cowhorn inkwell,
engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix

Characters:
Onfroi, my father, an ambitious farmer who has pinned the family's hopes on me (mortal);
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Carnutes, the center of the heresy and vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Rome (immortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil (mortal);
Raum, a demon in the shape of raven, summoned by Constansia to serve as Guillaume's familiar (immortal)

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

Memories (five, up to three Experiences each):
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of (redacted), a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: Father Guiscard invites himself into our home, openly lusting after Cateline, which neither my father and I can do anything about; I kill him when I come home to find him raping Cateline, which she watches in mute horror
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness
5. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1060*

At last, my father died. Old, blind and deaf. But still my father.

Constansia eyed his withered corpse, little bigger than a child's, some devil's mischief clearly occurring to her. Before she can open her blood-red lips to speak, I cut her off.

"He will have a Christian burial."

My wife reels back as though slapped, eyes blazing with fury.

I send for my sister to take my father's body away, both to keep it out of Constansia's reach and so that he may be buried in the church cemetery by day, as he would have preferred.

Cateline, in turn, sends her servants. She sits astride a fine horse outside my house, a widow now herself, with white hair. but she is tall and strong, the illnesses of her youth burned away over the years, glaring at the house and me with a murderous hatred. I stand in the doorway, letting her servants pass with our father's body. I want to speak with her, but know that my chance to do that died decades ago.

Raum watches her family secretly for me. I know that the two armed men with her are her sons, my nephews, whom I have never met.

After they've gone, I go looking for Carnutes. He keeps multiple lairs, all Gallic tombs from the time of the Romans. I finally find him in one, sitting in the dark, dressed in rusted armor, holding a fragile-looking spear in his hand.

"Why did you do this to me?" I roar, eschewing greetings. "You have damned me, and for what? For what?"

Carnutes says something I don't understand. He sometimes has trouble remembering the French of today and slips into the language of his mortal life.

"I could kill you," I growl, looking around the chamber. There are swords here, some that still look serviceable.

"Not with that," he rumbles. "My flesh is too hard now and the wound would heal soon enough. I would rise from my grave again in a matter of days."

"What a great blessing you have bestowed upon me. My father is dead and in too few years, my sister will as well. I am to do, what, sit with you in tombs until the trumpet sounds?"

"You are no Gaul. These tombs? No. Perhaps a grave or tomb in your Christian church."

"I do not want this! Why did --"

And then Carnutes is up, his spear tip at my breast faster than I can see him move in the gloom.

"I could kill you, just as I killed the one who made me, with this same spear." There is no emotion in his voice, as there so often is not. He is a statue from another time who speaks and drinks blood, but shares few emotions or thoughts.

"Why did you turn me into a monster like yourself?" I ask it calmly, feeling fear replace anger. I have not been afraid for myself in many long years, as I am stronger and faster than any man in Orléans, strong enough perhaps to kill half a dozen of them without serious injury.

"When I killed Aeolius, I was filled with much the same rage you are now. It took me several hundred years to truly understand him."

Carnutes withdraws the spear, holds it loosely with both hands at waist height.

"We were one of the last free Gauls, even as Rome claimed to have conquered our land. They called us bandits, but we were free. My father was our chieftain and we roamed where we wished, robbing merchants and looting towns and slipping away before the local garrisons could respond. But they eventually caught up to us, having lured us into a trap.

"The Romans slaughtered us, getting revenge for years of humiliations and deaths we had heaped upon them. I watched them cut my father to ribbons there in the firelight, unable to help him, knowing it was just moments before my own death.

"And then a figure who looked like a Roman god appeared among them, his antique armor gleaming, flinging soldiers aside with his curved shield, lifting others off the ground with his pilum and flinging them into the darkness. And when he was done with them, he fell upon me, the last of my people, and made me a monster like himself.

"It was years before we were able to speak with each other, as I did not speak Greek or Latin, or he Gaulish at first. He told me he was the last of his cohort and had followed my tribe for months, seeing in us the camaraderie he had gone so long without."

"So," I say slowly, unsure how I feel about this revelation, never having heard Aeolius' name before now. "He made you -- you made me -- out of loneliness? You dragged me into the pit with you, so you would not suffer the Devil's torments alone?"

"You hate this so much," Carnutes says, tilting his head back, looking down his nose at me, sizing me up. "You do not age. You are stronger, faster than any mortal man. If you take care, you will never die, and will see all the ages of the world. I have seen the hated Roman Empire fall and the birth of a new, free nation in my homeland. Who knows what you will live to see?"

"And Aeolius, he did not take care? What is so special about your spear?"

Carnutes makes a noise that might almost be a laugh.

"If I told you the truth of this spear, you would not believe it, despite being a man who could be killed by soldiers and rise from his tomb in three days yourself. But it can kill one of our kind. But so can beheading. Or fire. Or, as you age, sunlight. Or piercing the heart with a wooden stake. I'm sure there are more things. I do not care to investigate such things. Take this --"

Before the next word leaves his mouth, I have the spear, now pointed at his heart.

"I shall, thank you. And I will think on what you've said. But I think killing you would be too kind, old man. Better you return to your lonely travels once more. That seems a more fitting punishment than the point of this spear. But if I encounter you in Orléans once more, I will come up with a worse punishment. My wife has many questions about our kind and would be glad of the chance to examine you on her table."

Carnutes says nothing, a statue once more, looking at me with emotionless eyes.

"Do not test me, Carnutes. Be gone before the sunrise after next."

And then I was gone, out into the night, the ancient spear in my hand and my mind spinning with what he had said and the understanding that a monster other than the bloodlust squatted inside my heart and would slowly devour me in time.

As I lay down in my bed chamber in the basement of my home, Constansia absent, off sulking somewhere, I realize that I can no longer remember my father's name.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 11 + 3 - 6 = Prompt 8 (each prompt page has multiple related prompts and, if you return to the same page, are supposed to go down the page and choose the next unused one)

_You gain an advantage over an immortal Character. What do you take from them? What do you learn? Convert a Memory to a Skill; strike out that Memory. Gain a mysterious resource._

*Guillaume d'Orléans*

Skills: 
Literate in French;
Literate in Latin; 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows secrets he should not; 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires;

Resources:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear said to be capable of killing vampires

Characters:
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Carnutes, the center of the Orléans Heresy and a vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Gaul (immortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil (mortal);
Raum, a demon in the shape of raven, summoned by Constansia to serve as Guillaume's familiar (immortal)

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of (redacted), a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: Father Guiscard invites himself into our home, openly lusting after Cateline, which neither my father and I can do anything about; I kill him when I come home to find him raping Cateline, which she watches in mute horror
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; 
5. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Orléans, 1060*

After my father's death, some dam appears to break with Cateline. Raum reports that she regularly visits with church officials and even wins an audience with the duke. I know in my heart that she wants to see me destroyed at last.

And I find that I am glad. This anger, this rage and bloodlust inside me that seems always ready to erupt, even when I am already drenched in the blood of the dead, I realize how much of it is tied up in Orléans and my memories of all that has happened here and the bitter way that it has changed for me over the decades.

Yes, Cateline is right. Whatever thing her brother Guillaume has become must be destroyed.

In the dead of night, I gather Constansia's wretched cult down into my personal chambers in the basement, which so many of them have sought to visit for so long. None of them notice how much has been removed or could guess at the significance, especially when I give them what I have begged to do so many times.

I drink from them.

It's not enough to kill any of them, but I leave them weak with blasphemous joy, praising Satan as they lay limply on the cold stone floor.

And then I leave them behind, locking them in behind heavy iron locks, toss the key down a well and set the building on fire.

Outside, the men my sister and the church have brought shield their eyes from the flame, torches and lanterns in their hands, marveling that the house is burning so brightly and quickly before they've had a chance to do so themselves, not understanding what has happened. Instead, they praise God, assuming the flames to be evidence of His favor.

"They will believe us among those destroyed in the fire," Constansia murmurs beside me, her glossy black hair shining with the reflected light of the fire, watching the house burn from a distance. "A brilliant plan, beloved Guillaume."

I feel the anger and rage I felt toward Guiscard, toward Cornutes, toward Constansia, toward myself, burning up with the house as well, along with whatever feelings Cateline still harbored toward me. I pray that my father, wherever he is now, is unaware of all that has happened.

"Guillaume died in the fire, along with all that he was," I murmur, hearing my voice as cold as Cornutes' now. "I am merely un passeur."

And with that, the barge moves quietly away from the dock and down the Loire, beginning the journey west through France and ultimately, toward the ocean beyond.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 8 + 9 - 6 = Prompt 11

_You discover an internal focus which lets you maintain control of yourself. Lose a violent Memory and take the Skill I Control the Beast and rewrite any unchecked Skill as something new. What new name do you take to distance yourself from what you once were? How is the name symbolic?_

*le Passeur*

Skills: 
Literate in French;
Skilled at navigating boats;
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows secrets he should not; 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires;
I control the beast; 

Resources:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear said to be capable of killing vampires

Characters:
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Carnutes, the center of the Orléans Heresy and a vampire, a melancholy figure often lost in reminiscences of Gaul (immortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil (mortal);
Raum, a demon in the shape of raven, summoned by Constansia to serve as Guillaume's familiar (immortal)

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

Memories (up to three Experiences each):
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of (redacted), a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; 
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; 
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5. I am le Passeur:


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Tours, 1060*

We got arrogant in the marshy floodplains of the Loire. 

In those days, Tours was two cities separated by the Loire. On the eastern shore was the castle, the cathedral, the archbishop's palace and other official buildings. On the western shore was the "new city," the Châteauneuf where merchants and the actual business of the city took place. In between were the vineyards and fields and, of course, the marshes and river.

None could approach us easily during the day and if someone did try to brave the sea of reeds, their passage would be easy for Raum to spot.

Constansia and I came ashore in the evenings, enjoying everything the Châteauneuf had to offer. My wife enjoyed food and wine while she searched for local fortune tellers and wise women, always on the hunt for more occult knowledge. I moved freely through the city, hunting freely in a place where I was no man's son, no woman's whispered-about brother.

We slept securely during the day. Constansia gushing about the forbidden works she had located, including copies of apocrypha banned by the Church. We listened to Raum land on the roof of the barge, keeping watch as we drifted off to sleep.

I awoke shortly after sundown at Carnutes' voice, with Constansia gone.

"You stupid boy," he said, his voice showing only the faintest hint of emotion. "If it wasn't for me, you would be dead. And you have the ingratitude to scorn me for it, to turn against me?"

I looked around, confused. Carnutes was nowhere to be seen in the below-decks room we had created in the hold, the expensive bed Constansia and I shared in the center of what looked as much like an bed chamber as I could imagine. There wasn't a room for a man of Carnutes' size to be here unseen, speaking so closely and clearly.

"I am beyond your power," I replied, leaning up on my elbows. I glanced around the room and found the Spear of Aeolius close at hand, if Carnutes would reveal himself. "Make yourself a new companion. You can have Orléans -- I have left it behind and have no desire to see it again."

"Not until I have taken back what I foolishly gave you," Carnutes replied.

There was a stirring noise and it took me a second to recognize it as the sound of wings. I found Raum squatting in the shadows, staring at me. I raised an eyebrow and shook my head slightly, indicating he should remain silent while I located Carnutes.

The raven opened his beak and barked Carnutes' short laugh.

"I can always find you, boy. Your madwoman wife is not the only one who knows magic," Carnutes' voice came from Raum's black beak. "The penknife you abandoned is connected to both you and your bird. I gave quite a performance for the archbishop earlier. Even now, his men are heading your way, searching vessels in the marsh for the warlock and his wife who dared send their familiar to taunt the archbishop earlier. But I wanted you to know it was I who had killed you, even if it is not my hand that takes back the --"

Raum's eyes grew wide, a choked sound coming from his open beak as I shoved the pilum deeper into the wood. The choking noise was not Raum's voice, however, and I knew, miles away, that the Spear of Aeolius was also piercing Carnutes' breast, wherever he was currently.

"You need not worry about being lonely any more," I said, withdrawing the spear, listening to both Raum's and Carnutes' death rattles a moment before racing up on deck to find Constansia and cast off before the archbishop's men found us.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 11 + 7 - 4 = Prompt 14

_An enemy Character uses a lost Resource to turn your few friends against you. Check three Skills to regain the Resource or check one Skill to barely survive. Which former friend did you kill? Where did you flee?_

*Le Passeur*

Skills: 
Literate in French;
Skilled at navigating boats;
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 

Resources:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

Characters:
Cateline, my sickly younger sister, my best friend (mortal);
Constansia, Guillaume's first wife, a sociopath who believes her husband is an agent of the Devil (mortal);

Marks: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

Memory (up to three Experiences): 
1. I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of (redacted), a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; 
3. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
4. I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5. I am le Passeur:


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Coimbra, 1181*

More than 120 years passed.

Constansia had long ago gone to be with her beloved Satan, sure to the end of her long, wicked life that we were both willing partners in the evils of the world. I remain unsure, to this day, how much of that is true.

Le Passeur -- known locally as just "the Frenchman" -- moved to Portugal during the early days of the Reconquista, when a foreign merchant's presence was something no one paid too much attention to. My ships aided the forces of King Afonso, as well as serving as smugglers in and out of the Moorish cities that were increasingly ignoring the commands that came out of Marrakesh.

By the time they were driven out entirely, "the Frenchman" -- or rather, his grandson -- was well established in the new kingdom. When pressed for a name, I call myself "Onfroi d'Orléans," in memory of a father whose face and voice I can no longer recall, although I still keep the inkwell he purchased for me in another life. I only know his name because I sent merchants working for me to Orléans with orders to research the history of Cateline's family, along with more ordinary work on my behalf. I and Constansia are remembered as a ghost story, nothing more. 

My shipping business, up and down the coast, is lucrative and I maintain homes in Coimbra, Portucale (later known as Grande Porto) and eventually Lisbon so that no one spends enough years with the Frenchman that they can notice how he does not age and so that I can change cities as my own son and start anew there. Those employees with me long enough to participate in the ruse are well paid enough that I do not worry much about them saying anything.

I do well enough that I expand from shipping into also becoming a shipbuilder, profiting even from other merchants' success.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 14 + 9 - 3 = Prompt 20

_There is a great shift in the way society moves goods. How does this work to your advantage? Check a Skill. Create a Skill based on a Memory._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 

*Resources*:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix, in the French style;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

*Characters*:

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
4: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5: I am le Passeur:


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Coimbra, 1181*

On Holy Thursday, I was on my way back from a visit to Galicia and stopped in Monção, for a new festival to São Jorge, the dragon-slaying saint, whom the Portuguese are enraptured by.

I miss the mock battle between São Jorge and Coco -- normally a pumpkin-headed monster, but repurposed now as the dragon São Jorge does battle with -- as it takes place at midday. But I go to sleep in my rented house, knowing the night will be filled with dancing, drinking and feasting.

At least, that was the plan.

Someone had thought the battle needed fire. Whether it was supposed to be the dragon breathing fire or some sort of holy fire unleashed by São Jorge, I do not know. I only knew that I woke up with the rented house in flames and that the smoke was pierced by pitiless midday sunlight.

I dove to the floor -- this was not the first fire in my long life -- and observed the screams in the street outside and the confused shouts for someone to bring buckets of water from a nearby well. So the fire was uncontrolled. And soon, the roof of this building would be gone and I would be exposed to the full light of the sun. I wondered what saint they would say had defeated me.

I tried to remember what else was located near the rented house. There was a chapel, but on Holy Thursday, it would be filled with the faithful, who would certainly notice if I raced in, my body burning from sunlight. 

A street cafe would be no better.

The stable, even if it was unoccupied, would catch fire if I brought any flames there.

But there was also a school. Something with children, in any case. They would all be gone during the festival, enjoying the battle against the dragon and all the other games. Probably.

I had to risk it.

I plunged out the back window of the engulfed house, away from where the locals were apparently now organizing a bucket brigade to put out the fires burning on the street.

I burned, however, as I ran through empty alleys, holding a shutter over my head, trying to protect myself from the sunlight.  I could feel my fingers blackening in the rays of the sun, and bursting into flame. 

Then I was at the school. I kicked in the closed double doors and plunged into the darkened interior. There was a stone basin full of water and I thrust my hands into it, wincing as the steam surrounded me. I moved my fingers under the water. They would look hideous for a time, but they would heal, sooner if I fed well in Monção.

There was a small sound in the darkness and I whipped my head around, ready to fight.

It was a small boy, about seven or eight years old, watching me with big dark eyes.

"Are you all right?" He came towards me slowly, but without fear. "The sunlight burned you?"

"Yes." No point in lying. What could a little boy do to me? At worst, I was leaving Monção soon anyway.

"I will get you bandages."

He darted off. Again, without fear, just the desire to help and see the task done quickly.

When he returned, he gently pulled my hands from the water, and cleaned the wounds without comment.

"You are not scared," I said, stating the obvious.

"No," he said, bandaging my hands now.

"Why aren't you with everyone from the school?"

"It's an orphanage."

I looked around and saw the austere nature of the place now. A place to house children that no one wanted and whom God was only nominally invested in.

"They teach you to bandage wounds in the orphanage?"

"No. My father and brothers died fighting the Muslims. And then my mother died too. But I learned how to bandage before they did."

"And you are not scared of me, with my hands that burn in sunlight?"

"No. I pay attention. I have seen strange things before."

"And what is your name, fearless boy?"

"Juião."

"Juião, would you like to travel with me and be my servant? I own many ships and have three fine houses."

He considered this for a moment, and then nodded. He was my first mortal companion in decades.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 20 + 2 - 1 = Prompt 21

_You are trapped outside when the sun rises and take shelter some place you are not supposed to be. A child discovers and befriends you. Create a mortal child Character and record a humanizing experience._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 

*Resources*:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix, in the French style;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan who becomes my servant

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
4: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

_Post lost._


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 21 + 2 - 2 = Prompt 21

_The child teaches you to appreciate the world again. You see small things, you smile. Create a Skill based on a pleasant Memory._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;

*Resources*:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
a small bronze crucifix, in the French style;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan who becomes my servant

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
4: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater;


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Coimbra, 1181*

"So, these people, they are bad?" Juião asked.

He stood on a stool, stirring the caldeirada he was making with the shrimp I had brought up from the ocean's floor earlier. His delight in me being able to wander around on the sandy bottom, picking up whatever wildlife I could find down there, without concern, had not abated, although he still found squid and octopus too wriggly for his tastes.

Despite his awareness of who and what I was, he was still ultimately a boy.

"I do what I can to make sure of it. I have always preyed on bandits and other criminals and those who do violence to those weaker than them."

Juião's eyebrows went up momentarily, but he said nothing about my hypocrisy.

"They are sending more men to fight against the Almohads. What will you do then? Can you feed off of sheep or cows?"

I had not paid attention to the movement of troops inland, as so much of my focus in those days was on shipping and ship-building.

"No, I cannot. My wife believed I needed to feed on creatures with souls. I will have to think of what to do."

How Juião reconciled what I did to feed and his persistent view of me as a good person -- as one-sided and naive as Constansia's insistence on my wickedness -- I never understood.

But his view of me was in my thoughts as I walked the darkened streets of Coimbra that night. I could hear and see blacksmiths at work, late into the night, preparing the implements of war.

I followed the sound and wandered through streets busy with late-night activity, as men young and old prepared for their departure in the morning. As "the Frenchman," there was no thought of impressing me into service.

And then I caught the overwhelming smell of blood. Little of it smelled fresh, but the scent rolled over me like a wave.

I followed it, unable to even think, until I reached its source: a series of hastily erected sheds filled with wounded men, being cared for by a few military men and a larger number of civilians I knew from Coimbra.

I smiled when I saw the field hospital, and had to change my expression when one of the military men approached, weary and blood-stained.

"I'd like to volunteer my services."


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 21 + 7 - 3 = Prompt 25

_Your methods for acquiring victims are no longer effective. What has changed? Lose a Resource and create a Skill which describes your new feeding technique._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;

*Resources*:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan who becomes my servant

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants; 
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
4: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
5: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them;


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Coimbra, 1182*

As we were not on the front lines, the wounded who showed up in Coimbra were those capable of surviving the journey, often after battlefield surgeons had done their best.

But these men needed care, whether it was battling persistent fevers or simply recovering from the loss of limbs or eyes.

They were sent to Coimbra because of the presence of the Igreja de Santa Cruz, where monks created the country's first teaching hospital. Young doctors came and went from our hospital, learning the skills they needed to be sent off to the battlefields of the reconquista.

Their comings and goings meant that many of them saw me as little other as a volunteer who would come assist at night.

In the wee hours of the morning, as I was checking wounds or the status of a fever, I would regularly find those who would not survive the night -- even with the learned doctors of the Igreja de Santa Cruz, medicine was a hit or miss proposition in those days -- and would gently speed them on their way, feeding on them as they slipped into a slumber they would never wake from.

So many men were dying on a regular basis that I was not much concerned about being caught, although I had to always pay attention to the others who were there over an extended period of time, like I was: the monks and other volunteers.

But it was nice to view my insatiable hunger as a comfort to these young men and to be able to tell Juião I had harmed no one and caused no deaths that were not already imminent and likely more painful than what I granted.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 25 + 4 - 4 = Prompt 25

_What physical labors are necessary to utilize this method? Create a simple, practical Skill and strike out a Memory._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 

*Resources*:
a cowhorn inkwell, engraved with a knight;
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary, written in a medieval Portuguese log book

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan who becomes my servant

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
4: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them;
5: I am le Passeur: 

*Diary (up to four Memories)*:
1: II am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants;


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Coimbra, 1182*

Coimbra burns. The Muslims have made a raid inland, striking deep into territory that the Portuguese have long thought was safe.

I pack Juião away and we make for one of my ships. I always have one or two around that are not engaged in active trading, against the arrival of a day like this.

I sail southwest into the night. There are islands there, uninhabited by humans, but with caves. Even in the confusion in Coimbra, I was able to pack enough for Juião to be comfortable, along with my precious keepsakes.

Smugglers sometimes use these islands, but rarely. Our neighbors in the Berlengas will be seabirds and lizards for the most part, although Juião will keep watch during the day.

I will have to sail to show under cover of night to feed, but the boy will be safe, away from war, until it is safe for us to reemerge.

It is only later I realize I have left my inkwell behind in Coimbra, the only remaining memento I have of my long-dead father. I can remember the sight of him giving it to me, proud and tired after the work necessary for my work. But I cannot hear his voice, and must consult my diary to know what name he called me or the job the inkwell is for.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 25 + 3 - 1 = Prompt 27

_Wars rage throughout the region in which you reside. You withdraw into a hidden retreat, waiting for them to pass. Lose a resource._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 

*Resources*:
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary, written in a medieval Portuguese log book

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan who becomes my servant

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
4: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them;
5: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; 

*Diary (up to four Memories)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants;


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*The Berlengas, 1182*

This was not a perfect method. Coimbra's field hospital was destroyed in the fire, forcing me to hunt elsewhere.

I grew hungry, after being forced to wait longer to feed by necessity. Eventually, hunger overcame me and I could not stand to sail up the Mondego to Coimbra, but instead hunted the village of Figueira da Foz at the mouth of the river. But I had hunted there before, and found the whole village shut up this moonless night, barred against my entry with crosses, garlic and other folk magic. Most of it had little effect on me -- although their effect on me grew over time, which bothered me -- but crashing down locked doors in a quiet village would bring too many out into the streets with torches and weapons.

Instead, I moved to the ships waiting in Figueira da Foz's simple natural harbor. Surely strangers to the area would be less cautious.

I was wrong. Boarding the first darkened ship, I was set on by multiple men, hacking at me with axes and beating me with oars. I tumbled back into the water and swam the distance to my hidden ship. I raised the sail and made my way back across the waves to the Berlengas.

Juião spies me arriving and brings me into our furnished cave, shaking in fear.

"Master, what happened?"

I am covered in blood, both the bright blood of the men aboard the ship and, distressingly, my own, darker blood.

Juião weeps and hugs me, then tries to bandage my wounds.

"You've lost so much blood ..."

I watch him in silence, knowing what I have to do, but hating the decision. I had wanted to see this boy grow up to become a man and live a normal life, untainted by his association with me. A foolish thought, I see now. Somewhere, Constansia, whom I never tainted this way, is laughing at me.

"Juião," I murmur.

The boy stops. He knows what I'm asking of him. He nods and opens his collar, leaning over me, his face pressed into my shirt, soaked in blood and sea water.

And I drink from him. I intend to just take a little, enough to heal my wounds and prepare me for another hunting expedition, perhaps further down the coast.

But it has been so long since I have properly fed. Juião's hands beat against me as he feels his life drain away and by the time I've realized what I've done, he's limp and still.

In a panic, I know what to do, dimly remembering what Carnutes did to me, so long ago in France. I open the skin of my wrist and feed Juião's blood back to him.

For a long moment, nothing happens and the blood is wasted, running across Juião's gray lips. But then he gasps, and his eyes open sightlessly, gripping my wrist and pulling it against his mouth. I eventually have to wrench him away from my wrist before he drinks more than I have to give.

Juião crouches in the shadows of our cave, panting, his face smeared with blood, panting with the bloodlust now filling him, and I wonder if I made a mistake by letting him live after he helped me that day in the orphanage.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 27 + 2 - 3 = Prompt 26

_You accidentally create a vampire through sloppy feeding. Why do you not destroy them? Check a skill._

*The Frenchman

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 

*Resources*:
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary, written in a medieval Portuguese log book

*Characters*:
Juião, a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
4: I am le Passeur: The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them;
5: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; 

*Diary (up to four Memories)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants;


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*The Berlengas, 1182*

It was immediately clear that our time in the Berlengas was at an end. If there was not enough prey for me to find easily, there certainly wasn't enough for me and Juião.

I suspected the current flurry of war wasn't going to last, but I did not have the luxury of being wrong, not with Juião in a vulnerable state.

Likewise, the various Moorish taifas are supposed to be places of culture and refinement, but exploring them during wartime, especially with Juião in tow, would be reckless.

My memories of France are fragmentary -- disjointed images of my father, of Carnutes, of Constansia -- but I had no desire to return there.

We needed a fresh place, away from the battles with the Muslims, preferably a place of cloudy days and long nights, where Juião and I could wander the shadows of a great city, hunting without being spotted.  

While I puzzled this out, Juião and I took our small sailing ship, Mouette Noire, north along the Portuguese coast, tying up beside other ships in harbor and boarding a lightly crewed neighbor and drinking our fill. We had one or two close calls, but no disasters like at Figueira da Foz -- the further I got from my previous hunting grounds, the less on guard the people were for things like myself and Juião.

Juião was learning control over his appetites, although he swung between resenting what I had done to him and glorying in it. I do not know which bothered me more.

But the time we reached the Rhine river, weeks later, he had gained control of himself, and I knew our destination, a place where two creatures such as us could flourish.

And so it was, as Wilhelm and Julian Black, we took up residence in Cologne in the Holy Roman Empire.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 26 + 4 - 6 = Prompt 24

_You are forced to adopt a new name. Why?_

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 

*Resources*:
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary, written in a medieval Portuguese log book

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black, a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
3: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
4:  I am "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.
5: I am "the Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.

*Diary (up to four Memories)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants;


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Cologne, 1183*

Cologne was everything we hoped it would be. It was a cold, gray and dark city, where rain clouds blunted the painful rays of the sun many days and where there always seemed to be a dark shadow where an unwitting visitor to the city, of which there were many, could be pulled into to kill and devour. Bodies could be dropped into the Rhine at the dark of night and no one would know anything other than that a visiting merchant or riverboat sailor had gone missing while on shore, something which happened with or without Julian and myself every day.

But we were not alone in recognizing the virtues of Cologne.

Within a week of our arrival, a man in a heavy black coat and a large black hat nodded and winked to us on the street one night.

Two days later, a mother and daughter whispered and laughed upon spotting Julian and myself walking together, enjoying a private joke we were not in on.

And two weeks after that, we awoke at sundown in the hold of our ship to discover we had company.

"Guten abend," purred the well-dressed woman, who looked for all the world like a merchant's plump wife. Several other figures lurked in the darkened corners of the room and I could hear a footfall on the deck above. "What did you know of our city before you came here?"

"Only what any merchant knows, and that it was a cloudy city full of travelers."

The woman nodded and for a moment, I saw a flash of teeth between pursed lips -- fanged, like mine and Julian's.

"These things attract many of our kind here. Too many. The Church is powerful here and there are many returning Crusaders who have brought stories about us here."

I opened my mouth to ask about why Crusaders would know anything about us, but the woman raised a hand and kept talking.

"You have been discreet so far, so you may stay. For now. But this is a city of laws, even among the Nachtvolk. You will learn and obey these laws, which serve to keep us safe and keep the peace, or else. Do you agree?"

I nodded and I saw Julian, sitting up in his coffin with bright, curious eyes do the same.

"Excellent. By very good luck, we are having a ceremony tonight. You will attend, and see what happens with those who disagree. You will attend at midnight, beneath St. Gereon's on Gereonstraße in Altstadt. Do not worry: It was our place before it belonged to the Church and you will come to no harm there, so long as you do not let them spot you. If you choose not to attend, you should flee the city immediately. I trust you understand."

And with that, she left, a blur of motion almost too fast for me to see, faster than I or Julian were then. Her companions were similar blurs of black coats and dresses, gone before we could take in any details of them.

At the appointed hour, Julian and I found ourselves standing before a church in the midst of a years-long process of being expanded into something bigger and greater, with wooden frameworks surrounding two black towers pointing up into the clouds.

Not sure where we were expected to go, we were struck by the smell of fresh blood. Heading toward it, we found it laid out like a path in the dark, impossible to see in this unlit area of the site, but as good as a beacon for vampires like us. 

Following the trail led us down to what, from the outside, looked as though it led into a church basement. But as we descended the worn stone stairs, it was clear to us, by the dim light shining from below, that this was a place much older. The carvings on the wall were strange to me, depicting large men, painted with gold leaf, and shown scattering smaller, weaker Roman soldiers with their bare hands and devouring them with sharp white teeth.

The chamber at the bottom of the stairs was clearly old, with carved out spaces in the wall that looked to be cavities where bodies were once stored. And there was a stone altar, with soft rounded edges and lines that had been blurred by centuries of use.

Now, though, it was where a naked vampire, their mouth wrapped around a thick leather belt strapped around their head, writhed, his hands and feet not just bound, but pierced by spikes driven into heavy beams of wood which I guessed had been taken from the construction site above. Their eyes whipped around the room, full of rage but no fear.

The woman who had spoken to us aboard the Mouette Noire stood alongside the altar, dressed in black, holding a long sharp knife of a sort I was unfamiliar with in her hand. She met my eyes and nodded slightly, satisfied that we had appeared as ordered.

Two men stood at her elbows, one with a stone basin, the other holding a pair of clay jugs.

"This will be instructive," the woman said.

Over the course of the next two hours, she removed the vampire's organs one by one, never fully killing him. Before dawn, the shuddering husk of the vampire was carried up to the construction site, where what remains of him would burn away with the sun.

I never learned what he had done to violate the rules the Nachtvolk lived under. But I learned a lot about vampire anatomy.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 24 + 5 - 6 = Prompt 23

_You master a strange new science or field of knowledge. How does your vampire nature give you special insight into these studies. Create an appropriate Skill based on a Memory._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampiric anatomy; 

*Resources*:
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary, written in a medieval Portuguese log book

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black, a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.
4: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.
5: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; 

*Diary (up to four Memories)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans, son of Onfroi, a novice scribe born late in the 10th Century of Our Lord; one of the joys of my youth, gardening, slips away as my touch is now fatal to plants.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: My father, Onfroi, gifts me an engraved inkwell, which he had to save for months to afford; after my father's death, Constansia and I leave Orléans by barge, after setting my house aflame and allowing my sister to believe I was destroyed there; I use my father's name when I later settle in Portugal and set myself up as a merchant and shipbuilder there.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Cologne, 1254*

Although we both flourish, Julian took to being one of the Nachtvolk much more than I did. Something about their rigid hierarchy, of rules and laws that were death to violate -- the Nachtgesetz -- spoke to him.

Soon, he became one of the Dunkle Ritter, who served as Queen Sabine's enforcers. He bore me no ill will, precisely, but he soon drifted away from me, preferring to spend his time with the queen's court,

I had other ambitions.

Cologne was just getting more prosperous. Walls had been erected around the city and it was becoming increasingly independent.

While the flow of blood was assured, I came to desire other creature comforts. The Nachtgesetz forbade simply seizing assets as we wished -- those could draw the attention of the Church or drive us into open warfare among ourselves. My diary was lost in one such needless flurry of violence and insurrection, costing me my memories of my life before I was a vampire.

Instead, I was patient. While I could not grow plants -- the grapes in the vineyard along the shores of the Rhine I had purchased would blacken under my touch -- I could grow people.

Specifically, I grew bankers.

The Church had ridiculous notions about banking that limited my options.

But not entirely.

The Itzig family knew I was not mortal. They also knew that no anti-Semites survived raising a hand to them. Their children could grow up with fear, their businesses could flourish, and their family could thrive.

But when I called, they must answer. When I sought to invest in commercial ventures, whether it be in Cologne or abroad, they would help me do so, without revealing the ageless investor behind it, and even if it conflicted with their own business concerns.

This proved to be little problem, and we grew prosperous together, for many years.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 23 + 5 - 6 = Prompt 22

_Create a mortal Character. You have shaped them from infancy to be exactly what you want. Lose a Resource._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampiric anatomy; 

*Resources*:
the Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
The Itzig family: a Jewish family of bankers and merchants in medieval Cologne;

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.
4: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.
5: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Cologne, 1260*

I watched old Josel go, stifling a yawn as he went. My hours were not those of the living, but the Itzigs never complained.

"So fragile," a voice from the shadows behind me said quietly, "yet you rely on them so much."

"Julian," I said, turning my head slightly. "All of my defenses in this grand house, and you slip right past them."

"I know how you think, old man," he said, dripping out of the shadows, into the circle of candlelight. He was dressed head to toe in black, of the finest fabrics. "You have been quiet, lately. We've barely seen you at court."

"In contrast, I hear you have been very busy. They say you should be called Julian Red, rather than black."

The thing that used to be a boy laughed a mean laugh.

"It turns out I have a knack for these things. I have learned much in Cologne."

"And these people you kill, are they bad?"

Julian gave me a sharp look.

"Don't be clever with me. I came to bring you a gift. As I recall, you have had trouble getting the blood you needed at times."

I could not tell from his tone whether any of the old anger or resentment was still there. In a way, it would have been a relief, a sign that something of human morals still resided in him.

Julian pulled something from a bag -- black, of course -- and clapped it on the table.

I stared in confusion: a beating heart.

"Whose ...?"

"The owner is long-dead," Julian smiled, pleased with my shock. "I took this from a Serbian vampire who refused to abide by the Nachtgesetz, and I thought of you. This way, when you are starving, you won't have to feast on the mortals who trust you do do no harm. Although I imagine that old man just has dust in his veins at his age."

I watched the heart beat, feeling blood rushing to my face in shame.

Julian's mocking laughter echoed through the big dark house as he left me alone, staring at the heart he had left behind.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 22 + 6 - 2 = Prompt 26

_This immortal Character lurks on the fringes of your existence. They become an embodiment of one of your last savory checked Skills. How do they act when your paths cross? What disturbing gift do they give to you? Create a Resource._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*:
Skilled at navigating boats (checked);
Bloodthirsty (checked);
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast;
Skilled merchant;
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine;
Knowledge of vampiric anatomy;

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal);
The Itzig family: a Jewish family of bankers and merchants in medieval Cologne;

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants;

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.
3: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.
4: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
5. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart;

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*The Rhein, 1346*

I stood on the deck of my ship shortly after sundown, shortly after having awoken, still trying to get the taste of smoke and charred human flesh out of my mouth, like always. It was a ghost of a memory I woke with every morning, from before my days as a vampire, I think. Surely I had never dined on human flesh, so why I should have the taste of it in my mouth was always a mystery.

"It's a full moon tonight," Paul Itzig said, standing at the helm. "We should be able to sail all night, as you requested."

"Excellent. With the collapse of the Bardi and Peruzzi banks, Florence should welcome us and our money with open arms."

Paul nodded. This was also an excellent opportunity for him. He had too many brothers to ever be more than a minor functionary in our bank here. But Florence was a new frontier, with an opportunity to make a name for himself. Almost all of those who were coming with me had similar stories.

"My grandfather said you used to be a mariner yourself, sir," Paul continued. "Would you like to take the helm?"

A hired navigator at his side flinched slightly; it would be he who would be responsible if we ran aground in the dark, not me.

I reached out and touched the wheel, finding the feel of the polished wood under my hand unfamiliar. I looked up at the sails and the ropes and realized that I could remember nothing of this, of the past life I had apparently spoken to the late Sigbert Itzig about, once upon a time.

The wheel felt like it was burning in my hands and I half wanted to jerk my hands away, and half wanted to wrap my arms around it, to compel it to teach me how to sail again. I could picture my time in Portugal and sailing to and from the Berlengas, but it was like watching someone else do it. I could no more do it myself than I could grind flour.

"No," I said, stepping away, shaken. How many more things had I lost, without realizing it? How long until this moment aboard my ship would slip away with them? "You have the helm, Paul."


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 26 + 7 - 3 = Prompt 30

_What social mores have you forgotten? Lose a checked Skill._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*:
Bloodthirsty (checked);
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast;
Skilled merchant;
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine;
Knowledge of vampiric anatomy;

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal);
The Itzig family: a Jewish family of bankers and merchants in medieval Cologne;

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants;

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.
3: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
4. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart;
5. I am Wilhelm Black: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence;

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1446*

I awake, in a room full of candlelight, made more glittering by the light reflecting off gold paint and sumptuous deep red velvet draperies.

"Where am I?" I managed to croak out. I feel weak, weaker than I have since first becoming a vampire, and ravenously hungry. But I am barely able to move.

"Florence, in the sotto palazzo," a man says, moving slowly into my field of view as he circles me, appraising me.

"What happened? I was ... on the Rhein?"

"You were coming to take Florence for your own. You and your," the man -- no, vampire, based on the paleness of the skin and darkness of his eyes -- waved a hand dismissively, "German bankers. And we couldn't have that. This is my city. The banking industry is mine. Not some outsider's."

"What did you do to me?" I turn my head slowly, the feeling like forcing my body through abrasive sand.

"Unlike those arrogant fools in Cologne, we keep track of the vampiri throughout the continent. We knew your preferred feeding habits and it was easy enough to poison people along the way. Eventually, you took the bait and fell into a trance. Your ship ran aground and we killed all your servants." He clucked his tongue. "Very sad."

"Why keep me alive, then?"

"I have heard about the brutality of the vampiri of Cologne, but we are better than that, here. The vampiri, we are born to rule, the natural masters of humanity. If we kill one another, it is better to do it to your face, not through poison. We would fight a duel or there would be a trial followed by an execution. But also, there is no need. Without your bankers, you cannot do anything to hurt me any more. Instead, enjoy Florence, the greatest city in the world. Just, do not challenge us again, and everything will be fine, all right?"

"All right," I whisper, as the vampire pushes an enormous goblet into reach of my fingers. Even before I grasp it, I can smell that it's full to the brim with hot, fresh blood. I force myself up onto my elbows, off of this flat upholstered bed I had woken up on. "What do I call you?"

"I am Averardo de' Medici, but everyone calls me 'il Chiarissimo.'"


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 30 + 4 - 3 = Prompt 1

_You fall into a deep slumber for 100 years. Strike out any mortal Characters._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampiric anatomy; 

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am le Passeur or "The Frenchman": I retreat to the islands off Portugal with my servant, Juião, and sail to the mainland at night, under cover of darkness, looking for prey; I feed on Juião when desperate for blood and accidentally turn him into a vampire; we relocate to Cologne, a city of gray skies and long nights, better suited for those such as ourselves than sunny Portugal.
3: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
4. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; 
5. I am Wilhelm Black: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; 


*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1446*

It was Il Chiarissimo's little joke, or perhaps his warped sense of honor, that he had taken my fortune from me and my bankers, but left me my possessions, although surely he had wondered at them.

In any case, I was turned out into Florence, alone, penniless, with no friends or acquaintances here. 

After confirming that no one had ever heard of the merchant empire that I can left behind a century ago up north, I compelled a merchant house sending goods north to take messages to Julian and others I knew in Cologne. I did not ever expect to hear back from them.

So I wandered Florence, which truly was the greatest city I had ever set eyes on. In addition to banking, it was a great center of the textile industry, and all night and day, ships were coming in and going out, laden with traffic. Construction seemed to be underway on every corner, and not the grim gray buildings of Cologne, but red brick and tan stone and nearly every space imaginable was decorate with art works, including bronze bas-relief panels affixed to doors and statues in any intersection wider needed for two wagons to pass.

But I could not focus on the wonders of the city. I was ravenous with hunger and it was almost all I could think about. But this was a city of churches, and, as I discovered as I reeled away from them in pain, some time in the last century, even approaching the threshold of a church or chapel made me feel like my body was on fire. I dared not risk leaping on the little widows, all dressed in black, as they left late night prayers, lest some lingering piety clung dangerously to them.

I fell back into what fell natural, leaping upon the men who seem to lurk in every alley of every city in the world, with knives in their hands and sharp eyes -- but not sharp enough to spot me lurking above them.

I was reckless in my hunger, leaving their bodies where I had drained them and moving on to devour ever more, as though I could somehow fill up a century of appetites in a few blood-soaked nights now.

I slept in dark attics and basements. When I awoke, I would find a dusting of soil beneath me, which had come from some unknown source in the course of the day.

After some number of nights -- perhaps a week -- I was sober enough to clean myself up, put on fresher clothes and try to experience Florence in a civilized manner once again.

But soon I found myself entranced by perhaps the most beautiful people I had ever seen. I do not think my desire was sexual -- I could not now remember ever having had or acting upon sexual feelings -- but the beauty of their forms entranced me, and I followed the young people, chattering happily as they went, down streets and allies.

Finally, they let themselves up a set of stairs to a second story space above some shops.

I scurried up the outer wall after them, peering inside. Although I do not normally breathe, I gave a little gasp I saw them disrobing and a man arranging lights to create interesting shadows on their beautiful bodies as they posed, standing or sitting calmly.

My heart thundered in my chest and I felt a raging desire to do something. Whether it was to kill everyone involved, to join them, to fornicate, I do not know. But the feeling was overwhelming and my head swam. I was self-conscious, terrified one would glance up and see me staring at them, as pitiful as a lovestruck boy or a cat in heat.

The clothed man who had arranged the lights sat now and began sketching them with charcoal. The sound of it moving back and forth, back and forth across the paper lulled me into a state like sleep and I imagined it was me who was putting layer upon layer of charcoal on the page, deepening the shadows of an armpit or beneath the curve of a breast.

My skin began to tingle slightly with the sounds and when I opened my lazy eyes, I saw that I was in shadows myself, deeper and darker than any should have been. As I felt alarm, the shadows began to fade once more and I allowed myself to be lulled into a trance once more, and watched the shadows pour back in, like fog over the Rhein. It was me: I was doing this somehow, some sort of response to my century of sleep or my feral lurking in shadows now.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" a voice came from nearby in the eaves. I had always been quick to learn languages, even in life, I think, and Italian was enough like Portuguese for me to have learned the basics already. 

I turned my head and there was a man dressed in black silks -- vampires all over the world seem to find it an irresistible color -- and a slim sword at his side, wedged between gutter and beam of the same roof I clung beneath.

I swallowed and nodded.

"They are off limits, though. Artist and model alike. Under orders of Il Chiarissimo. Ah, I see you have met him. Good. You have the look of a newcomer and I did not know if you knew our ways. Someone is killing sloppily in the city, and Il Chiarissimo will crucify whomever is responsible if he catches them. Pass the word along, will you?"

The other vampire smiled and nodded, and with a last lingering look at the models, flipped upwards onto the roof and, catlike, stole across the red clay tiles off into the night.

I watched the artist sketch the models for hours and knew that, whatever else Il Chiarissimo might be, he was right to preserve this in his city.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 31 + 10 - 3 = Prompt 38

_Your whole being becomes centered in your senses and your hungers. Create a Skill that demonstrates your feral vampire nature and lose an existing Memory._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant; 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not di

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; 
4. I am Wilhelm Black: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; 
5.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1447*

I watched the vampires sword fight on rooftop, the moonlight flashing silver off their blades. 

I was several blocks away, concealed in supernaturally black shadows, still an outsider in la danza nera of the Florentine vampires. At this distance, I could not tell whether the intricate battle was simply sport of in deadly earnest. I had seen both in the past, including among mortals on the streets on the city.

But the swordfight was so beautiful, it didn't matter whether it was the beauty of art or the beauty of great predators in nature.

And then a silhouetted head and shoulders popped up between the battlers and me, peering into the shadows.

"Who's there?" The tone was accusatory.

I slid down the roof, listening for any sounds of pursuit and headed toward the nearest dark and open windows I could find, landing quietly on the floor of an enormous room.

I waited, unmoving, listening for any signs of life or sense that I wasn't alone. It was a dim space, the walls lined with training dummies and weapons racks. But it was also all covered in a thick layer of dust. An unused space for training and sparring.

A light came from a room at the end of the hall, and a man was illuminated by the light of the candle he now carried. His hair was white, but his back was straight and we walked confidently into the darkness. He wore a sword, although on his right side, rather than his left.

"Who's there?"

I stood up. There was nothing this man could do to me unless I allowed it.

"Is this a fencing school?" I felt the candlelight on my skin as I looked around at the room. This place had once trained dozens.

"It was."

"And what happened?"

"The wrong person got killed."

I looked back at the man and I saw he was holding his candle stick in his left hand. He raised his right, which had been shorn of its fingers and thumb.

"My punishment."

"Leave the great swordsman alive, but deprive him of his ability to be who he once was?"

He nodded, in as casual a fashion as I suspect he could manage. The candle light picked out other scars on his throat. He had nearly had his throat torn out as well, and not by a sword.

"My people believe in a cruel justice."

"It is not for me to say," the man said, who was not as old as he looked. What I took for age was the loss of hope and pride.

"How large is this place?"

I had begun to rebuild my investments, spread out over multiple industries this time, and spread to other cities as quickly as I could manage. I would never again be as vulnerable as I had turned out to be in Cologne, when I had arrogantly thought myself a great master of the night time world.

"It is a large space. Some have asked about purchasing it as a storage place or for weaving."

"And does it have a basement?"

"It does, my lord."

"Good. I will purchase your school and you will begin your lessons again immediately. Florence has enough buildings full of crates of fabric. You will do what you do best, once again."

And so it was that I came to dwell beneath a school of fencing that had but one student, learning how to kill in a more beautiful, more elegant fashion that I had for the centuries of my existence so far.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 38 + 7 - 5 = Prompt 40

_How do you conceal yourself while you sleep? What steps have you taken for protection? Check a Skill and create a Resource. Create a mortal servant Character if you like._

*Wilhelm Black

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces;

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Florentine fencing school

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Filippo Vadi: a Florentine fencing master with the fingers of his right hand cut off (mortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1458*

It was Carnival, the biggest and best yet. The Medicis viewed it as an opportunity to show off their wealth and power by ingratiating the city with the biggest party it had ever seen, with elaborate parades, people in costumes and wine overflowing every cup.

I leaned in a doorway, a cup in my hand, although not one that had been stained with wine, watching the world go past my mask.

The Florentines had never truly accepted me. There were secrets I was left out of, conspiracies I knew only hints of and family squabbles that I was thankfully completely superfluous to.

But they loved money. And more than the dour vampires of Cologne, they loved what money could do.

Seemingly every vampire who danced la danza nera was by now the patron of one or more artists. I myself sponsored a sculptor of some minor promise. But the vampires also owned vineyards and sponsored schools and paid for beautiful buildings, even churches.

Having learned the lessons of the past, I had also spread my investments around. I had holdings in Lisbon and Paris. The other vampires here had warned me off of doing so in Venice and Rome, as apparently the family squabbles among Italian vampires extended beyond Florence's walls. But for now, three fortunes in three cities in three countries was enough.

I was once again content, and secure.

And yet, I heard crying.

A fair-haired woman half-stalked, half-ran through the crowded streets, eyes streaked with tears. Eyes that I somehow knew, although I could not place them.

Pulling the shadows in around me, I slipped up onto the roofs without attracting notice from the drunken revelers below and easily followed the crying woman from above. She pushed her way off the main thoroughfare, into a neighborhood full of struggling merchants and immigrants.

I could hear her shouts of frustration and rage from the street as she stood in front of an apartment building, picking at bags and boxes that had been thrown out into the street, many of which had clearly already been picked over by the revelers.

I slipped back down to street level and approached.

"Signora, what is the matter?" I had to pull my mask off and repeat the question before she heard me, over the sounds of the party and her own yelling.

"These putain have tossed all of my things out on the street without warning me! I had no chance to collect my things and now some of them are gone, forever!"

I found myself staring at her face, unable to put a name to it, but feeling I knew it.

"Your accent, you are French?"

"What? What does that have to do with anything? My employer paid for this apartment and somehow tells the landlord we have gone bankrupt before even telling me. I raced here to get my things and now ... ugh!"

I helped her collect what remained, scaring away a merry would-be looter with a dark glance.

"That's awful. Will you be returning home?"

"I don't know. My family's business went bankrupt when I was a girl, which is why I'm in Florence instead. There is nothing for me in Orleans."

I felt a shudder move through me. Her face was that of a girl I once knew, who looked at me with fear and terror as I protected her from -- someone. The memories were elusive, but I felt myself wanting to wrap my arms around her and protect her from whatever threatened her.

"What is your name?" I asked, although I knew I would not recognize it.

"Catherina Marchand. If you are here with the bank, I have nothing left for you to take."

"Enchanté, Mademoiselle Marchand. I have no interest in taking from you. Au contraire, I was thinking I might offer you a job. I do business in Paris and could use the help."

"Your French is strange," Catherina said, not withdrawing her hand from mine. "I cannot place your accent."

"I learned it long ago," I said.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 40 + 1 - 6 = Prompt 35

_You encounter the descendant of an old foe and help them in some way. Why did you do this? Check a skill. Create a mortal Character._

*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Florentine fencing school

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Filippo Vadi: a Florentine fencing master with the fingers of his right hand cut off (mortal); 
Catherina Marchand: a descendant of Cateline and Anouilh, who works for my Florentine investment company (mortal);

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other heretics were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese orphan Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on battlefield wounded as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1463*

Catherina proved to have a capable head for business. Although I could not remember whatever it was in France that she reminded me of, I found her presence a comfort.

I did not share my nature with her, though. But even maintaining my privacy with her over the years, she had questions: Where had I come from? Why had I come to Florence? Why did my accent sound that way?

For the first time in years, I brought out the ledger book I had brought with me from Cologne, to which I had consigned my fading memories. In horror, I realized water had damaged the book, most likely when we were boarded on the Rhein. Words and passages were smeared beyond recognition.

I no longer knew city where I was born, although it was somewhere in France and, given my reaction to when I had met Catherina, I suspected it was Orléans. But my name in life, whom I had known then and now, even the exact circumstances that I had become a vampire, it was all gone.

Perhaps this was the beginning of the despair that Carnutes had warned of, although even that, I only now knew of from my diary, and not from my own memories.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 35 + 7 - 3 = Prompt 39

_Age has damaged your Diary. Strike out three nouns, starting from the oldest entry. If you have no Diary, do this to the first three nouns in a memory of middling age._

*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Florentine fencing school

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Filippo Vadi: a Florentine fencing master with the fingers of his right hand cut off (mortal); 
Catherina Marchand: a descendant of Cateline and Anouilh, who works for my Florentine investment company (mortal);

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1472*

It was the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year. A time when vampires, even those who rule the greatest city in the world, tend to stay indoors and are wary of surprise visitors.

So the strange woman who greeted me when I woke in my quarters below my fencing school was an unwelcome shock.

"Do not worry," she said, in an accent unlike any I had ever heard, "Your servants are fine. I am quite practiced at slipping in and out of places without notice."

At first glace, she dressed like a wealthy foreign merchant, with unusual fabrics in her dress. But upon closer inspection, what appeared to be a dress like one could find for sale at shops around Florence turned out to be something more practical: flowing pants that mimicked a dress, but which was much more suitable for what I still thought of as more manly pursuits.

She sat at my table, where I both entertained my guests and conducted personal business. There was a stack of my papers near her elbow that did not appear to have been disturbed.

"If you want me to be impressed that you got in here without me waking, I am. Others have managed it over the years, but they were friends who had an idea of my preparations."

The woman shrugged.

"I have lived a long life. I have learned to do many things in that time."

I shrugged. 

"And what is it you want of me?"

"You have something that belongs to me."

"I sincerely doubt that."

She sat up, pulling her thick black hair away from her bodice and pulled the fabric down, baring much of her left breast. A long scar marred her caramel colored skin.

"Originally, it would have been in an alabaster jar," she said, pulling the fabric back up, "although the jar appears to have been separated from the heart some time ago and sold separately. I do hope you are not just storing my heart in some burlap bag."

I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her.

"No, it's not. It's in a secure vault -- not here -- hidden among other, more mundane treasures. It's not in an alabaster jar, but hidden even better. One wouldn't know it was there at all, unless one put their ear up to its container."

She relaxed at this, and smiled, dark lips parting to show white, white teeth.

"Good. When the trail ran cold after Cologne, I assumed you were skilled at shaking off pursuers. I did not know then that your century of hiding was not by choice. Still, it is good to learn you are one who knows the value of subterfuge."

"It's how I've lived as long as I have."

The woman laughed at this, sincerely and deeply, but stopped when she saw my expression.

"My apologies. You are, I'm guessing, perhaps 500 years old? Impossibly for a human, mature for a vampire but not 'long' in my terms. I am about 3,000 years old, sitting before you today."

"Are you a vampire as well?" I didn't think so. She smelled as alive as any human, moreso, in some ways, with blood that practically thundered in her veins and body heat I could feel from across the table.

"No, there were no vampires when I lived the first time or even when I escaped my tomb and began my second life. There were things like them, demons that lived in Sumeria and Manipur, but in this current form," she gestured casually at me with one hand, "that was something the Romans brought back from Judea about 1,500 years ago."

"You know a lot about me, but I don't even know your name."

"I am Meresankh."

"Are you a Moor?"

Her nostrils flared briefly in irritation.

"You would call me that, especially the Portuguese you lived with for a time. Yes, I know all about that, 'Guglielmo' who was 'Wilhelm' and who was once called ... 'Guillaume.'"

She sat back, studying my face.

"So little reaction to that name. So you are already losing your identity, the years unable to be contained in your brain. You think yourselves so powerful, so mighty, but you all end up the same. Barely human, ignorant of who and what you are, unconnected to your former humanity in any way. Pitiful monsters, spreading now like locusts across Europe."

"You're not the first to threaten me with this, Meresankh."

"It is no threat. I did not cause it. I wish you did not inevitably decay this way. It would be nice to have someone to share eternity with. In all my years, I have never encountered anyone who can understand my native tongue or knows the lullabies my mother once sang to me. I have traveled across this world, to continents undreamed of and learned 100 different languages. But as far as I can tell, I am the oldest living being in this world."

"And you predate the vampires? What can you tell me of our origins?"

She waved my questions away.

"I did not come here to be a school teacher. I came here for my heart. I was going to place it somewhere safer than it is, although it sound like it will be safe, for now, with you. Safer than it was with Julian, certainly. What a petty little creature he was."

"'Was?' Did you destroy him?" I knew, from my diary, that Julian had saved me once, or more, as a mortal, but I find that there's nothing in me that still feels a true emotion toward him.

"No, although he showed very bad manners. But I left him alive, once he told he what he had done with my heart. You, though, are much more civil."

"It's how I've lived as long as I have -- such that I have."

Meresankh smiled at that.

"You likely have a few centuries left in you, before you succumb to idiocy. Would you like to come with me and see the cougar-city of Qusqu, or the great statues of Rapa Nui, that look out onto an ocean larger than any you have ever dreamed of, or go south to the endless land of ice, where the night sky burns with green fire and where no humans have ever walked but me? You could be my most trusted servant."

"'Servant?' I am no servant."

Meresankh's eyes narrowed.

"In life, I was a queen, the wife of a living god. I know more things than you ever possibly could. Since my rebirth, I have sailed a ship I built myself across the great western ocean. I have turned lead into gold. I have been the lover of three different gods. I have ruled four different kingdoms on three continents. You are in on way my equal. But I would allow you to be my companion."

"And what happens if a vampire feeds upon you, oldest woman in the world?" I snarled. "What does your blood do for us?"

Her tone rankled me. I could not remember -- literally -- anyone ever treating me with anything other than the deference that comes with knowing I am a deadly predator.

Meresankh laughed.

"My blood is like hot sand in your mouth. It does nothing to nourish you, but burns your mouth and throat."

She rose from the table.

"I have your measure now. I do not think you will harm my heart. And if I want it back, I will be able to find you again now. You will regret not taking me up on my offer. Human lives are so brief and your relationship cannot be anything other than a wolf among the sheep. Perhaps I will offer you another chance some day. Farewell for now, Guglielmo-who-was-Guillaume."

I watched her leave, wanting to chase after her, ask her about the Romans and Judea, and what more she knew about the origins of vampires, about green fire in the southern skies and of what a "cougar city" was. But after centuries of establishing my own little empires of businesses and traders and ships sailing in my name, I could not fathom leaving that all behind and bending the knee even to someone who claimed to have known Sumeria.

I spent decades wondering if I had made the right decision.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 39 + 3 - 2 = Prompt 40

_You are approached by a supernatural Character unknown to you. They take you on a bizarre journey, then offer you spiritual solace in exchange for a terrible pledge. What do they demand? Will you accept? If you accept, gain a Skill._
*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Florentine fencing school

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Filippo Vadi: a Florentine fencing master with the fingers of his right hand cut off (mortal); 
Catherina Marchand: a descendant of Cateline and Anouilh, who works for my Florentine investment company (mortal);
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Florence, 1550*

I awoke in darkness, the taste of smoke and charred human flesh in my mouth giving way to dust. Normally, the darkness was no problem for me, but this evening, it was like a blanket across my face.

No, not a blanket. Rubble. Stone and dirt. I sat forward, forcing it off me, thrusting it away with desperate hands to find even more rock and stone beyond it. My quarters beneath the fencing school had been filled with fallen rock.

I opened my mouth to call for Filippo or one of his sons, but only a croak came out, and I suddenly realized I was starved for blood, hungrier now than I had been since first arriving, a comatose prisoner, in Florence.

The last thing I remembered was a war council of the la danza nera in Il Chiarissimo's underground palace. We were discussing Savanarola, who was reportedly teaching his followers, il Piagnoni, about the vampires in Florence and planning on doing something about us.

But I remembered returning home before dawn, tired, perhaps, but no more than that. So what had happened here, and why had I not awakened for it?

With all my might, I began to slowly clear my way upward, moving the rubble as far as I could. Many times, I found myself confronted by immovable walls of stone and had to slowly crawl backwards and find another path forward. Other times, I dislodged too much at once and had to prevent a rapid landslide that might crush me, or worse, let in a sudden blast of sunlight for which I was unprepared, not knowing what hour of day this was.

When light finally broke through the rubble, I was so used to crawling in darkness that at first, I mistook it for sunlight and recoiled in panic. But it was moonlight, and as I pulled away the last few stones and pulled myself out, I saw it was a full moon. 

I was still in my neighborhood of Florence, but things had changed. My school was in ruins, but other buildings around it were also damaged and some replaced entirely. And then I saw them: cannonball holes in some of the surviving buildings.

But otherwise, the street looked normal. It was clean and there were flower boxes in the windows. This was not currently a city at war. But when had it been? And for how long?

First, though, I needed to feed. Immediately. 

I stalked the alleyways as I had so many times over the centuries, dragging unfortunates out of the gutter or even the streets, gorging myself until I could think clearly again.

I had learned from Cologne and had worked to diversify my investments, none of them requiring "Guglielmo Nero" to access them. And Catherina had been a good business manager, further expanding my financial empire and making it less vulnerable to wars or calamity.

I could rebuild, here or in another city. I had long ago created records suggesting I had multiple male heirs around Europe. The question, then, was whom to become and where to resume my long unlife.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 40 + 10 - 2 = Prompt 48

_You awaken covered in dust. Generations have passed. Your sleeping place has been sealed off. How did you escape? Lose a Resource. Strike out all mortal Characters._

*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);

*Resources*:
The Spear of Aeolius, an ancient Roman spear capable of killing vampires
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; 

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Nicosia, 1578*

After leaving Florence, I realized my best course was to continue moving, to not get drawn into the politics of any local place, mortal or immortal.

As I had hoped, my business interests had survived my absence this time, and was able to freely travel with money that had grown over the decades. All it took was convincing one clerk in Pisa that I was Giulio Nero, the dissolute grandson of Guglielmo Nero and now an heir to his business -- one of a number of male heirs. Letters were then sent around Europe to help establish the existence of these other heirs. And as I traveled, these heirs corresponded with one another, from city to city, over decades, creating evidence that I would then use later on, when I changed names as time went on and my face was too young to be the heir I was claiming to be.

I was guided in my travels by a desire to untangle my family history. Like humans of a certain age, I became obsessed with piecing together what I knew of those who came before me. But in my case, I was interested in vampires. And, according to Meresankh, the family tree would not extend far into the past, although it was apparently spreading quickly now.

I now only know Carnutes from my diary and that he was a Gaul who was turned by Aeolius, a Roman soldier whose spear I still possess. And Meresankh made reference to true vampires first appearing in the Holy Land about 1,500 years ago. So to the Holy Land I went.

I was freely able to travel through the Ottoman Empire -- or at least as free as any living European could. The questions were limited to what any traveler would be asked, and any strangeness in my manner due to my nature was considered to be a European eccentricity.

I spent a year in Jerusalem, a modest and ancient city of about 10,000 people. In addition to Christians and Jews, it turned out to be a holy city to the Muslims as well, something I hadn't realized before traveling through the empire. It took me most of my time there to work through the various Quranic scholars who lived in the city to find one whose interests were more esoteric.

Eventually, I was able to gain audience with Aafiq Al-Nazzal, a Sufi scholar most considered to be a collector of ghost stories. He, too, had heard the stories that the first vampires had appeared in Judea 1,500 years ago.

"A date of great significance among Christians," he said, conspiratorially. "There are rumors, of course, that they were present at the planned crucifixion of the prophet Isa, whom you call 'Jesus.' But Allah saved him, with a miracle. Some say he was bodily raised into Heaven. Others say that another died in his place."

"Christians believe the blood of Jesus was spilled as he hung on the cross, that a Roman soldier stabbed him with his spear."

"Possible. The Romans were cruel and enjoyed torturing their enemies. Likely everyone who was crucified suffered wounds from nearby soldiers."

"Could his blood have somehow turned those soldiers into vampires?"

Aafiq was horrified at the notion.

"Isa was a great prophet, who performed many miracles, including feeding children and curing the blind. He was not some witch cursing his enemies. No, whatever caused the vampires to appear was not his doing."

According to Aafiq, most of the Roman soldiers in Judea at that time were Greeks, specifically Thessalians. And thus, I knew the next stop on my journey.

Thessaly was an uneasy province of the Ottomans at this time, with groups of rebels hiding in the rocky mountains, always eager to fall upon their occupiers in the vain hope of driving the pasha out. A scholar, coming from elsewhere in the empire, was the least of officials' problems.

In Larissa, known to the Ottomans as Yeni-şehir i-Fenari, I sat with an elderly woman, said to be the oldest person alive in Greece, although I was definitely much older. Sophia had been taught all the stories of the old days by her grandmother, who was said to have been the oldest woman in her day, and who had similarly been a link to ancient stories.

Sophia's grandmother had spoken of the vampires, whom she said were Roman soldiers, rather than the native-born lamia, who were beautiful Greek women who preyed on young men for their blood and flesh.

"And do you know any of these vampires' names, grandmother?"

Sophia turned her head toward me. She was blind, or nearly so, and had long ago lost all of her teeth and most of her hearing.

She pointed a wobbly finger at the wall of her dark room.

"One went north, into the mountains, to become a school master at a school for the dark arts by a black lake."

"Wait, who did? Which mountains?"

But I had exhausted Sophia and was unable to get more from her.

So I traveled further north through the Ottoman Empire, into Bulgaria. There, I found others who had heard the story, and referred to the headmaster as Solomonar. But other Bulgarians said the school was founded by the Devil himself. But they all agreed that the school was even further north, near Sibiu in Transylvania.

Sibiu was a charming town on the Cibin River. Many of the buildings had an unusual ventilation system in their roofs that made them look as though they were covered in eyes. Amusing, at first, but over time, the feeling grew and grew that I was being truly watched.

On my third night in town, I was assaulted in the early hours of the morning before dawn and taken by strong hands to a hidden location.

I awoke to find nine vampires, dressed in a variety of styles from around Europe and the Ottoman Empire, glaring at me. I was in a round stone room, chains binding me to a gray stone throne. Most worryingly, I was surrounded on all sides by tall wooden shutters, shut out against the night, but which I could easily imagine being thrown open, allowing the room to flood with sunlight come dawn.

"You are asking a lot of questions," one vampire said, with a thick Transylvanian accent and a long droopy mustache. "Why are you seeking a school?"

"I have questions about our kind's origins. I have been to Jerusalem, where we apparently were born, and traced the path back from there to Thessaly. I was told one of the first vampires came here, to found a school of dark arts."

The vampires glanced at each other. Something I had said resonated with past conversations between them.

"And who was this vampire?"

"He may have called himself Aeolus, or it might have been a companion of his. At some point, he created another vampire, who I knew as Carnutes and he in turn created me. I have come seeking more understanding of what it means to be a vampire."

They conferred among themselves, using a code or language I did not recognize. At long last, the one with the droopy mustache approached me and pulled something from his dark cloak. Before I could see what it was, I was in darkness once more.

When I awoke again, I was conscious that a great deal of time had passed.

I was in a mossy tomb somewhere warmer than when I had last been awake, I sat up on my slab and found my clothes had been sloppily buttoned up at some point in the past. As I redid them, I found new scars on my torso and knew that things had been removed from me and I had been stitched back up with black thread by someone who wanted me to know what happened. What, though, they had taken, or why, I did not know.

I emerged into twilight and what appeared to be a Greek island like those I had visited on my journey to Thessaly. But this one was far larger and beyond its shores, nothing but dark blue waters.

I found I had no more desire to learn about the origins of vampires, but was instead seized with the desire to create a new, great work of supernatural and artistic importance.

I discovered I was on the outskirts of Nicosia, in the Ottoman eyalet of Cyprus, six months after my arrival in Sibiu. In addition to ships going to and from the empire, there were regular trips to and from Venice. I set about my great project, sending for my things from their hidden caches around Italy and hired laborers both from Cyprus and elsewhere in the empire.

Finally, a year later, I had done it. Upon Cyprus' Mt. Olympus, I had erected a structure that combined broken statuary from the slopes of Mt. Olympus, death masks from Egypt and, most importantly, the Spear of Aeolus, which swung freely in the structure, pointing in response to unseen stimulus.

The locals were curious about the structure and insisted on approaching it repeatedly. It took killing all those foolish enough to stay near the summit at night, and tossing their bodies down the mountain, for it to stop.

I left Cyprus with a lightened heart and the whole world open to me.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 48 + 10 - 2 = Prompt 56 ((Two more rolls like that and the game is over.))

_You begin a fantastic construction that puzzles the mortals around you. Give just a hint of its purpose. Lose a Resource and gain the skill Visionary._

*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast; 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; 

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Vienna, 1600*

A package arrived at the offices of my Vienesse barrister. Inside, was a note listing a series of names, most of them former or current aliases of mine, and asking if the package had reached these persons, to please respond to an address in Prague, so that the writer and I could arrange to meet, to discuss how Il Chiarissimo had wronged us both.

I suppose I should have been alarmed, but I was not. The additional names the letter was addressed to showed that whomever this writer was, they were fallible and had not completely tracked my moves around the continent.

And if their goal had been to harm me, there were better ways to do so, having found my barrister, than arranging at meeting at a later date.

Intrigued, I agreed to meet.

Vienna was a charming city even then, in the years between Turkish sieges, and before it became the Baroque city it would in the coming years. But I drifted through it, not making real connections with my barrister, Herr Gibitz, despite having employed his father before him. The same went for the modest staff at my house and similar employees at my homes and businesses in Mirandola, Barcelona and Tirana. 

The Itzigs of Cologne had all been killed after my disappearance, as had my staff in Florence. I craved getting close to others again -- I now knew the loneliness that Carnutes and Meresankh had spoken of -- but the price for such selfishness for them was a violent death.

Whomever I had expected to meet at that cafe in Prague, I was not prepared for an elderly Italian man with a sad face.

"Good evening," he said, slowly lowering himself into a chair. "I believe we have something in common."

Alessandro's family had been Florentines. More than that, they had been Piagnoni -- the followers of Girolamo Savonarola. After he was executed, his family then followed the teachings of Pietro Bernardino, and his secret band of Piagnoni, carrying out the work of Savonarola, which both included a struggle against what they saw as the teachings of a failed church as well as opposing the vampires of Florence. When they were exposed by the Medicis and driven out of Florence, they ended up in my beloved Mirandola, before agents of the Medici vampires set upon them there, leading to most of them being burned as heretics.

But Alessandro's grandparents had been among those whose identity had not been known to the Medicis, and they remained there in hiding, raising their family and passing on the teachings of the Piagnoni, which included the identities of the Florentine vampires -- including me.

When Alessandro came of age, he intended to avenge his family by destroying the Florentine vampires, and set about studying them to determine their weaknesses. He soon learned that the Medici vampires lorded over all others, just as their human descendants did with the mortal population of the city. And he learned that Il Chiarissimo had orchestrated the ambush against me on the Rhein, ordered the execution of the Itzigs and, later, had arranged to leave my fencing school in rubble while I slept, trapped, beneath it, while he killed off my human servants so they could not aid me.

I had suspected all of this, of course, but hearing it laid out and reading the letters and diaries Alessandro had collected over the years as proof, was like a blow to the chest.

My fury grew in a way it hadn't in centuries. Blood thundered in my ears and all I could think about was my claws and fangs ripping into everyone around me. It took all my self-control to prevent myself from slaughtering the dozen innocents in the cafe. Finally, I pulled myself back under control.

"And what is it you want from me, Alessandro, as I am one that I know you detest?"

"Anything you can offer me to help destroy Il Chiarissimo. Ways of killing vampires. Secrets of his court or his hiding places. Anything you can give me and my followers to help us gain my revenge before I die."

"Nothing would make me happier."


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 56 + 4 - 3 = Prompt 57


_Your knowledge of old things becomes a strength. Based on a checked Skill, what knowledge do you share with contemporary mortals? Check a Skill. Create a Resource._

*Guglielmo Nero

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 


*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
2: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
3. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
5. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Jamestown, 1635*

Perhaps the Piagnoni would have found someone else, if they hadn't found me to be the spark of their war against the Florentine vampires. They certainly turned out to have enough enemies.

In the years after I gave the information to Alessandro, vampire hunters raided the lairs of Medici vampires around Tuscany. Other vampires from around Europe, having long suffered at the hands of Il Chiarissimo, seized the moment and attacked Medici vampire holdings around Europe.

Soon, vampires were in open war with one another and both Catholic and Protestant vampire hunters leapt at the chance to destroy the weakened monsters in their midst.

I decided it was time to leave Europe, before someone eventually decided to do the same to me.

I had been a ship-builder once and could be again.

Thousands of Englishmen and women were sailing each year to their colonies in Massachusetts and Virginia. It was a dangerous journey of weeks or months at sea, where passengers regularly fell ill and died and where one was unlikely to be surprised by visitors aboard another ship. No one was surprised if some passengers grew weak over time or fell overboard when no one was around, their bodies never to be seen again.

I paid my captains well to ignore my eccentricities, sailing with them back and forth across the Atlantic as we ferried colonists and goods. On each visit, I would scout out what the colonies were like. Although Massachusetts Bay was crawling with religious fanatics of one kind or another, the Virginia colonies were more focused on commerce and expanding into the New World. I began making investments there, preparing for the day I would leave my shipbound life in favor of a life thousands of miles away from vengeful Medicis.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 57 + 10 - 3 = Prompt 64

_Prompt: Vast numbers of humans are migrating around the world. What group becomes easy to feed upon? How do you capitalize on their helplessness? Create a Resource._

*William French

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (Immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
2. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
4. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
5. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Las Vegas, 1970*

Vampires did not create Las Vegas, but we flocked to it soon enough.

It is possible to never see the sun in Sin City, in casinos that are designed to prevent gamblers from ever realizing how many hours they've wiled away at the tables. Clocks are forbidden and it is the rare casino where natural light can be seen from the craps table or slot machine.

And so naturally, my money flowed here as well, first as a silent partner in others' casinos and, once Las Vegas was clearly going to be a thriving enterprise, through my various investment groups. Seemingly every gaming company is already run by reclusive millionaires who hand control of the group off to their sons once they reach their 80s. The vampires fit right in.

Today, I have my own penthouses atop three different hotels, each with glass so dark that no sunlight ever penetrates inside.

And at night -- it pays for vampires to wear watches in Las Vegas, even if no one else needs to -- I can take my pick of inebriated gamblers from all over the world, many of whom would get into trouble even without me, and whom no one is surprised to see turn up dazed and battered in the drunk tank.

But it's early in the evening -- just after 11 p.m. -- as I'm swimming in the private rooftop pool of my most recently built hotel when the phone rings. One of my girls -- it doesn't do for someone in my position to not have girls around; that would raise eyebrows when nothing else would -- brings the phone over to the edge of the pool for me.

"Boss?" It's my receptionist downstairs. "There's a Brazilian here to see you."

"What do you mean?" At some point, my accent has drifted into American gangster, fitting a stereotype that the living are comfortable seeing me as. "Do I have any appointments scheduled?"

"Not tonight." 

My staff is used to my hours, which are shared by plenty of both the living and the dead in Las Vegas.

"What does this Brazilian want?"

"He says you two go way back. But boss, he's a kid."

I said nothing for a long moment, then lifted myself out of the pool, taking the phone from my girl and waving for her and the others to knock off for the night.

"Boss, are you still there?"

"Send him up," I said, pulling on a robe and unlocking one of the fridges where I kept "the good stuff."

I was waiting by the pool when I heard the elevator chime.

"Out here, Julian."

"Everyone calls me 'Junior' now," he said, stepping outside.

Hundreds of years dropped away in an instant. I sighed, feeling a weight I did not know I had been carrying drop away.

"It's good to see you."

I would have recognized Juião or Julian or Junior anywhere, although he had updated his look to match modern times. He dressed in the flashy manner of the newly rich, with heavy gold chains and an expensive-but-not-tasteful suit. He looked like he'd attract the attention of every thief in the city, which I suspect was the point.

"I'm glad," he smiled and there was no anger in his eyes, which looked almost as tired as I'm sure mine did. "I didn't know if you'd remember me, after 600 years."

"Not everything," I admitted. "But enough. It's good to have someone who understands."

I slid a glass across the table. It was dark out here, but I knew he could smell the blood.

"I don't think there's anyone left on Earth who knew me before I called myself a Brazilian," he said, after drinking. "Before there was a Brazil."

We talked for hours. I told him about Florence and the Mediterranean and then Virginia, Savannah, New Orleans, Chicago and Las Vegas.

When the vampire war had come to Cologne, Julian had already been gone, having been on the losing end of a power struggle between the Nachtvolk. He had returned to Portugal and followed their colonists to India, Sri Lanka and Macau. Today, he split his time between Macau and Brazil, switching whenever there were too many questions about why the boss' son still looked so young.

Like me, he had discovered that casinos were ideal for our kind, and had come to that realization a century earlier than I had, in Macau.

"But eventually it gets ..."

"Lonely," I finished for him.

"Yes," he nodded. "I have been betrayed by so many over the centuries and wanted to find someone who never had. And at last, I remembered you. And I had guessed you would have discovered casinos as well."

"A vampire haven, in the middle of the sunny desert."

"It would be easier for me if there was someone I could trust, so that my gaming companies didn't always have a young boy hanging around. There have been questions too many times."

"And I have never been to Macau."

"So, partners again?"

"Partners," I agreed, and we clicked glasses and drank long into the night.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 64 + 6 - 1 = Prompt 69

_Prompt: You bond with an ancient enemy Character over your shared past, finding in it something more comprehensible than this modern world. Check a Skill. You become friends. Share a Resource and gain a Resource that is shared with you._

*Will French

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledgeable of medieval medicine; 
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton
Joint custody of a gambling empire in Las Vegas and Macau;

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black/Junior: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
2. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
4. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages.
5. I am Will French: After centuries apart, Julian finds me in Las Vegas, where I am now a casino magnate and we merge our Las Vegas and Macau gaming empires;

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.
4: 1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Las Vegas, 1986*

The Fiero squealed away, fish-tailing onto Desert Inn Road and out of sight. The police would later catch up with the drunk driver but right now, there was an employee of mine at my feet, bleeding out on the sidewalk.

"Lisa! Someone help Lisa!"

I dropped to my knees, trying to figure out what to do. It was just before dawn and Lisa had been heading home to make breakfast for her husband and kids before they headed off to work and school. And then the car had come around the corner, jumped the curb, and slammed her against a stone planter before speeding off.

"I can do this," I told myself, looking down at the battered and bloody girl. It had been centuries since I had worked in the Portuguese field hospitals, and I only knew about those days from my diary, although I could feel what I had learned then, about bile and phlegm and blood, still tickling around in the back of my brain, unconnected to how I had learned it.

Graveyard shift employees from my hotel were starting to crowd around me, although one had ducked back in to call for an ambulance.

"Boss, I can do this," said a voice in my ear -- a bartender, I think.

"No, I just need to balance her humors."

"Uh, what?"

I looked up and the man -- it was a bartender -- had a shocked look on his face.

"I was in the Army," he said, gently elbowing me aside, covering Lisa's abdomen wound with his wadded-up shirt and putting pressure on it. "I can do this."

I stepped back, feeling every minute of the centuries between Portugal and now.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 69 + 2 - 5 = Prompt 66

_Your knowledge is now outmoded. Lose an unchecked Skill that is now useless._

*Will French

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
An ever-beating heart, which magically will not die
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton
Joint custody of a gambling empire in Las Vegas and Macau;

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black/Junior: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; 
2. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
4. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages.
5. I am Will French: After centuries apart, Julian finds me in Las Vegas, where I am now a casino magnate and we merge our Las Vegas and Macau gaming empires;

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.
4: 1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Las Vegas, 1992*

"What do you mean, you sold it?"

When arguing with Julian, we move back and forth between English, Portuguese and German. It's not intentional, but it serves to keep anyone eavesdropping from knowing what we're talking about. And, at my end of the call, it's the signal for any of my employees to discreetly excuse themselves.

"I had no idea it was special to you," his voice comes over the cordless telephone. "Did you see what we got for it?"

"It doesn't match because I got it when I lived in Florence."

"Well, it made no sense for the new hotel."

"It's the point of the new hotel!"

"An cast Italian renaissance bronze statue of a naked shepherd boy? The new hotel is a giant black glass pyramid with a giant beam of light at the summit shooting up into the night sky. The theme is Egyptian, not Italian pedophile!"

"The statue contains Meresankh's heart, Julian!"

Silence from the other end of the line.

"I guess that explains why they were so eager to get it," he said finally. "You haven't seen her for centuries. Maybe it won't be a problem."

"We underwrote the creation of a giant black glass pyramid topped with a giant beam of light to get her attention, Julian. It's going to be a problem."


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 66 + 2 - 3 = Prompt 65

_A possession turns out to have financial value as an antique. Trade your oldest Resource for two contemporary Resources._

*Will French

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledge of vampire anatomy; 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary; 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton
Joint custody of a gambling empire in Las Vegas and Macau
10,000 shares of IBM stock
10,000 shares of General Electric stock

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black/Junior: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; unknown buyers purchase the heart (hidden inside a bronze Renaissance sculpture) through Julian.
2. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
4. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages;
5. I am Will French: After centuries apart, Julian finds me in Las Vegas, where I am now a casino magnate and we merge our Las Vegas and Macau gaming empires;

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.
4: 1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.
[/quote]


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Las Vegas, 1992*

Julian and I had the pool area to ourselves.

"It's called the Ritual of Pythoness," Julian said, opening up the leather case and spreading its contents out on the poolside table. "We only have a few weeks before it's too cold for it to work until spring."

He put out a great stone shaped like an egg, with faded Greek letters etched on it. I picked it up, running my fingers across it.

"What is this?"

"The Omphalos of Hekate, We will need to get that back soon."

Julian put down a sealed ancient clay jar, from which the sound of liquid sloshing could be heard.

"Blood of a naiad. Very little of that left in the world."

He set out a bundle of laurel branches, a knife of a design far older than either of us, a leather pouch full of clinking coins and a weathered stone tablet inscribed with the letter E with three phrases written in Greek letters written below it. They joined a folded purple cloth he had taken out of his jacket pocket, which had letters or perhaps symbols sewn into it with gold thread.

Nearby, the young goat he had brought up in the elevator earlier, to the amusement of guests and the hotel staff, nibbled at one of the small palm trees in the planter boxes around the pool.

"I think this should be you," Julian said, surveying all of the implements before looking up at me seriously. "After what happened to you in Sibiu, I think you will be a better vessel for the ritual."

I didn't like to think about Sibiu. Too often over the centuries, I would wake up exhausted, with the feeling that I had been doing things for hours while I had slept, although I had never found any evidence that I had actually left my sleeping chambers. Still, I had to admit that Julian was right.

Dressed in a white suit that had been in my closet since the mid-1980s, I wore the purple cloth over my face as a veil, pulling it aside to drink most, but not all, of the naiad blood, which tasted like fresh flowing water. I took the tablet and read out the pronouncements on it -- which Julian had taught me phonetically.

Julian handed me the sack of coins and then danced and intoned something he said was ancient Greek, beating himself and brushing the concrete around the pool with the branches, which he then sprinkled with naiad blood.

When he was finished, I pulled off the veil and we placed the goat before the altar we had made of one fire pit, in which the omphalos blackened. We sprinkled the last of the naiad's blood on the goat, then Julian and I watched it carefully. At last, a shiver ran through it, rippling up from its hooves.

"OK, we can continue," Julian said.

With a motion too quick for the kid to be aware of it or be afraid, the knife was in Julian's hand and he slit the goat's throat, letting the blood pour into the fire pit. I poured the last of the naiad's blood into a brandy snifter and leaned over the fire pit, gazing at my reflection in the naiad's blood and breathed in the smoke rising from the goat's blood.

The fumes overcame me and I felt myself drifting away. I was conscious of my mouth moving and sounds coming out, but it was though it was happening to someone else and I could neither understand the words, nor had any desire to.

When I stopped speaking, the goat's corpse was blackened and charred and the horizon was beginning to turn pink.

"... back?" I heard Julian say, with a hint of exasperation. "Now are you back?"

"I'm back," I said, my voice a dry croak. I would need to visit one of my special refrigerators before going to sleep. I was drained and weak. "What did I say?"

"I need to research some things, but I guess we're going on a trip."

Schloss Karnstein was nestled in the deep woods above Graz. Although it was historic, it had never become a tourist attraction, because it was privately owned and appeared to be in poor repair. Which was, of course, how the Countess Karnstein wanted it to look. It also meant that no one nearby heard the commotion when we attacked.

She and Lord Strongmore apparently expected us to set the castle on fire, because moments after a security guard sounded the alarm, pipes began filling the rooms with halon gas. This, in turn, caused the guards' guns to misfire, and Julian and I tore through them like paper.

Karnstein and Strongmore eventually barricaded themselves in the countess' panic room.

"What are you doing?" the countess snarled at us through closed circuit television. "We paid you for the heart!"

"We've changed our mind!" I roared back, trying to block the camera's view of Julian working on the electronic lock behind me.

"You weren't doing anything with it," Strongmore whined. "Don't you understand its potential?"

"'Potential?' I understand that I'm going to dismember you while you're still alive, you child!"

"Be sensible, William," the countess said, changing tacks. "She has eternal life. If we can harness that, we can eliminate our vulnerabilities, prevent memory loss from age. We could conquer this world!"

"We already have, you idiots!"

"No, openly," she grinned, showing her fangs, looking not in the least bit human, "Think of it: We could create a whole underclass whose only purpose was to serve as our food, and the remaining humans would do anything to seek our favor, so that they and their families would never ..."

Julian rammed a stake into her heart before either she or Strongmore knew he had gotten the door unlocked.

But true to my word, I kept Strongmore alive and conscious as I dissected him, until finally, his head and most of his torso told us what we wanted to know, which was where the heart was now.

We found a field that would get an unobstructed view of the sunrise in a few hours and left what was left of him there.

Less than a week later, the southern stars lit the ocean like a million tiny Christmas lights as the boat rocked to and fro. The captain, not naturally one scared of the sea, seemed unnerved to be out so late at night, at these coordinates especially.

"You could drop Mt. Everest here," he said, "and you'd have to descend two kilometers before you reached its peak."

"Good enough," I said, and tipped the concrete sphere over the side. It dropped into the black water with an unpretentious plop and plummeted 35,000 feet.

We were no sooner back to our hotel room in Hagåtña than the front desk forwarded a call to our room.

"Were you out there doing what I think you were?" Meresankh's voice crackled on the phone, sounding even further away than a call to Guam would be expected to sound.

"I was keeping it out of harm's way. I figure you're the only one on the planet who could easily retrieve something from down there."

Meresankh gave an ironic laugh.

"That's why I have people keeping their ears open in port. Now there are two of my body parts at the bottom of the trench. Thank you, Mr. French."

"You're welcome, Meresankh. I hope you'll come and visit us some time in Las Vegas."

"Maybe I will. Maybe I will."


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 65 + 6 - 6 = Prompt 65

_You experience intense regret over a Resource you have given away or lost. Do anything to get it back. Lose two Resources or check two Skills and get back one lost Resource._

*Will French

Skills*: 
Bloodthirsty (checked); 
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked); 
Skilled merchant (checked); 
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledge of vampire anatomy (checked); 
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary (checked); 

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton
Joint custody of a gambling empire in Las Vegas and Macau
10,000 shares of IBM stock
10,000 shares of General Electric stock
Meresankh's ever-beating heart

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black/Junior: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (immortal); 
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal); 

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants; 

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; unknown buyers purchase the heart (hidden inside a bronze Renaissance sculpture) through Julian.
2. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
4. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages; we discover that a pair of European vampires are behind the purchase of Meresankh's heart and attack their Austrian castle and take it back, before dropping the heart into the Challenger Deep; 
5. I am Will French: After centuries apart, Julian finds me in Las Vegas, where I am now a casino magnate and we merge our Las Vegas and Macau gaming empires; 

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.
4: 1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

*Antarctica, 2022*

And the years went by.

Julian and I had another falling out, and it became clear our relationship over the centuries to come would be like this: A few decades together, and then decades or centuries of estrangement before reconciling once more.

Meresankh did visit and we behaved like young lovers for a few years, memorably celebrating the turn of the millennium in multiple cities on one heady, jet-set night. And then, one moment, she was gone again, leaving me a note written cheekily in hieroglyphics that I had to get a very confused Egyptologist to help me translate.

I was alone again, in a world slowly filling up with vampires, but who largely kept their distance from me. Although I have never focused on it much, over the centuries, my abilities have grown ever stronger. They are not, I regret, the strengths Hollywood would have given me, although I'm told the Roman branch of our family tree -- the Lupi di Roma -- possess some of that, as do those descended from the Sibiu school. But I am incredibly hard to kill. Stronger, more durable, more resilient than any mortal being ever could be.

And I am resilient in my aloneness. Where once, I know, I feared loneliness, and am still aware that there are those I loved deeply who are long lost to me, even if I cannot remember their names, like feeling the gap where a tooth once was with my tongue, today, I am fine. I have found a balance that Carnutes never did. Perhaps he would have, if he had lived.

So now, I am following in Meresankh's footsteps, literally and metaphorically, and seeing the world. The "cougar city" she once spoke of is now ruins in the South American jungle, but I have come to the far end of the Earth to see green fire in the sky.

It is difficult, but impossible, to be alone in Antarctica. All the methods of reaching it include warnings about its dangers and hostility. I could not step off of a cruise ship and walk into the wilderness without causing an international incident. Nor could I join a research expedition and do the same.

But money and power can purchase the services of those who are less scrupulous. In the free port of Punta Arenas, I found a ship willing to drop me off and, in return for even more money upon delivery, pick me up when I called them back with my satellite phone.

We sailed along the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Although standing there, too, would have meant visiting Antarctica proper, something in me wanted to explore the interior of the continent on foot. The _Petrel_ dropped me as close as they dared to the great ice sheets where the eastern peninsula met the rising land.

They watched me walk away, into the Antarctic winter night, under-dressed by mortal standards, clearly never expecting to hear from me again, although I expected the promise of a million dollars would keep them waiting by the phone.

This far from cities and the masses of humans, the sky was brilliantly lit with stars, with the Milky Way seeming to hang just feet over my head. To the west, there was an orange glow where a volcano on Deception Island lit the sky. But I was headed inland, my feet crunching on dirt and ice and snow that had been stepped on by hundreds, perhaps thousands of humans and untold millions of penguins.

Beyond that, though, and I was quickly in a place where previous travelers dropped into the hundreds, and then dozens.

I had fed deeply before leaving Chile, but the truth is, my need for human blood had been declining for more than a century. I could go long periods without feeding, unless I was injured or had been involved in strenuous supernatural activity. After Julian and I had raided Schloss Karnstein, we had fed on more than a dozen of the surviving guards, just to refuel for the flight home to Las Vegas.

But I did not expect any problems here in Antarctica, so long as I was gone before the 24 hours of polar summer days here began. I could exist, in peace and safety, almost indefinitely, my body having reached some sort of state of equilibrium. Perhaps it was the final state of a vampire's being. I do not know. There are, unfortunately, very few of us this old one can ask, and most of them are mad in some fashion or another.

I walked, one foot in front of another, toward the South Pole. There was a permanent base there, and had been for decades, so I would not approach close enough to be spotted by those stationed at Amundsen–Scott. After that, I might head to the so-called South Pole of Inaccessibility, supposedly the most remote place on Earth for humans to reach.

Walking 24 hours a day, it would take me about two weeks to reach the South Pole.

Although there were wisps of it earlier, about six days in, the aurora australis put on the most spectacular display, filling the sky with waving curtains of green, with hints of red, pink and even yellow. Although I now know what Meresankh centuries before did not, about solar particles and magnetic fields, it was hard to not feel that I was in the presence of something mystical, even a sign of a greater intelligence, there in this empty, ancient land.

That feeling was not lessened by the great earthquake that vibrated the snow and almost knocked me off my feet as the lights faded, hours later. Once relatively quiet, seismically, earthquakes have been growing in numbers in Antarctica in recent years, possibly due to increased volcanic activity or the globe's dramatic warming in the last few days.

Once the shaking stopped, I got my bearings once again and continued on to the pole.

Three days later, in the blowing snow, I heard a woman calling my name.

As I turned to see who it could be, the snow opened up underneath my feet.

It was a sudden shock, crashing through ice and snow and ice again and then into pitch-black liquid water, falling quickly into what felt like a mix of earth and ice that had been sheared in two. I was no danger of drowning, and was able to keep my head and claw at the rough walls I slid between as I descended. The water was incredibly cold, but above freezing, and felt slightly warmer below than above -- perhaps there was volcanic activity somewhere below me.

And then, I stopped, wedged into rock too thin for me to escape from. Looking up, I could see no hint of light and, even with eyes supernaturally prepared for the dark, could not see far enough above me to see a route out.

But I had to try.

No longer worrying about what the crew of The _Petrel_ might think -- I felt the bag with my satellite phone ripped off of me as I had plummeted downwards -- I dug my claws through my mittens and into the walls on either side of me and pulled myself upwards.

I was moving, but slowly, and already I could feel the temperature of the water dropping precipitously. Whatever had melted the water -- a volcano, the friction from shearing earth during an earthquake -- was no longer heating it up, and the water was quickly freezing in the negative 63 Celsius temperatures.

I began to have to crack through the ice above me, and falling rock, as I ascended, and my progress began to quickly slow, even as I realized that my body temperature -- typically air temperature except when I had recently fed -- was rapidly dropping as well. I had been clearly using on the blood of Argentines to keep me warm during this journey, but now, I was running out, just as I needed a big reserve of energy to get myself free.

Meters of progress turned to centimeters and, in as much time as it takes to tell it, millimeters. And then nothing.

I was stuck, a frozen corpse inside a frozen vein of water buried hundreds of meters under the Antarctica ground and ice.

But I was conscious.

Hanging there, frozen in the darkness, I heard my name called again. Although I could not turn my head, visions swam before my eternally open eyes.

A fair-haired woman in medieval dress appeared before me, speaking to me in what I know must have been medieval French, but I could understand none of her words.

Then a raven-haired woman, also a Frenchwoman, but dressed in blacks and reds, appeared before me, smiling, speaking to me fondly, with a disappointed pout, again with words I could not understand.

And then Meresankh, dressed as though we were still on the beach in El Nido, ancient surgical scars over her left breast and on her stomach visible as she was wearing her bikini and silky wrap, reached out as if to touch my face, fingers stopping just short of reaching me. There was fondness in her eyes, but also reproach, and although I could not understand her words, I knew she was gently scolding me for something.

Finally, I was alone once more, suspended and lost, my tracks many meters above me being filled in.

I am now stuck here, waiting for however many centuries it will take for someone to dig me up or for the next volcano to melt the ice again or for global warming to eventually turn Antarctica green once again.

Alone in the dark.

Da solo nel buio.

Alleine im Dunkeln.

Sozinho no escuro.

Seul dans le noir.

Seul.


Spoiler: Character sheet



Prompt 65 + 10 - 1 = Prompt 74

_Prompt: You are physically trapped in a place from which you will never be rescued. What do you think about for the first thousand years? The game is over._

*William French III

Skills*:
Bloodthirsty (checked);
Knows the secrets of killing vampires (checked);
I control the beast (checked);
Skilled merchant (checked);
Cook Portuguese seafood dishes;
Knowledge of vampire anatomy (checked);
I can draw the shadows in around myself, creating supernatural hiding spaces (checked);
Visionary (checked);

*Resources*:
Diary: A leather-bound German-made ledger book
Allied with the Piagnoni, a 17th century group of Italian vampire hunters
An English shipping company, based in Southampton
Joint custody of a gambling empire in Las Vegas and Macau
10,000 shares of IBM stock
10,000 shares of General Electric stock
Meresankh's ever-beating heart

*Characters*:
Juião/Julian Black/Junior: a Portuguese orphan turned my servant turned vampire (immortal);
Meresankh, an ancient Egyptian queen who has lived 3,000 years as of 1472, and whose still-living heart I have in my possession (immortal);

*Marks*: My eyes cannot stand bright light and I have to remain in shadows at all times; my touch is fatal to plants;

*Memories (five, up to three Experiences each)*:
1. I am Wilhelm Black: Julian, now a violent enforcer of the Nachtvolk, gifts me an ever-beating heart; Meresankh, the immortal woman whose heart that is, confronts me in Florence, but allows me to keep it in my safe-keeping for now; unknown buyers purchase the heart (hidden inside a bronze Renaissance sculpture) through Julian.
2. I am Guglielmo Nero: After Florentine banks collapse during the 100 Years War, I move my banking operations from Cologne to Florence; poisoned by Averardo de' Medici, I wake up in Florence 100 years later, the Itzigs dead, my banking empire dismantled in my absence; setting myself up in Florence, I come to own and operate out of a fencing school.
3. I am Guglielmo Nero: I awake in the rubble of my Florentine fencing school, war having destroyed the building; I traveled the Ottoman Empire, searching for the origins of vampires before being sent to Cyprus on a mysterious errand, and there I erected a magical structure atop Mt. Olympus; I ally with an Italian vampire hunter to kill Averardo de' Medici, the vampire ruler of Florence.
4. I am William French: Fleeing a vampire war in Europe, I run a shipping business ferrying colonists from England to the New World, preying upon them during our voyages; we discover that a pair of European vampires are behind the purchase of Meresankh's heart and attack their Austrian castle and take it back, before dropping the heart into the Challenger Deep;
5. I am Will French: After centuries apart, Julian finds me in Las Vegas, where I am now a casino magnate and we merge our Las Vegas and Macau gaming empires; estranged from Julian again, I take a solo trip to Antarctica, to see the Southern Lights once described to me by Meresankh, but become trapped beneath the ice after a volcano liquefies the water and rock beneath me.

*Diary (four memories, up to three Experiences each)*
1: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: The night the other (DAMAGED) were burned alive, Carnutes fed upon me as I screamed in pitch black darkness; I confront Carnutes about him making me a vampire and he confesses he did it out of loneliness and tells me I will suffer in the same way some day; Carnutes possessed Raum and led the Archbishop of Tours' men to try and killed me -- but I used the Spear of Aeolius and killed Raum and Carnutes instead.
2: I am Guilliame d'Orléans: I rescue a dark-haired girl from attack and Constansia pledges herself to me, believing me to be a servant of Satan, and we soon wed; Constansia conducts her Satanic rituals and summons a demon, Raum, to serve me in the form of a raven;
3: I am le Passeur or "the Frenchman": The Portuguese (DAMAGED) Juião helps me after I am burned by sunlight, unafraid of my supernatural nature, and I take him in as my servant; Juião teaches me to cook with the seafood I catch underwater; at his urging, I prey on (DAMAGED) as I tend to them.
4: 1: I am Wilhelm Black: Brought into the society of the Nachtvolk of Cologne, I watched their leader slowly dismember a vampire, leaving him alive for hours, just in agony; with the help of the mortal Itzig family, I become a rich merchant, with investments across Europe.


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## Galandris (Dec 5, 2022)

Wow.

Is there a way to mass-like your posts? Very nice read, really.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 5, 2022)

Galandris said:


> Wow.
> 
> Is there a way to mass-like your posts? Very nice read, really.



Thanks. All the typos are making me cringe, so I might break down and start cleaning each post up when I have the time.


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## Galandris (Dec 6, 2022)

I've a question about the ending, though. I understand your choice of story, which is rather depressing and going along with the climate, but I was wondering... you mentionned a few hooks that endend the story: is any of them suitable for a more upbeat ending?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 6, 2022)

Galandris said:


> I've a question about the ending, though. I understand your choice of story, which is rather depressing and going along with the climate, but I was wondering... you mentionned a few hooks that endend the story: is any of them suitable for a more upbeat ending?



Well, it depended on what the final dice roll was. There are two endings in the book that are fairly upbeat: becoming human again and transcending to a higher plane. If I had landed on either of those, probably Guillaume's art project in Cypress and/or Meresankh would have been involved in those happening.

And, of course, there were also more negative endings possible, including vampires taking over the world, which I also seeded as possibilities with mentions of their rising numbers over the centuries.


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## Richards (Dec 7, 2022)

A very interesting read - thanks for writing this all up for our enjoyment!

Johnathan


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## GuyBoy (Dec 13, 2022)

Adding my thanks too. A great read.


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## Salmakia (Dec 15, 2022)

This is really quite something. I love stories about immortals & what it actually means from a psychological perspective to live for hundreds of years. And the ending of "I'm comfortable with being lonely" and then suddenly "I'm literally alone with my thoughts for millennia" is haunting and a fittingly terrifying conclusion to a vampire story. 

I am curious - how do you determine how much time has passed? Is there a mechanic in the prompts for that or do you just estimate based on how far along in the prompt book you are?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 15, 2022)

Salmakia said:


> I am curious - how do you determine how much time has passed? Is there a mechanic in the prompts for that or do you just estimate based on how far along in the prompt book you are?



Occasionally, there are prompts that say, flat out, that your character has slept for 100 years or has slept through generations of life, both of which happened to Guillaume.

Other times, I chose to skip forward. I knew going in that I wanted, if possible, for Guillaume to _be_ a thousand year old vampire, which is why I started the adventure in 1022 (with a real event -- Wikipedia has a page for every year of human history going back to at least 1 BCE). When I got to the end, and realized I was coming up on the moment when a high roll would mean the end of the game, I stepped on the gas and jumped him into the post-colonial Americas and Las Vegas. 

If I had to do it over again, I probably would have jumped him forward 75 years at a time, or so, except when prompts were obviously connected to previous ones and I needed to retain the same generation of mortals for a bit.


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