Here Jim is in all his mechanical glory.  I used material from Savage and Macabre, Ancient Mysteries, The Rage, Armory, Armory Reload, Shadows of Mexico, Vampire the Requiem and World of Darkness to build this character.  Aside from the issue of a character undergoing cyclical torpor to keep his blood potency down and maintain his humanity it was also interesting to build a combat monster with restraint, who had once been a shaman and who fought like a werewolf as that was who he learned combat from.

If I have time I will post about his spirit totem and a later version of what Jim might look like if he recruits a new pack, has the benefits of a totem (currently Eyes Among the Stars is withholding his favor until Jim accomplishes some tasks) and the pack tactics that could come from that.  But I’m going to do some new posts first with some other ideas.

For more info look in these posts as well:
About Jim http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=157
History http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=146
Dire-Wolf Devotion http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=160

Vampire Stat Template

Clan: Gangrel
Bloodline: Dead Wolves
Covenant: none
Embrace: ?
Apparent Age: 22

Mental: Intelligence 3, Wits 4, Resolve 5
Physical: Strength 5, Dexterity 5, Stamina 5
Social: Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 4

Mental Skills: Academics 1, Investigation (Dreams) 2, Medicine 2, Occult (Spirits, Werewolves) 4, Science 1
Physical Skills: Athletics (Running) 4, Brawl (Claws) 5, Drive 1, Stealth (Darkness) 5, Survival (Tracking) 4
Social Skills: Animal Ken (Birds, Wolves) 2, Expression (Oration) 3, Intimidation 3, Persuasion (Negotiate) 2, Socialize 2, Subterfuge (Hiding Emotions) 3

Merits: English 2, Spanish 2, Status City 3, Brawling Dodge, Combat Style (Talon and Fang) 5, Combat Style (Evasive Striking) 5, Tenacious Consciousness, Swarm Mind (Rat), Swarm Mind (Bat)

Willpower: 9
Humanity: 4
Virtue: Fortitude
Vice: Lust (for enacting the sensations of his life)
Health: 10
Initiative: 9
Defense: 4
Speed: 15
Size: 5

Blood Potency: 4
Vitae/per Turn: 13/2
Disciplines: Auspex 5, Celerity 3, Vigor 4, Animalism 4, Sublunario 4 [all moon phases], Resilience 5, Protean 5 [2: water, wood, natural stone, processed stone, natural soil; 4: wolf, bat, rat, raven, coyote, owl]
Devotions: Gargoyle’s Watch, Languar’s Denial, Wolf-Man, Dire-Wolf, Instantaneous Transformation, Partial Transformation

About Jim

The timing of Jim is good. I’ve thought about Jim for a long time.  He’s a powerful and interesting NPC and as a result he’s also a delicate challenge for entry into a game.   While it is nice to put that sort of ancient into a game because it is cool you also don’t want to totally over shadow players.  The timing is also good because the mechanical issue that first brought Jim to my mind came up on the WW forums yesterday.  Someone asked if there were any 6th level disciplines.  I replied that there were and gave a mechanical run down of high level disciplines in the nWoD.  Then they asked if there were any examples out there or player made ones.  One poster commented that they wouldn’t bother since with torpor wiping out things above 5 they were an XP sink.  I can both understand but disagree with that stance.  Ironically, Jim is a creation of exactly that philosophy.  But, Jim is also a creation of an immortal spirit with a very different view of things.

Let me explain.

My argument for exploring high level disciplines is based on a number of factors.  One, high level powers can be very cool and allow a lot of player customization of their character and the fact that a player’s experience and goals can be quite different from their character’s shouldn’t be ignored.  Secondly, the idea that characters will automatically think in terms translatable to game mechanics, think that long term (250+ years excluding diablerie) when many may lose their unlives in that time, identify this as thier own best interest (versus accumulating wealth or knowledge for example) and act in their best interests consistently.  Humans don’t, nor do vampires.  Finally, let’s use an analogy.  Let’s say that the danse macabre is a war.  You can sacrifice so many battles focusing on a long term strategem that you lose the war by attrition.

So, about Jim.

There are a few things to understand about Jim.  One is that he is a monster.  He is built as you’ll see in his stats with over 1,200 points of experience is ancient but his focus has also been narrow.  Sure, he knows a great deal but if you’re looking for secrets that encompass the entire ancient world, the Strix, vampire origins, or far more than you won’t find it here.  What you will find is a combat monster.  It isn’t that Jim is maxed out – there is certainly more that could be done but among his various abilities you will find a vampire who has hunted werewolves for thousands of years.  What he really wants though is family.  He wants to remember being alive.  He wants to see the eyes of children like those of his neices and nephews, children he will never have himself.  At heart Jim is still the shaman of a clan among the great forests that over many centuries migrated south and west.  His Auspex was gained from his shaman powers translating into his vampiric existence.  He hasn’t just hunted on the front lines of a war but night in and out hunted the sands and forests of his existence for the chance to murder.  He is still capable of love, compassion and trust but hunting and violence come more easily now.  Only the fact that those he has hunted have deserved it and the guidance of his totem have kept him from degenerating in humanity.

However, he is also a stranger to the danse macabre.  Until recently he never saw the powers of Dominate, Nightmare or Majesty, never saw Nosferatu, Daeva, Ventrue or Mekhet.  He never heard of the traditions, only the laws given by Eyes Among the Stars.  He doesn’t have much in the way of social merits yet.  His City Status comes from sheer notoriety and he doesn’t know how to accumulate power yet either.  He certainly isn’t a mindless bruiser but he will have a learning curve.  Opprotunities will present themselves and some such as the chance to the learn the Coils of the Dragon will be tempting.  In Khallam he has the chance to make friends again, to find himself part of a society and perhaps refind a part of himself, the shaman, that he hasn’t had much cause to connect to since he became his people’s premier warrior against the Pure.  He has a duty though, to find any that remain of his people and any that remain of the Pure.  He will nurture one and exterminate the other.

He also has the ear of a spirit.  Eyes Among the Stars talks to Jim, the only remaining member of the pack.  At first others of Jim’s blood joined the werewolves and eventually only vampires were left.  His connection to the spirit is very strong.  And the spirit’s goals are it’s own.

Attempts have been made to validate Jim’s story and his tribe of origin but so far all have failed.  If there is any evidence buried in the deserts around Khallam it hasn’t been found yet and it may never be.

Here is what is known.  Shortly after Byron arrived in Khallam a vampire, who looked Indian, appeared and claimed to have just risen from torpor.  The two quickly became friends as werewolves attacked.  The werewolves were members of an indiginous Indian culture.  The vampire who took the name Jim claimed that they had after thousands of years of war had destroyed his people.  Jim was grim, admitting that the battle had ranged over vast distances and his people’s nation had changed names and even languages over that great period of time.  He was born in a place of vast verdant forests but he would stay here where his people had finally met their end.  Jim stayed through the 1920s but it was after he went into torpor again that the werewolves felt emboldened and attacked.  Jim rose again briefly in the 1960s and 1970s but returned to torpor for reasons no one really understands.  Whenever asked Jim would reply cryptically that he was waiting.  In 2009 Jim has risen again and now cryptically will  respond that it is the time to remain.

Appearance: Back Again Jim is a short man, only 5′ 6″ tall and lanky.  He has a dark, dark tan that few people ever see anymore and some might think him black except for his clear aboriginal American features.  Jim’s soul is ancient and if anyone doubts that they only have to see his eyes and peer into them.  He is so old now that Jim doesn’t have to put up barriers.  He will expose his heart to the world but those seeking to capture some secret from him are in danger of falling in.  His soul has aged with him, he can still remember joy and happiness but he has not experienced them in a present tense in so long.  He can still invoke the memories though and do so with a ferociousness that puts shame to the most bon vivant Daeva.  And he knows battle.  Even as a mortal man Jim was intelligent, even wise.  As an ancient kindred he has felt the death of more enemies, dangerous ones, than he can remember and ritualized the experience.  Every footstep, every word, ever breath taken to speak seems like a ritual with Jim, something redone, considered, calculated, planned and done from experience.  It is unnerving for younger kindred to watch an elder so old that he watches the world as if everything is something he can remember from before, every action something done so often he can do it with the precision of an olympic swimmer’s stroke.

The truth of Jim’s history is impossible to verify. Although short his torpors have been numerous enough to put any recollection in doubt regardless of apparent clarity. Industrious kindred can piece together this tale. It isn’t that Jim considers any of it a secret but while he once told great tales by firelight it has been several centuries sine he had any regular conversation, and centuries before since he had anyone that could actually be called a companion.

Jim was born with the gift of second sight, was bright and had a gift for oration and was a competent if not enthusiastic hunter. By the time of his birth the Forsaken of his people (all Hunters In Darkness) had been locked in war with the Pure of another people for longer than memory provided for. However their births had faltered and while many seemed born of wolf blood few with the changing gift came into the world. It was Jim who met in a vision a great spirit called Eyes Among The Stars.

It was Eyes who offered Jim a contract. Jim never speaks of the offer but will tell the result. The tribe discovered that the Pure had tainted them and a curse was upon them. Eyes offered an option for survival. A warrior from a southern land would be near soon. He was tainted with a demon but it gave him strength too and made him need blood. Let the werewolves feed him and he could embrace the wolf blooded and make warriors. The tribe debated. They chose only one to die – Jim. After a few years the stranger moved on and Jim sired new warriors and passed on what he had learned. Eyes Among the Stars passed on laws and soon became the patron of the tribe.  These laws kept the new guardian kindred among their families, made them responsible to the tribe as well as apart, and though they never knew it kept them weaker and their torpors short.

Until Khallam arose Jim hadn’t known there were other vampires. The Gangrel who embraced him had come from the south but where is still unclear. Jim is of a bloodline with ties to werewolves.  In Mexico the bloodline is called the Dead Wolves but it is obviously far older than modern Mexicans claim. Why did this vampire want the blood of werewolves?  Was he of this bloodline already, sire it or did Jim? Not even Jim claims to know.  Perhaps they aren’t even the same blood but a mystic example of parrallel evolution.

But tonight he has awoken.  In a campaign the rush to contact Jim would be significant.  Dreams and portents will tell of Jim’s awakening.  Although he lacks the deep blood and powers of an ancient, the breadth and completeness of his prowess could shift matters greatly for any faction that claimed him.  For his part Jim is disinclined to join any covenant though he might be convinced.  Eyes Among the Stars still exists and speaks to Jim.  Jim wants to see the Forsaken return and will speak to Byron about the nature of werewolves once he learns that they are not unique to this area.  The age of modern movies and media will teach Jim a lot.

Failing to bring the Forsaken to Khallam Jim will try to assemble a pack of his own, of other Gangrel, perhaps even embracing again.  Buried within history books someone might even discover that not all of Jim’s people died.  The earliest Anglo settlers found a small family that survived the last of the Pure’s raids while Jim was sleeping.  Jim would pay much for this information and even more for those who could find the descendants of those few.  Jim will not leave the area, not while the Pure exist so he might need agents – to find the families, to find Forsaken, for many things.  JIm has much he could do.  He is a powerful ally and knows a great deal about werewolves, spirits and Protean powers that he could teach as well.

He would also willingly play on your basketball team.  He loves midnight pickup games of basketball, a game that reminds him of his human life.  Indeed, much of Jim is defined by his lust for his once living days, his willingness to throw himself into that which might remind him of what it felt like to once breathe.

No comments