The coin toss has it - YOU ARE VENTRUE: MALE.
Okay, here’s how we’re gonna do it. Since we’re doing an IF loosely based on the Storyteller system rather than using it outright, we’re going to keep character stats…fluid. You’re an extremely well-established Ventrue. Ya got intelligence, composure, wits and social presence. You’re fast, sure…but not lightning-fast – sitting in an office all night long tends to give you a pot-belly. Still, maybe these wild nights are just what you need to get a little exercise. There is inherent risk in testing your relatively puny strength against many other vampire clans. Disciplines/Powers will appear in front of choices, if the choice involves using them, and you may be able to learn new powers at given points. And – yup – if you break the Masquerade too obviously, even you may be hunted. Sound good?
And this right here is a list of your contacts. At any given point (well, not if you’re trapped in a room with a ravening monster blocking your only exit. At any reasonable given point) you can vote to visit any of these people – to pick up valuable information, weaponry, ask for a favour – instead of picking one of the choices I suggest. If you have to travel to get to them, you may miss appointments and piss other people off. The ones with (P) next to their names can be phoned/emailed while you’re on the move, so you can contact them without wasting any time – though, obviously, your options will be limited. I’ll update the contact list as you meet new people.
1: (P) Whitehall – Humphrey Trentbridge. Kine Home Secretary. Your most valuable ally (or should that be pawn?) in the world of mortals. He certainly owes you several favours, and has access to a great deal of human information…but you suspect he’d quail from agreeing to anything too illegal. Without being Dominated, that is.
2: (P) Whitehall – Antonia. Ghoul and your secretary. Unflinching loyalty. She’ll have access to your files should you need her to come out across the city and bring them to you, but that’s about all she’s good for.
3: (P) Shoreditch – Edgar Fellowes. A Toreador hitman in your employ, with a couple of Brujah grunts in his. Loyal…you think. Can probably be called upon to help if you think there’s going to be violence.
(4: Marylebone – Karthik. Alone, in the corner of a dusty shisha café in a fashionable part of town, slouches a crimson-eyed Indian vampire, his fingers coiled around his hookah. Karthik will not speak of the devastation that wiped out most of his clan around the turn of the millennium – that was said to have been a sign of the apocalypse that never came. But, in spite of his reputation as a typical Ravnos trickster – and his tendency to broker information from all parties, including the Sabbat – you have gleaned useful stuff from him in the past.) NOW DECEASED.
5: (P) The Isle of Dogs – Oscar. A Nosferatu of Irish descent, in his warren beneath the industrial complexes at Dogs, Oscar has been known to pass on information to you using his network of security cameras city-wide on Schrecknet, thanks to your hefty bribes – even warn you of danger in real-time. Oscar claims, however, that he cannot help you too frequently without his clanmates finding out…though it’s always possible, of course, that he just doesn’t like you very much.
6: Bethnal Green – Chazza. Operating from an easy-chair in the back of his truck, this Kine petty criminal considers himself a big shot, simply because he has access to a wide range of handguns and semi-automatics. Foolish fellow. You may have difficulties with him later on, but for now, he’s the best place to find a weapon that can’t be traced back to you.
7: Mayfair – Sammy Eames. You are known by the majority of London’s Barons – though many of them would prefer to pretend otherwise, at least until it suits them to be your friend – but you can at least be said to have some influence with Samantha Eames, Tremere, Regent of the Mayfair Chantry and Baron of The West End. Now scornful of the apparently impotent Prince, Sammy likes to vaunt her independence by gorging herself nightly at one of the region’s many legendary restaurants. You must not be fooled, however, by her jovial demeanour – Eames is a politician above all. The trick will be to use her without her using you.
8: Blackfriars - Big Bob Griddle: Don't call Robert Griddle, one of the legends amongst Anarchs in Central London, a child. Don't draw attention towards his hideous disfigurement, the result of torture by a Tzimicse Sabbat member around the turn of last century, either. To his men, Griddle is an inspiration - a wily, tough Kindred who leads from the front. His attitude towards Kine has often been called harsh - and he's been known to endorse public acts of brutality towards those of his followers who step out of line, as well. Amongst a certain type of Anarch, this only increases respect for Bob, who, they argue, lacks the namby-pamby idealism that so often hampers the movement. Griddle met you politely enough - and, perhaps predictably, suggested that you might be rather better off joining the Anarchs, as well as hinting at a potential future conflict. Going to his apartment, the oddly-named 'Temple' in Blackfriars, would also mean a chance to meet Victoria, the Malkavian seer Griddle keeps by his side at all times.
9 - Liverpool: Bishop Dubrik (P only). You first became aware of Dubrik's name after successfully intercepting a convoy heading out of London containing a certain Ancient Mesopotamanian vase...a theft which no doubt resulted in his recent attempt to have you killed. Further investigation has resulted in a little more information about the Lasombra spymaster, whose contacts stretch out across much of England from his Liverpool headquarters, as well as a few audio recordings of the man's bloodthirsty speeches against the Camarilla, sent out to Sabbat members nationwide. It was Dubrik's intervention, you've heard, that led to the assassination of many of the prominent Birmingham barons the year before last.
10 - The East End (P): Sheriff Erika Schiller. Horribly scarred, tough, and loyal to the rule of the Camarilla, the Sheriff has little love for Ventrue...but she will protect the reigning Prince with her life if need be. She keeps her headquarters near Liverpool Street, on the edge of the bustling, filthy alleyways of the East End. Schiller has never liked you - but then again, there are many in the city that she loathes even more.
11- Don Jamieson. (P) 'Don', as he likes to be known, is rather renowned in upstate New York for his skills in tracking and killing human hunters, even as they themselves prey on Kindred. It isn't that he's particularly strong or tough, his detractors note, (he isn't, although his rifle markmanship has often been remarked upon), so much as that he has a knack for both endearing himself to those around him and appearing utterly harmless even to the very suspicious. Don's efforts in taking down hunters often involve elements of subterfuge, sleight-of-hand, distraction and sheer bloody cheek - the more daring and absurd the lie involved, the more Don will warm to the plan. Admiring Kindred still tell the story of the time Don assassinated the infamous Elliott Graham by heading to his hotel and pretending very ostentatiously to be a vampire in front of a group of beautiful women, then allowing the actor he'd hired earlier in the week to beat the shit out of him. Graham, convinced that the actor was the real Kindred, bought Don a stiff drink before following the harmless actor all the way to his home in Finchley - whereupon Jamieson jumped the hunter from behind and ripped out his throat. Intelligence suggests that Jamieson has a taste for staying in big hotels - especially the famous kind. Using a phone-call or two beforehand, you should be able to track down his location without too much difficulty.
*
Chapter 1: Kindred or Kine?
[/quote]
"...so my next question to the fellow was, 'You do realise it was your own childe who turned you in to Patrician, don't you?' Which, naturally, made him hesitate. And that gave the boys enough time to grab him by the shoulders. And so I slipped the old brass knuckles and began to work him over."
A little Brahms playing on the old record-player. Moonlight streaming in through your open office window. The warmth of your leather chair.
"In between punches and slices and what-have-you - with increasing incoherence, amongst begging me to stop, threats, bribes, and so on - he admitted that he had been instrumental in the plot to assassinate you, having roped in the usual assortment of shovelheads and Sabbat rabble, he confessed that Dubrik had financed them all the way from Manchester, as we already knew..."
You nod, carelessly, your attention fixed on your computer screen. A ghoul in the Prince's office reports that two of the old man’s enforcers failed to report in last night. You forward the email on to that filthy Irish Nosferatu in case he's able to track them on his camera networks.
"Oh, and he mentioned another name - the one who got them into the building, he said. A spy of yours. Amanda Wilkinson."
You look up, sharp.
Edgar Fellowes gives you a cheerful smile. He slouches magnificently across the comfortable chair opposite your desk, one leg crossed over the other, dabbing at his bloodied, delicate fists with a monogrammed handkerchief and exaggerated care.
"Thought that'd get your attention," he says, mildly. "It’s all in my report. Oh – and if that's everything, Patrician, I'd quite like to sign off for the night. There's a Guernica exhibition on at the National and the security guards do the rounds at three-twenty sharp. I saw them in Milan, of course...but you simply can't say 'no' to Pablo, can you? And I'm sure you'll let me know if any more of these brutes need, ah, chasing down."
"Of course," you murmur. "Thank you, Fellowes. I'll be in touch."
He rises with over-exaggerated elegance, gives you a little bow, and lets himself out. The office door bangs shut behind him.
"Toreadors," you say, aloud, with a certain amount of disdain.
*
A little while later, as you sit, mulling over the latest reports about the Brujah antitribu holed up in a seaside town in Devon, Antonia strides in with the night’s post. She waits, standing over your desk with an air of obsequious patience.
With a small sigh, you slice one of your long, rather sharp nails into the flesh of your wrist, and allow a moderate quantity of blood to trickle into your own whiskey glass, which you then pass to her. Antonia accepts it gratefully, and goes to drink it in the corner of the room.
Lifting the nearest letter, you note with a characteristically thin smile that someone has scrawled, ‘Pay upon arrival’ on the side of the envelope, perhaps because the stamp appears to be Victorian. Some Kindred simply can’t move with the times.
You tear it open.
St. James’ Park. Prince Kirkbeck wants to meet us both. Quarter to two.
Esteban
Esteban du Marchais. The stuck-in-his-ways lapdog with the ridiculous, nonsensical, invented-on-the-spot name whose technical rule over your domain as ‘Baron of Westminster’ has never been anything other than a source of irritation to you. He’s been summoned. You’ve both been summoned. Which means something of import’s happened in your territory – and in spite of all the resources at your disposal, you can’t think what it could be.
How very interesting.
*
Your coat wrapped around you, you’re halfway down the street and holding up a hand for a taxi when your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket.
A man’s voice. Panicked. Stuttering over his words.
“Uh…Christ…Patrician? You don’t know me…”
You wait, in silence.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”
“I’m here,” you say.
“Oh, thank God…look…Humphrey told me to call you, he…he said you could fix things. It’s Peter here. Peter Glenville. You…you have to come. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
You recall Peter Glenville. A Kine civil servant in the Foreign Office. A Personal Private Secretary or some equally absurd title.
“What seems to be the trouble,” you ask, quietly, “Peter?”
A faint, despairing moan.
“I killed her…I killed my little girl…”
And the man’s voice breaks down into tears.
You halt, considering.
If you head off to help the Kine, you’ll most likely be late for the meeting with the Prince. That might displease him – on the other hand, perhaps you could lie and claim you’d only just got the letter. And it might not hurt to show your disdain for a summons from du Marchais, of all people…besides which, you’ve always wanted a Kine of your own in the Foreign Office. How else will you ever know what the Cathayans smuggled into the city in that cargo container last year? But then again, do you really want to get too close to a murder?
A) Go to the Prince.
B) Go to the Kine first, then the Prince.
It might not hurt to decide the fate of the traitor Fellowes spoke of, either…
A) I’ll have Wilkinson killed. It’s the simplest solution.
B) I’ll promote Wilkinson. Then have my people watch her very carefully – I’ll learn a great deal from her.
C) Perhaps I’ll pay her apartment a visit myself, once I’ve seen the Prince…
Tzimisce from the 
