Vampire The Masquerade RPG
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The Times
The Kindred Chronicle
Key Figures
THE MONSTER OF EALING
Last night, several people reported the sighting of a "screaming red monster" in a quiet neighbourhood of Ealing. After a power shortage in the area, a building caught fire. It was then when, what was described as a "man shaped, footless creature" emerged from the flames, leaping, running, and screaming. One woman has told our reporters that the man had "teeth like a wolf, and the face of the devil". Police officers are still trying to get to the bottom of this; neither the power shortage nor the fire have still been explained. A spokesperson from Scotland Yard has stated that the "so called monster" might be a wounded person, escaping the fire.

TRAGEDY IN TOOLEY STREET
The police has found the bodies of three TFL workers in the construction site at Tooley Street. One of their colleagues raised the alarms last week, when the three workers didn't attend their shifts. The bodies of the men have been found in a deep hole, uncovered by the refurbishment works that are taking place in the area. According to the Police, the bodies were horribly mutilated, which has led to the wildest speculations. The names of the three workers are being kept anonymous, following the wishes of their families.

HOROSCOPE
MARCH 8 - PISCES
You are used to making sacrifices, to prioritising the happiness of others before yours. Even though that is a noble attitude, there are times in life where the only healthy alternative is to embrace your own selfishness and allow yourself some enjoyment. Reserve one hour per day to do something you really like. Treat yourself! Your colour for this month is blue.
Echoes from the past ring back into London. Their intensity increases until they are deafening. What once was a faded memory of a glorious time, now becomes a shocking reality. The consequences of actions taken decades ago ripple into the present, altering the lives of everybody in the City. Unguided and blind, Kindred wander around, trying to make profit out of the reigning chaos.


The appearance of four mysterious figures turned the city upside down. Mistrust and jealousy became the official currency of London. Serpents and fiends rise to power, misdirecting the blaming eyes of the Camarilla towards imaginary enemies. Only those with clear vision and the ability to trust each other strive, while the rest run towards a shallow grave.



Across The Board
Current Chronicle: Dragons and Lions; Pride and Fire
Current Season: Spring
Controlling Sect: Camarilla



Index
Getting Started
General Information
Central London
North London
East London
West London
South London
Miscellaneous
Out of Character


Population: 31

Camarilla
Anarchs
Other
Ventrue: 1
Toreador: 5 (6)
Brujah: 2 (3)
Malkavian: 7
Tremere: 2
Nosferatu: 3
Gangrel: 1
Ventrue: 1
Toreador: 0
Brujah: 2 (3)
Malkavian: 0
Nosferatu: 1
Gangrel: 1
Setites: 5
Sabbat: ???


THE CAMARILLA

Prince

Nobody

Sheriff
Meredith Furlong
Hounds
Robyne Sheridan
Rosella Marie Allain


Keeper of Elysium
Davvad Bisset

Grand Harpy
Catherine Wilke

Primogen
Ventrue: Marcus Antonio Russo
Brujah: Thomas Krusen
Gangrel: Alexa Mallik
Malkavian: Ellora Reese
Tremere: Hannah Sundling
Toreador: Arsenio Pozzi
Nosferatu: Dogan Khojak



ANARCHS

Baron

Khoza

Baronets
Enfield: Leslie
Haringey & Barnet: Clarice Harris
Harrow: Jelena Korolenko

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Welcome To The Night

You find yourself in London on a dreary, foggy night like any other. But what lurks in the shadows is the stuff of fantasies and nightmares, far from mortal reality.

This game uses the cursed and immortal vampiric condition as a backdrop to explore themes of morality, depravity, the human condition, salvation, and personal horror. We are a writing and roleplaying community dedicated to telling complex and engaging stories.

Your fate is your own. Mingle among the ivory-tower elite in the Camarilla, join the fight of the discontented and chaotic Anarch rabble, or set out independently and attempt to survive in London's nighttime underworld. Anything is possible in our World of Darkness.

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Noona - None - Poulpe - Pulp; Lasombra Sabbat - Not Playable... Yet - Highly NSFW and trigger ridden!
Topic Started: Saturday, 22. October 2016, 15:35 (306 Views)
Pulp
Childe
*
NOTE: This is not an active character, nor a playable character as of now. Should the Sabbat open at any point, this character would be considered for approval.

Player Handle: N/A
Name: Pulp (Noona - None - Poulpe - Pulp)
Age: 59 (Born in 1957)
Place of birth: Port Louise, Mauritius
Age of embrace: 17
Clan: Lasombra
Sect: Sabbat
Species: Vampire
Derangements: N / A
Disciplines: Potence, Dominate, Obtenebration
Appearance: Dark grey skin. Dreadlocks. Wide mouth. Short and slim. Sinewy. Usually wears white wife beater t shirts and jeans, and walks barefoot.
Haven: Underwater
History:

WARNING: The whole story is full of heavy triggers, and not suitable for underage audiences. Read at your own risk.

The Elevation of Noona Lanchair,
and how she becomes None
and then it becomes Poulpe
and then he becomes Pulp

ACT I - Before Life

I - From the land to the sea


Port Louis, 1955: Djamel Lanchair meets Annelise Voclair. He works as a piano teacher at the Conservatoire de Musique Frederic Chopin in Port Louis. She is a piano concertist from Paris. She is in Port Louis performing with the French African Touring Ensemble. She's been chosen for that job because she is the only black professional pianist in Paris who can actually play Liszt proficiently while keeping a smile on her face. They fall in love. Annelise finishes her tour, puts her professional career on hold, and moves to Port Louis to live with Djamel.

Port Louis, 1957: Noona Lanchair is born. There is a huge celebration. Music fills Djamel and Annelise's house for five days. Then everybody leaves. Annelise, still wasted and high, has to pick up the pieces of the party.

Port Louis, 1961: The love between Djamel and Annelise is fading. The only thing that ties them together is Noona. Annelise is obviously a better pianist than Djamel will ever be. She's also better educated and more successful. Djamel envies his own wife, and he can't do anything about it. She wants to resume her touring career. He tries to pull the 'I'm your husband' card, but it backfires. In less than a week, Annelise is back in France, auditioning for a position in a big orchestra. She gets the job.

Port Louis, 1965: Djamel has two problems: on one hand, he realizes that Noona will never get the same possibilities in life there than the ones she'll get in Paris, living with her mother. On the other hand, he resents the lack of freedom the little girl supposes to him. The second hand is much stronger than the first one, but he uses the first one to convince Annelise to take care of her daughter. She actually feels terrible for leaving Noona in Mauritius, so both of them earn a psychological victory by sending the girl alone to an unknown country, where she is going to be marginalized and bullied just for the color of her skin. Not that Annelise couldn't have anticipated that; she was just too busy trying to stop being a horrible mother to even consider the well being of her own daughter. Noona moves to Paris.

Between Paris and Port Louis, 1967 - 1968: Annelise raises Noona as well as she can, but the sixties are busy times in Paris. She needs to be everywhere; playing, partying, socializing… it's all very important. So she signs up Noona to some evening courses. Music and sports; the "classic-modern" education. Mondays to Fridays are easy: being bullied at school, boredom at piano classes, freedom at swimming classes. Saturdays and Sundays are exactly the same, only instead of being bullied school, she spends more time playing piano and swimming. Any resemblance with an actual childhood is purely coincidental.

During the summer, and in Christmas, she spends some time with her father in Mauritius. She learns to love the sea, and everything that comes from it. She spends her time swimming, looking for incredible adventures underwater. She rediscovers the amazing wildlife of Mauritius. She spends as much time as she is allowed to underwater, or walking through the beach. She treasures every small discovery, even though there's nobody to really share it with.

Every night, Djamel forces her to sit in front of the piano while he gets drunk. What he imagined was going to be his life away from Annelise and Noona -a constant party, a parade of stunning beauties wanting him for his body, a huge celebration of his utterly interesting personality and life-, has turned out to be just a boring and lonely existence, where his only meaningful connections are the ones he has with his daughter and with a bottle of gin. The sum of both elements makes him a bit happier. Sometimes a little bit too much so. Nothing that can't be sorted out with some forced physical proximity. After all, he is big and she is small, and a daughter needs to obey her father. Noona obeys. She's just eleven.

Her mother and her friendships start noticing how she dreads her visits to Mauritius. Is it the sea? Is it the climate? Is it the food? No. It's her father. But what can she say about it? He is a drunk, a loser and a child abuser, but he plays Scarlatti like an angel. Nobody would ever believe that, or care about it. Not in Paris, May of 1968, when the spirit of free love floats in the air. The only free love Noona gets comes from her father, and that free love comes up at a very costly price. Annelise is too busy playing Classic in the weekdays and Jazz during the weekends; a black french pianist with a bourgeois background. People love her. And she loves everybody. She even loves her daughter, but taking care of her is so boring… She just drops her at the pool, or at her piano lessons. She chats with her on the way, and feels like a good mother. After the lessons, Noona takes the bus home, fixes herself some dinner, and goes to sleep. In the morning, she walks through the sea of bodies in the living room; every night is a party, and every party ends up in Annelise's house, with everybody wasted. Noona prepares breakfast for herself and for her mother, and heads to school.

That summer, she goes to visit Djamel. During the Spring, Mauritius has become an independant country, free of British control. People dance in the streets of Port Louis, but Djamel knows that independence, in Africa, means bloody war and new forms of dictatorship. He doesn't want that for his daughter. He doesn't want that for himself. He asks Annelise to let him go with her. Annelise rejects his petition. Noona becomes the filter for his anger and frustration, the human punching ball and stress relief object. Noona does a great job and Djamel is calmer now. He understands that Europe will never greet him. He gets angry and Noona has to pacify him again. Djamel assumes his destiny is to be stuck at Port Louis. Noona learns her lesson. She can either be the target of his violence, or use her body to control him and make him happy. She understands that she holds some power in that relationship, and she wonders if that power can be translated to other relationships.

II - From the sea to the sky

Swimming became Noona's passion. Although both her parents were obsessed about her musical education, and even though she managed to become a promising pianist, it was the feeling of being free inside the swimming pool what made her heart beat with joy. She was part of a team, the fastest part of that team. They were called the Mauritius Female Junior Swimming Team, but they were all French black girls swimming in Paris, trained by a white Frenchman. Why the flags, then? Noona never cared about that.

However, she cared about Opaline, her best friend and strongest rival, and she cared about Didier, her coach. The rivalry between Noona and Opaline was obvious to anyone who knew them. The girls were best friends, and they remained best friends for years. They spent their summers together in Port Louis and the rest of the year going to school and training together in Paris. Opaline's family was also from Mauritius, and it was also quite well accommodated. They did the same things, with the exception of the piano. Opaline couldn't play the piano, and she was envious because of that. In order to compensate her lack of musical training, she tried to beat Noona in the swimming pool, becoming the captain of the team and the fastest swimmer. Noona couldn't take that. Not without a fight.

Didier, the coach, was not aware of the girls' conflict. He only knew that he had two fantastic swimmers that were best friends. One of them would have to take the spot as captain of the team, but that position was not important at all; at the end of the day, both of them would go to the same competitions. It was just a formality. That's why he didn't hesitate giving it to Opaline, who was louder and more talkative. Noona wasn't happy.

She asked to talk to him about his decision. Didier agreed on meeting with her after the training. They met at the edge of the swimming pool. She just had a shower and was drying her hair. She asked him why Opaline and not her. She was worried he didn't consider her a good swimmer, as it was the only thing that mattered in her life at that point. A thirteen year old girl obsessed with swimming. Didier did his best to make her understand that Opaline was a better PR, and as a captain she was supposed to be the visible face of the team. Noona didn't smile, or frown, her face was completely neutral when she touched him. She touched Didier as her father liked her to touch him. At first, he tried to resist, but she was not giving up. She already knew of the power that she had between her legs, and she was not afraid to use it, even though a piece of her soul seemed to die every time she did so.

It was done. Noona was the new captain of the team. As she walked home like a robot, some tears fell from her eyes. She couldn't understand why, but she felt emotionally distraught. She had achieved her goal, she had defeated Opaline using her secret weapon and, for some reason, she felt sad about it.

Two more years of training, two more years of using Didier as a personal coach, a stern advocate and an interface with the world of adults. At some point, he tried to touch some other girls, but they complained and he lost his job. Bad news for Noona and her meteoric career. He tried to talk to her, but she would not have it. Didier ended up in jail, after the girls in the team ganged up against him, making a solid legal case. Noona was the one that spearheaded the initiative. However, she was the only one who refused to testify, giving the spotlight to her friend Opaline for this special occasion. If the general public was going to think that anyone had been abused as a teenage girl, it was better to grant that privilege to her best friend.

With the regime of Veronique, their new trainer, Noona's upper hand was lost. Veronique quickly turned things around, making Opaline the captain once again, and making sure all of the girls in the team had the same privileges. The African Junior Swimming Championship was around the corner, and Noona was not happy. She needed to take action. She searched her mother's bathroom, looking for anything that could send Opaline to the bench once and for all. She found pills. All sorts of pills. She grabbed a good mix of them, and put them in her bag. The day after, during training, she smashed the pills and mixed them in Opaline's water when she wasn't looking. The effect was spectacular. She started by swimming faster than ever. Then she stopped. She laughed. She shouted. She started with the convulsions and sank like a rock. Veronique jumped into the water and rescued her. White foam was crawling out of her mouth. Opaline died in her way to the hospital. The war was over, and Noona was victorious. Still, some tears were clouding her vision, and she couldn't understand why she was so sad in such a glorious day.

The African Junior Swimming Championship was the goal. Noona's eyes were on the prize, and she was not going to let it go. She was seventeen, so it was her last chance to win that competition. After that, she would have to compete in the world of adults. She was there representing her country, Mauritius, and herself. Now she could reap the rewards of all those years of suffering; she could make Djamel and Didier's abuse make sense. She could even give some significance to the murder of her only friend. She just had to be quick. Swim fast. Be number one. Demonstrate all those girls that she was there to win. And she did.

The games were celebrated at Lagos, Nigeria. About fifteen different teams of all African swimmers, competing between each other in a non violent environment. Noona couldn't understand the meaning of this competition. She wanted to win her gold, in any category, but… She was probably the most African swimmer in the pool. The rest… European or American girls and boys who had distant ties to Mother Africa. Some teams, such as the South African one, were composed entirely of white swimmers. People spoke French and English. The audience was all white. Where did all those white people come from? She felt as if she was in her usual swimming pool, in Paris. Only this one was warmer and dirtier. The hypocrisy of the whole event was quite apparent, but she stopped caring about that as soon as she saw the judges… and the medals… She wanted that gold.

The backstage of the event was deeply disturbing. Maybe not for Noona, whose body and soul were accustomed to a huge deal of abuse, but for anyone who had a small thread of decency or innocence, that horrible landscape of state authorized child abuse was just too much to handle. Several boys and girls abandoned the competition crying, only to be severely scolded and publicly humiliated by their parents. Those who couldn't handle the pressure, they became broken toys. For the rest of their lives. The others, the ones like Noona, they just lost the little bit of humanity they still had. All for the sake of a gold medal. Djamel was there, and so was Annelise. They were civil to each other, even laughing at each other's jokes. None of them had a clue. Noona made good use of her hard learned abilities to convince the judges that she was the best swimmer. She also convinced some of the coaches of the opposing teams to sabotage their own girls. She even managed to convince some fathers to retire their daughters from the competition. She was all convincing. At some point, there was a queue of people at the door of a bathroom stall, all waiting to be convinced by Noona. One by one. She was doing a fantastic job at winning those gold medals. Djamel should be extremely proud of himself. But by night, when she went to sleep, she couldn't stop crying. And she couldn't understand why. What was wrong with her? She had been educated to be the number one, to win the race using any means necessary. Why was she so immensely sad? She was doing what she was supposed to do. Her whole education, her upbringing as a black girl in Paris, everything pointed towards this moment… and tears insisted on escaping from her eyes. But she soldiered up, and kept on doing what she was supposed to. She swam, and she convinced. Even when the pain between her legs was unbearable, she still did her best. And she knew she was loved for doing so.

The day came. All that remained was swimming. No more convincing necessary; just being the fastest. She swam faster than ever, her body was perfectly in tune with the water. She was a fish, a shark, a torpedo. She became the pride of Mauritius, and of her parents. Most of the men in the pool cheered her. Four gold medals: 100, 200, 400 and 800 freestyle. She made history. Gold suited her, and she appeared smiling in all the pictures. She became instantly famous all over Africa, and she gained some notoriety in Paris too. However, she was slightly disappointed. That was it? All that effort… for that? The feeling was not nice. Nothing could quench her thirst of victory now that she already had won. Nothing.

The Mauritian Sports Committee put the girls on a plane and sent them back to Port Louis. They needed to parade their winners in front of the increasingly unhappy population. It was a small plane; just for the team and about twenty more people. No parents allowed. However, the plane was carrying something else, apart from teenage swimmers. Captain Bouchard and the guys of the Rotten Hind were on board, and they were hungry. The plane never made it to Port Louis.

III - From the sky to hell

Dead bodies falling at great speed from the sky.

A metal box; a cold, enormous coffin, filled with death, precipitating itself against the sea.

Inside: emergency lights, blood stains, limp corpses and howling faceless demons.

Fifteen minutes earlier:

Late night. Noona tries to sleep, but it's impossible. She reads the plane's literature several times. It gets boring. The rest of the people on board are resting. She projects a dark aura, as if she was actually angry, making the rest avoid her. Four gold medals hang from her neck. They are heavy. Heavier than life. They are slowly decapitating her with their weight. Every time she closes her eyes, her mind gets invaded by flashes of her father's abuse, of herself giving her body to strangers for a meager benefit… of Opaline's last dive… She is forced to open her eyes again. Why is that bothering her now? She has achieved her goal, and that should be what matters. But it isn't. Her soul is not at peace. She could rationalize that she was the victim of the story, that her father is the one who turned her into a monster, but she doesn't get that far. An announcement from the speakers of the plane makes her lose track of her own thoughts. The man's voice is raspy, but somehow theatrical. It has some strange accent, quite difficult to place, similar to Southern French, but rougher.

"Attention ladies and gentlemen, Captain Bouchard speaking. It's half past four, and we are about two hours away from Port Louis. The temperatures are warm, and the weather conditions are just fine. The sun will rise in about forty minutes. We are moving at a speed of… I don't know… Fast. Flying. Unfortunately, this plane will never land in Port Louis, and you are all going to die."

The faces of the people in the plane change slowly as the Captain speaks. At first, they process the information as if it were some sort of prank. Slowly, they realize that there is something dangerous about that voice. When the man claims that they are all going to die, the shouting begins. Hearing what Bouchard has to say becomes harder with all that noise. Noona would like to be more interested in the Captain's speech, but she's also shouting, terrified.

From out of nowhere, from the shadows between the seats, strange creatures appear. Faceless men and women, whose features seem erased or blurred, start moving across the plane, paralyzing each one of the passengers with a word, a touch or a punch. Noona receives the word. She doesn't move. With the corner of her eye, she can see another faceless creature. A woman, judging from her long, disheveled hair. She walks to Monique, another swimmer of Noona's team. She puts her hands on Monique's face and, after a few seconds, removes them. Where there should be a face, there's a blur now, with two slits for the eyes and another bigger cut for the mouth. It doesn't even look like a caricature of a face. It's just a shapeless blur. Noona feels tears running away from her own eyes.

The Captain enters the cabin. He has a face. His dreads look like a nest of black vipers, his skin is dark as the night. His features are striking; a mix of Somali, Ethiopian, French and Caribbean. He has a mischievous smile on his face.

All the passengers are still waiting on their seats. The faceless woman keeps on moving among them, erasing their faces one by one. Noona can feel in her stomach how the plane slowly turns downwards. They are starting to fall. Some of the passengers shout like pigs being executed when losing their faces. The rest of the faceless men and the Captain walk around, biting the already processed passengers in their arms, necks, legs and other parts of their anatomies. Blood flows. There is shouting, both terrified and cheerful.

The faceless woman turns towards Noona and gets close to her. She smells of rot and damp. She looks at Noona, and her eyes pierce the girl's soul. She sees through her without judgement or compassion; Noona is an unicellular organism under the microscope. The faceless woman makes a quick decision. She places her left hand on Noona's crotch, directly against her skin. There's a burning sensation, a pain like no other the girl has ever experienced. Her lips are sealed. She can't even shout. She's about to swallow her own tongue, when the woman's right hand goes for her face. The horrible feeling now comes from her own face too. She feels her bones readjusting, her flesh and skin being molded and corrected. Her old form is discarded as fake and useless. She is given her true form. Noona becomes a sexless blur. The hand retreats. Her new features change the way she sees the world. Now it's all pain, but that will change. It will get better.

The Captain jumps in front of her, laughing. There is blood on his chin. There's a deep wound in his wrist. He opens his mouth. There are two sharp fangs where there should be just regular teeth. His face becomes the most scary thing in the world. He rushes towards her and bites her throat, just between her medals, crushing her air pipe. Her head is turned by the brutal impact, and she ends up facing the window. She sees her own reflection, the reflection of that blur that once was her face. Even her color has changed; now she is mostly grey. Genderless. Colorless. Faceless. And soon, lifeless. In her reflection, she is alone. Nobody's biting her. But the Captain is there, drinking her blood. It's an odd sensation. She feels her soul pouring out of her body through the wounds in her throat.

Bouchard swallows her life away.

The tunnel is closing fast.

She can't breathe.

There's no blood in her system.

At the end of the tunnel, bathed in holy light, Opaline awaits.

She wants Noona to die, just to torment her for eternity. Something happens inside her mouth. A different taste… Something that is not just… death. Bouchard's essence.

The inside of the tunnel changes suddenly. Opaline's light becomes darkness and the tunnel itself turns into a shining place. She steps back, out of the world of the forgotten, back into the land of the living.

The plane is already falling. It will crash against the sea in no time. The crew of the Rotten Hind are bracing for impact, shouting in anticipation of the extreme experience they are about to enjoy. Half of the passengers have been emptied and fed a sip of vitae. The other half are just faceless bloodbags. From the ones that have been randomly chosen by Bouchard and the crew, just one or two will have the strength and instinct to free themselves and go feed. The rest will fall asleep and stay like that for the rest of eternity, if they are lucky.

Noona opens her eyes. The world is no longer in black and white; all the colors are turned around. What used to be in the shadows, those mysteries of the life and the soul, now are clear as daylight. What used to be precise and understandable, things such as the shallow desire to win gold medals, now remains in the forgotten halls of the dark realm. When life makes a 180 degree turn, it suddenly makes sense.

The plane crashes against the water.

ACT II - The Beginning of Life

I - What you leave behind

The water was pouring through cracks. Noona turned her head weakly, trying to get a sense of what was going on around her. The plane was still falling. Slowly, underwater… falling. She understood that sinking is just a form of slow motion falling, and that was what they were doing. The faceless creatures of the Rotten Hind started moving. They recovered from the brutal impact at surprising speed. Noona stared at the front side of the cabin, the part that received the blow.

The structure of the plane was nearly intact. Excepting the wings, that had been torn apart, the body was still nearly airtight, and watertight. There were some small cracks that allowed streams of water to pour in, but nothing really that bad. Some of the seats in the front rows had been ripped off their place by the force of the impact. They were smashed against the front panels, barely covering the bloody splatters. The passengers that were sitting on those seats had been crushed like insects. Another couple of passengers had been cut in half by their safety belts, and their torsos were lying on the ground. One of them opened its eyes and stared at Noona. The facial expression was impossible to decipher, considering the face was just a shapeless blur, but those eyes were filled with hunger and despair. Noona understood that because they reflected exactly what she was feeling.

The monsters responsible for this atrocity and the Captain walked to the front side. Bouchard looked at the effects of his operation with pride like an artist staring at a masterpiece. He turned towards the wall and tore a huge hole on it with his bare hands. Water flooded the plane quickly. All of the monsters started the destruction orgy, reducing that section of the plane to threads. Water reached Noona, and climbed through her body. She needed to move, to break free from her belt. She tried to move, but it was impossible; so weak she was. And the water was getting higher and higher.

The crew of the Rotten Hind left the plane. There was nothing there for them anymore. They just swam away. Noona was nearly underwater. She gasped for air, but her lungs refused to work. Then the water fully covered her. She was going to drown. A body floated close to her, profethising her demise. Her hands moved without her consent, bracing towards the body. She grabbed it and dragged it closer to her. She opened the gush in her face that served as a mouth, and bit the flesh of that anonymous passenger. Warm blood filled her throat. Guided by instinct, she swallowed. She emptied the blood bag, and something changed inside her. She felt refreshed, alive. With a quick movement, she tore the belt off her belly, and started swimming up, towards the hole torn in the side of the plane by Bouchard and his gang of faceless monsters. She found it. She swam out. What she saw was beautiful. She was deep at sea, by night, where light doesn't dare coming. But she could see. There were a million small details around her, things she could never see before. The sinking plane made most of the living creatures escape, but it was a glorious display anyway. The plane, with its artificial lights, was a beacon of darkness that slowly moved down. Another figure emerged from that dark mass. Some other faceless passenger had made it out. And then another one. There were three of them now. The other two moved their arms and legs helplessly. Couldn't they see how incredibly beautiful all of that was? They moved around blindly, unable to differentiate up and down.

Noona suddenly realized that she would need to breathe eventually. How long had it been? Two minutes? That was way too much. But she felt fine. It was a really strange sensation. She approached the other two survivors, and tried to tell them, by signs, to follow her. Their eyes were wide open, but they couldn't see her. She touched them, and pulled them up. They went with it, and started swimming. One of them was obviously of her team. Who? That was impossible to determine. The other one, with a bigger, softer body, was not used to swim. The three of them climbed the water. They were quite deep. As they went up, the water turned darker and darker, making it more and more difficult for Noona to see. The other two, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more self reliant as they swam up. But there was something wrong. The water started to sting Noona's face. The higher they went, the stronger was the stinging sensation. It was painful. She felt like her skin was burning up. She stopped. The other two kept swimming up. Her team mate, the other swimmer, was clearly higher, and establishing a greater distance as they swam up.

Noona watched the two figures above her. All of a sudden, the one that was higher started burning. Flames underwater. It sounded like an impossibility, but that was what Noona was witnessing. Black blazes of darkness emanating from her body, consuming her in a matter of seconds. Something above her, something related to the darkness that came in iridescent rays, was killing them. She made an effort and swam up, just high enough to grab the ankle of the other survivor. Then, she propelled her body down with all the strength she had. That proved to be more than enough. Her legs moved with prodigious force, pushing the two survivors down, into the shinier zone of the water, the one that didn't sting. She kept on going down, as she felt the darkness from above getting stronger and stronger. Her new instincts were kicking in hard, and her body knew what to do. She needed to find a place to hide.

She reached the bottom of the sea, still pulling behind her the body of the other survivor. It was all clear down there, like an open space under the afternoon sunlight. She looked around, desperately trying to find somewhere to hide from the darkness that was falling from above.There were not that many rocks, or objects… just the bottom of the sea. And one of the plane's wings. They were saved. She swam there, and pushed the other survivor beneath the wing. Then she slid herself between the metal monster and the earth. She felt asleep nearly immediately. The sun was already shining, and its rays were reaching the bottom of the sea, but they wouldn't get to Noona that day.

Captain Bouchard found them the following night. He was scouting around the plane, looking for survivors, when he saw the couple, wandering aimlessly around the broken wing. He came close to them and grabbed them. Much to his surprise, the smaller one saw him, and didn't react in a negative way to his presence. She had the gift of sight. Just like him. That made Bouchard happy.

The were brought on board of the Rotten Hind, Bouchard's ship. He was the captain, and the ductus of the Pack that composed half of the crew. The rest of the seamen were the Hind's ghouls, a vicious group of modern day pirates whose highest aspiration was to serve the pack faithfully. The lower decks of the ship were dimly lit, allowing Noona to look around. Her perception of the world was really strange. Darkness emanated from lamps and light crept out of shady corners. It was all turned around, but it made sense.

They made Noona and the other survivor kneel on the floor, and they sat around, leaving some space in front of them as some sort of stage. All of the people around her, excepting the Captain, had no facial features. It was really hard to differentiate them. Only the woman, the one that erased her face, was easy to distinguish, as her disheveled hair gave her away immediately. She walked in front of them, speaking words that meant nothing to Noona. He spoke of characters from the Bible, or so it sounded like. She ended her passionate speech and the faceless crew cheered. Bouchard approached her with a franc smile on his face and hugged her. Then he turned towards Noona and the other survivor.

"It seems we have two new members in our family. These two guys have survived yesterday's adventure. Who said there were going to be no survivors? Was it you, Coot? Or you, Flame? You both said the same. You were wrong! Look at this one! It has the gold hanging from its neck! Do you know what the gold means? It means it's a winner! Yes!" There were laughs and a general feeling of creepy comradery. Bouchard spoke like a preacher, or a stand up comedian, and his crew enjoyed it. "You: what was your name?" The Captain pointed at the other survivor. Noona was intrigued by the way the question was formulated, as if the name of the survivor was something that belonged to the past.

"My name is Gerard, sir."
"Gerard, you say? Was that your name? I don't like Gerard for you. From this moment on, you will be called 'Slug'. That will be your name, until you earn a better one. Welcome to our family, Slug."
"Hey! I don't like being called…"

Bouchard's punch threw Slug some meters away. The Captain didn't lose his smile while punching Slug; he did it the same way he would have tied a shoe or zipped up a jacket. such violence was not exceptional or worth any special attention. He turned towards Noona. "And what about you, golden one? What was your name?"
"Noona, Captain. My name was Noona Lanchair." Bouchard was obviously pleased with her answer.
"Very well! I would love to call you 'Gold', but that would be unfair to our friend Slug. I don't want you to believe you are special, or different from the rest. You are going to be just a piece of this machine. do you understand that?" All of Noona's life was built around the fact that she was special, that she was born to triumph over the rest. Bouchard's proposition was certainly upsetting. She hesitated before answering.
"Nothing special… Yes, Captain. I understand."
"Oh! Poor thing! She doesn't like that, but she doesn't want me to punch her either! Can you believe that? From this moment on, your name is no longer Noona. You will be known as 'None', until you earn a better name. Welcome to our family, None."
"Thank you Captain. My name is None."

Bouchard's smile became wild with joy. He hugged her, nearly crushing her bones. He hold her tight, and then he released her. He looked at her with the pride of a father. That pride that Noona's father never cared to show. Then, he punched her, sending her flying to the opposite wall. None was born.

Krike, the woman of the disheveled hair, finished processing None and Slug. She erased any trace of their old personalities from their bodies. Slug was allowed to keep his old bloated belly. It defined him. The case of None was more complicated.

She processed all of her skin, changing her color to a shark like shade of grey. She erased her nipples and belly button. Any remainder of her gender was deleted. The only thing that she kept from her original shape was her small frame. That, and the four gold medals. Bouchard insisted on it. Kirke carved a hole in her chest, and buried them inside her. Then, she covered the hole with bone, flesh and skin. None could feel the medals inside her all the time, like a reminder of who she was, of the side of her personality that once was prominent, and now was forced into the depths of her identity. The medals inside her chest were a reflection of her change, of what happened to her life and her perception of life. She had become her own negative reflection. And that made her whole.
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Pulp
Childe
*
II - The Teachings

Let's stop for a minute, and talk about the Rotten Hind. This name is used both for the Sabbat pack as for the ship. The pack and the ship are one entity, one associated symbol. In that spirit, Bouchard is both Ductus and Captain, Kirke is both Priest and Chaplain and Coot is Abbott and First Officer. When on the Hind, all those titles are interchangeable.

The pack was created during the sixties by Cardinal Saez de Balaguer as a nomad fast response unit. They patrol the coast of Africa, scouting, sabotaging Camarilla assets, and stopping every now and then to look for Caine related relics. Technically, the Rotten Hind is a pirate ship.

Religion is very important for the members of the crew. Kirke insists on celebrating a weekly Vaulderie ritual. Her way of understanding the Sabbat, and the rites, is very focused on love. The love they all have for Caine; the love Caine has for them; the love each member of the pack has for each other; the love for the mission; love as obedience; loyalty as a result of love. Kirke also puts a lot of stress in words, and names. Upon being Embraced, every new recruit gets a new provisional name. Six months after, when the member becomes a confirmed member of the sect, they receive their final and real name.

"Why did he take away our names?" None's question had no purpose other than satisfying her own curiosity. Slug, on the other hand, was still attached to his mortal past, and was longing for a dignified answer to that same question. Kirke considered what to say for nearly a whole minute.
"Your name wasn't yours to start with. It belonged to that other creature; your larva form. A worm becomes a butterfly after a transformation process. That doesn't mean that the worm is the butterfly. They are two different creatures, joined together by a biographic event, not the same. You may remember your old life as if it was yours, but it wasn't. It belongs to a dead entity. That creature has given you its body and its memories. It's your vessel. But it's not you. You are the blood that lives inside that vessel."

The answer satisfied None, but enraged Slug. The rift between the two Embrace brothers was getting wider every day.

The weekly Vaulderie was very important for the members of the Hind. That day was the one when they shared their stories. Anyone in the Pack, any confirmed member, had the right to stand up and tell the rest anything they felt compelled to share. The rest of the pack generally listened attentively. Bouchard and Kirke encouraged this practice, and rewarded it with their support.

None and Slug were not confirmed members, and the rest of the pack was not interested in hearing their stories. Why would they be? All they could talk about was their old mortal life and, as Kirke had clearly explained, that wasn't their life, but the life of somebody else. Slug didn't understand that, and he insisted on trying to get None to listen to his anecdotes. None feigned some interest out of politeness, but she didn't really care about any of that.

Despite not being confirmed members, they were allowed to take part in the Vaulderie. That was the thing that changed None's life forever. She had never felt such emotions, such proximity with any other soul. Bouchard and the rest of the Hind were more than her brothers, or her lovers. They were everything to her. Noone's competitive friendship with Opaline was just a passing fling in comparison. From the first time she drank from the tin chalice of the Rotten Hind, None found her place in this world. She was to be one with the pack, she was destined to become a part of that, another element in that powerful glue. Slug and None were not confirmed members of the pack yet, so they couldn't contribute to the pool with their blood. Knowing that those incredibly deep feelings of camaraderie and acceptance would one day be reciprocal made None extremely happy.

During that time, they were trained. Kirke and Bouchard taught them the teachings of Caine, they showed them how to hunt, how to pray and how to make war. They learned of their enemies; the Camarilla, the Antediluvians, the Elders, the True Black Hand… None became a pretty competent scout, using his -her genderlessness was beginning to affect the way she perceived himself- swimming abilities, combined with her supernatural talents, his ship hijacking capabilities were fantastic. Slug demonstrated a great deal of ability as a ground soldier. He wasn't that comfortable underwater, but he could receive a serious beating without even flinching. They were taught to work as a team, and they were sent in a couple of missions together, to test their abilities.

After six months of training and admiring from the distance, they were allowed to share the Vaulderie, and be part of it. It was the golden moment. They were going to be given their real names. She had never wished for anything with such passion in her whole life. She was finally part of the family. Everybody started looking at them differently. It would have been a great night, if Slug hadn't decided to share his stories with the pack. When he stood up, None feared the worst. When he started talking about the great times he spent as a mortal, smoking opium at Djibouti, she knew that wasn't ending nicely. Bouchard kept his sempiternal smile on his face, but None could see that something darker was growing behind his eyes. The members of the pack were uneasy, not entirely silent. It required a massive willpower effort from all of them to refrain from shouting at Slug and kicking him out of the boat. None's Embrace brother was oblivious to all of this. In his mind, his stories about the greatness of child abuse and drug addiction were fascinating for all of them. At last, he had found a group of people that wouldn't judge him for being a genuine monster. How wrong he was. Bouchard waited until he was finished, and approached him. He put a hand on his shoulder, and then proceeded to beat him senselessly in front of the rest of the pack. He called some tendrils of darkness to hold Slug still, and kept on beating him, without losing his smile. When he was done, he spoke.

"It has come to my attention that some of our new recruits haven't fully understand who we are and why we are here. That makes me think that their Embrace was not done right, that there was some unwanted influence on their change. How else can we explain this creature's attachment to its pupal stage? If it was meant to survive the process, it would have left behind all of that already. Sadly, I have to make this question: None, did you help Slug survive when you both changed?"

None was not expecting that. Slug looked at him. His face was a bloody mess. His eyes were begging her to deny the accusation, to let him correct his ways. "Yes, I did. I was still weak, and I considered that helping him was the right course of action. Now I understand how wrong I was. I'm sorry." Bouchard was pleased.

"Good. Do you formally accuse Slug of cheating on his Embrace?" That was just weird.
"Yes, I do. He cheated. He shouldn't have survived. I accuse him of breaking the rules." None had to be honest. Bouchard didn't deserve anything but the truth and her adoration.
"What? No! We didn't know! We were still… mortals! This is crazy!" Slug tried to defend himself, but Bouchard punched him again, making him shut his mouth.
"This is a serious accusation, None. The only way of settling this dispute is by the rite of Monomancy. In three days time you'll fight to the death. Whoever wins the fight will be proven right." That was more than bizarre now. Why were they being pushed into fighting each other? None loved Slug as a brother, although she could see his sin. She didn't want to kill him, or to fight him. But the Captain had spoken, and his word was law.

As the challenged one, Slug was allowed to choose the place and form of the duel. He choose the main deck of the Rotten Hind, under the ship's powerful lights. No weapons. Just their fists, fangs and supernatural abilities. Slug knew of None's weaknesses and tried to play them in his favor. She was going to fight blind.

The day came, and they all reunited at the deck. The lights were still not turned on. None could see what was happening around her. She located the lamps, and measured the distance that separated herself from them. She could create quite a lot of destruction even in the darkness. Kirke said a few words, reminding all of them how this rite reflected Caine and Abel's fight, how Caine won, proving himself right, and how he was rewarded for that with the gift of immortality. After that, they prepared themselves to kill each other. Lights went on. The rite of Monomancy had started.

None jumped sideways, applying as much strength as she could, towards what she believed was a light. She crashed into something metallic, and heard a loud crackling noise. One of the lamps went off. She could see. She saw the metallic tower in which the lamp was mounted falling off into the sea, and some of the crew members cutting the wires as fast as they could. She could also see Slug charging towards her with his fists ready to reduce her to pulp. She received two strong blows to the face. She stood up. The battle was over. Slug had no possibilities now.

Two arms of darkness emerged from the sea, and grabbed Slug from his ankles. They pulled him down, into the depths of the ocean, the same way the old Noona had saved the old Gerard from their first sunrise. None followed. The tentacles dragged Slug down, to the deep end, where no light shined. None started punching him. She cracked his limbs first, making him consume his blood reserves in trying to heal himself. It was useless. Slug was moving his arms and legs helplessly, blind and deaf, unable to predict where he was going to be hit next. Bouchard swam down too. He was acting as a judge. So far, the battle was fair. None didn't want to kill Slug, but she had no choice. She punched his brother until there was nothing else to punch. Then, the Captain made her some signs. She had to drink him. She did. She emptied him. She consumed all his blood, making Slug an integral part of herself. That thing that remained down there, sinking in slow motion, was not Slug; it was the vessel that he had used for barely six months. That vessel could rot forever. Slug was safe inside of her. Bouchard and None went back up, where None's victory was celebrated, and Slug's demise mourned. It was a very strange, but instructive experience for None. After a while, Bouchard confessed that it was his plan all along. He knew about the whole Embrace situation, and wanted None to be the one killing Slug. It wasn't the first time that happened in the Rotten Hind's history.

The rite of Monomancy earned None a real name, one that truly reflected who she was. Under a rain of blood, in his southern fisherman's French accent, Bouchard baptized None as Poulpe.

III - The becoming


The pack was called to action several times during the following years. Sometimes, they had to fight actual Camarilla Vampires, but most of the times they just had to sabotage their resources and execute their ghouls. Their efficiency was legendary, and most Camarilla Princes and big figures who had any business related to the seas knew of the existence of the Rotten Hind.

The siege of Cape Town was a completely different sport. The pack was not prepared for that sort of all out war. Together with another maritime nomad pack, they were put in charge of blocking naval communications. That was hard enough. To make it tougher, they also had to take part in land incursions. Even though they were used to fighting and living at sea, they did their best to do a good job there. The whole campaign lasted for a whole year. Lots of Vampires died on both sides of the conflict. The Rotten Hind lost nine of its members, and was forced to replace them with shovelhead Embraced recruits. They were hard times indeed. Captain Bouchard became some sort of a war hero, a symbol of the Sabbat occupation.

Nearly at the end of the conflict, the Hind was composed of Bouchard, Kirke, Poulpe and seven more people. The old ghouls were all dead, excepting two. Cape Town was clearly going to become a new Sabbat stronghold; the Southern capital of the Sword of Caine. But the war was still not over. Four days before Seneschal Van Boer, the last official Camarilla Vampire in Cape Town, was decapitated, Captain Bouchard met his final death after being staked and set fire inside a small shed. The whole attack had all the signs of an assassination. Bouchard was a strong propagandistic figure. A hero of the Sabbat. The rumours were that he was going to be proclaimed Archbishop of Cape Town. That never happened. Poulpe and Flame got to the assassins before they could flee, and killed them. Two Assamites. Not Camarilla.

They were forced to push their suspicions aside, as the conflict came to an end. The celebrations began, with daily Vaulderies and all sorts of rites. The Blue Star Brotherhood, the pack of Cardinal Saez de Balaguer and Priscus Nebojsa Kasun, were in town, as part of the festivities. The occupation of Cape Town was their brainchild, and they had coordinated the whole operation from a safe distance. Now they could walk through those streets and witness first hand what their soldiers had won for them. Poulpe watched every movement of the Priscus, during that time. She presided several rites, and showed Poulpe a completely different way of understanding the truth of Caine. Where Kirke was more relaxed and philosophical, focused on the pragmatic meaning of the teachings of the book of Nod, Kasun was more concerned about following the rite to the letter, establishing the social rankings of the participants according to their knowledge of the tradition. All of that was fascinating for Poulpe, and she was probably hiding the pain she was feeling after losing his adored leader behind her religious studies.

Kirke called in an emergency meeting. The few survivors of the pack gathered together at the ship and mourned the death of Bouchard. For six nights, they stopped feeding. They remained quiet. Kirke didn't even move. She just spent all that time looking at Bouchard's room door. Squid tried to emulate her priest, but she didn't have that sort of self control. After six days, they fed, and they told each other stories about Bouchard, their most precious memories. The week went on, and the mourning period ended. The Rotten Hind needed to move forward and reinvent itself.

Kirke assumed the role of new Ductus, and named Coot the new priest of the pack. Apart from them, only Centaur, Flame, Poulpe and Bloody Mario were still alive. The Hind was a shadow of its former glory. Kirke was still devastated by the death of Bouchard, and she considered that a week of mourning was not enough homage to their fallen leader. They needed to do something bigger, more radical. She had an idea. The rest of the members of the pack agreed. They all committed to the new plan.

During five weeks, Kirke worked on the faces and bodies of her fellow packmates, and on her own. She carefully sculpted every square inch of skin, every twist of every bone… She reconstructed all of them. The process was infinitely painful for all of them, and several juice bags died during that time, but the end results were worth it. After five weeks, they all looked exactly like Bouchard. Six living replicas of the Hero of Cape Town.

Poulpe had color, once again. She was no longer grey like a shark.

ACT III - Life and beyond

Cardinal Saez de Balaguer was less than happy about the decision of the members of the Rotten Hind. For Poulpe, finding herself turned into a man, and a man she loved so deeply for that matter, was a very exciting twist, and a great way of honoring her leader's memory. The war was over, and now the Rotten Hind was stuck in Cape Town, awaiting orders. After a couple of months, they were all called in by the Cardinal. The meeting was informal, and quite cold. No vaulderie or any signs of camaraderie, just an informal gathering in a parking lot. The rules were simple: he talked and they listened. For any casual observer, the Cardinal would seem to be acting pretty much like a Camarilla Prince, but with less glamour.

They received their orders. And they got their hearts broken. They were to be disbanded. Not as a Pack; but as a family. They were to go each one of them to a different part of the globe, with different missions; mostly related to old Caine legends. Bullshit, in other words. Kirke had to travel to the Middle East, looking for clues about the Heart of Caine. Coot was sent to the North of Canada, where he would have to look for the local legends regarding Wendigos, and find a connection with Caine. It was madness. Poulpe had a more complex mission; she had to travel the oceans and find evidences of the lost city of Atlantis. He was way too smart to argue with the Cardinal, but that was obviously a fool's errand.

They left the parking lot feeling cheated and empty. They had to separate, and they were authorized to meet every six months, to keep their Vinculum alive. Barely alive, that is. As part of their missions, they had to make sure they were seen by members of the Camarilla everywhere they went; the legend of Bouchard needed to grow and grow over time. So, they had their last Vaulderie, their last party on board of the Rotten Hind, and the following day each one of them went in a different direction.

During the following years, Poulpe walked the deep end of the Atlantic, turning up every stone, and trying to gather interest in her quest. He met a lot of different creatures in her trips. Other Packs that welcomed her for short periods of time, independent maritime creatures that taught her how to appreciate the beauty of the sea animals, kind monsters who stopped in their way to share stories with the seeker. She walked and swam, spending most of his time underwater. Every now and then, he would emerge, attack a ship, drink its crew members dry, and sink again, looking for evidence of what was evidently not there… Every six months, all of the remaining members of the Hind met in the ship and, for a week, they shared the tales of their adventures. Poulpe saw the world through the eyes of her pack mates. In return, she gave them her impressions of the abyss, how was the life among the forgotten creatures. She could spend more than a whole month in silence. That changed her way of thinking.

In her trips, following a clue regarding Atlantis, she spent some time in the South of Spain, squatting with the Holy Wail, a pack of Gangrel who had a very unique spiritual side to them. They believed that words were what separated Vampires from Caine, and that only sacrificing language and verbal communication they would be able to transcend this form of existence. Poulpe appreciated these silent companions. They welcomed her, and one of them talked just enough to make her understand what they were doing. Every now and then, one of them would surprise her with five or six words, and then weeks of silence. They helped her look for clues regarding Atlantis through the fields and through the forests, but they found nothing. During her stay with the Holy Wail, Poulpe suffered her final transformation. The Gangrel, unaccustomed to words, were unable to say her name. They called her "Pulp" instead. As a way of honoring them and their quiet ways, he graciously accepted the new name, and started using it herself.

Meeting after meeting, the Rotten Hind was getting smaller. Coot was the first to die. That made Pulp the new priest of the pack. Being priest of a pack that meets only every six months is a relative honor, but she accepted it proudly. Some officials of the Camarilla were getting paranoid; stories of sightings of Bouchard all over the world were coming up every day. A task force dedicated to kill the Captain was created, and the members of the Hind started being hunted like animals.

With the death of Bloody Mario, during a terrible battle through the streets of Asuncion, Paraguay, the members of the Camarilla understood what was going on. They understood that they were just killing body doubles of the hero. They proclaimed Bouchard a dead Vampire. The hunt was over. After nearly twenty years, it was only Kirke and Pulp. The Hind was a two member pack. It was not a pack anymore. The dissolution was the only answer. Kirke was destined to South East Asia, with the task of leading a pack in the Australian wars. She took the ship with her, and said they said goodbye for the last time. The Cardinal called Pulp to the parking lot once again. It was as informal as ever, and as cold as the last time. He talked about the disappointment in her mission. After two decades, she had found no evidence of the lost city of Atlantis. He asked him if she had learned anything about Caine in the process.

"Cardinal, if I may… I've spent the last twenty years searching the depths of the ocean, going to places where no one has gone before. I've been inside the Abyss. I've shared my time with sea monsters; krakens, mariners and creatures that don't even have a name. I've discovered that the silence is sacred, and that the Sword means loyalty; I've learned that our kind is not meant to be alone, and that only us, the Sabbat, understand the power of camaraderie. I've learned from the whispers of the mute how words can drive us away from our maker, and how He is hiding behind every sentence. I haven't found Atlantis, and I'm not closer to Caine than before, and yet, I feel closer to Him than ever, as in every moment shared with our brothers and sisters, in every story told from our lips into the ears of those who listen, Caine lives and approves. Atlantis is not a real place; it's a state of mind, a place of eternal loneliness, the ultimate torture. Our maker doesn't live there, that's for sure. Caine is where the sounds of the voices of his descendants echo with joy and loyalty. I've learned through solitude that we are not meant to be alone in eternity. Tonight, Caine gives me the strength to beg you: Cardinal, let me return to society, let me find Caine in the words of my brothers and my sisters."

The Cardinal thought about her answer for a couple of minutes. Then he smiled. He had a mission for Pulp. The Lasombra was going to London, to support the pack that was being created there.

That's the story of Noona Lanchair, and how she became None, then it became Poulpe, and then he became Pulp. That's how this creature ended up in London.

1000 words version, for people who live too fast to care about the details

Lagos, 1972. Noona Lanchair, 17. Mauritius born, Paris educated. Captain of the Junior Mauritius Swimming Team. Proficient pianist. Her mother is Annelise Voclair: professional musician and hippy socialite from Paris. She loves feeling the strong calling of motherhood and leaving her daughter unattended for prolonged periods of time. Her father is Djamel Lanchair, a piano teacher from Mauritius; a bitter, alcoholic and self indulgent narcissist. He finds solace in playing Liszt and Scarlatti, as well as in sexually abusing his daughter. Annelise and Djamel are divorced. Noona spends the year in Paris and the holidays in Mauritius. This year, she has competed in the African Junior Swimming Championship, an event made by white people, for white people, where white people enjoy watching a majority of white kids represent some black countries they've never been to. Noona is one of the few black girls there. The event was also an excuse for sex offenders from all over the world to enjoy themselves in a healthy, sports related environment. Noona knew, accepted and took part in all the activities with deportivity. The judges were so impressed by her performance on and off the pool, that they granted her four gold medals.

Still with the four medals hanging from her neck, during the team's flight back to Port Louis, Mauritius, their plane's attacked by a Sabbat pack, the Rotten Hind. Lead by the legendary Captain Bouchard, the members of the Hind drain the passengers dry. The Priest of the pack, Kirke, erases their faces and some personal features. Noona loses her identity, her gender and her life. The plane falls. Bouchard feeds Noona his own blood. The world turns around, as Noona enters the dimension of opposites. What should be bright becomes dark, and vice versa. Literally and morally.

The plane falls into the sea. The impact kills some of the surviving passengers. The Vampires punch a hole in the wall, and leave. The plane sinks. Noona swims out. She finds a place to stay under one of the wings, in the bottom of the ocean. The following night, she is rescued by Bouchard, and taken on board of the Rotten Hind, the ship that hosts the homonymous pack. The only other survivor is baptized Slug, and Noona receives a new name too: 'None'.

Kirke alters her body further, turning her skin grey like a shark and burying her four gold medals inside her chest. Any trace of her identity disappears. All the members of the Hind have similar alterations; they give up their distinctive features upon joining the pack. All of them, except Bouchard. He is the ductus, the Captain, their leader; they need him to have a visible face. During six months, None shadows Bouchard, Kirke and Coot. She learns about Caine's love, about pack loyalty, about present and past. She understands. Noona is dead. None is a new being.

As a rite of passage, she is forced to kill Slug, her Embrace brother, following the rite of monomancy. The tactics she uses to win the battle earn her a new name. Bouchard baptizes her 'Poulpe'.

The Rotten Hind is a modern day pirate ship. They travel around Africa, sabotaging Camarilla assets and looking for Caine related relics. After some years of small missions along the South West coast of Africa, the Hind is called to assist in the Siege of Cape Town. The battle lasts for a year. Bouchard becomes a war hero, and his name and image inspires terror to the members of the Camarilla. Shortly before the end if the Siege, Bouchard is murdered. His assassins are killed by Coot and Poulpe before they can escape, but the harm's already done. Few days later, the Sabbat conquers Cape Town.

During Bouchard's mourning period, Kirke comes up with an idea, a way of paying respects to their fallen leader. All of the members of the Hind alter their appearance to become Bouchard. They present themselves to Cardinal Saez de Balaguer, the brain behind the conquest of Cape Town. At first, he is furious, but then he understands the propagandistic value of their action. The Rotten Hind is disbanded. Not technically, as they are all still members of the same pack, but each one of them receives a different mission, scattering them all over the world. Sightings of the legendary Captain Bouchard are reported in every corner of the planet by the Camarilla spies. Bouchard becomes a legend.

Poulpe is asked to follow the trail of the lost city of Atlantis. He suspects he's been sent on an fool's errand, but he does as he's told. He travels the world, meeting all sorts of Vampires. He spends time with other nomad packs, learning their way of understanding the rites, such as the Still Air, a pack that gives a great value to spirituality; they rarely speak as they believe that the languages of men are a limitation to kindred. He also travels with Eun Kyung, who teaches him about the greatness of the creatures who live under the sea. During his trips, he learns about what means to be a Vampire. He also suffers yet another change of name, as most of the people he finds along his way seem to mispronounce his name as 'Pulp'. He decides to embrace the word.

Every six months, the old members of the Rotten Hind meet in Cape Town, and share the rite of Vaulderie. For a week, they live as they lived before, and their existences make sense again. But every meeting gathers less and less members. They are being hunted down by the Camarilla, who suspects that the real Bouchard is hiding behind body doubles. After ten years, only Kirke and Pulp are alive. Cardinal Saez de Balaguer makes it official: The Rotten Hind is over. He gives new orders to the two of them, separating the old crew for the last time. Pulp is assigned to provide support and assistance to the new pack that is being formed in London.

NOTES:

Merits and Flaws:


Pelagic Harmony: Being close to the sea calms and reinforces your self control.
Sanctity: You are seen as most innocent and pure. You are trusted even if not trustworthy. When punished for a crime, you will receive the lightest sentence.

Uncontrollable Night Sight: For Pulp, darkness is bright, and light is dark. The brightness spectrum is turned around 180 degrees. The darkness created using Obtenebration is perceived as pure impenetrable light.
Mistaken Identity: People confuse Pulp with Captain Bouchard, and with the rest of the members of the Rotten Hind (they all look exactly the same, after all). Anyone who knew Bouchard, or who met any of the other members of the Hind before, will probably mistake Pulp for them. This is specially dangerous when dealing with some Camarilla old timers who have fought Bouchard in the past, as they'll probably attack at first sight.

Path: Path of Caine.

Rituals: These are some of the rituals Pulp has learned along the way. She can officiate any of them proficiently.

Vaulderie (Rotten Hind):[/b] This was the rite for the weekly Vaulderie on board of the Rotten Hind. Kirke created it, taking examples from several sources, and adding her personal touch to it. It is quite an informal and forgiving ritual, where the stress is placed on camaraderie and on sharing an intimate moment with the rest of the pack. Guests usually have a hard time adapting to the informality of this rite the first time. After that, they feel welcome and integrated with the pack.

The Priest takes the chalice in her right hand and the knife in her left hand. He holds both above her head, and recites the following prayer:

For all is one,
and one will be all.
For all that we share
is what makes as whole.
Let us become the same,
and sail this night together.
Caine, give us your blessing,
allow us to feast in your name.

(EVERYBODY)
For Caine.


The priest then proceeds to give the knife to the ductus, and holds the chalice for him. After the ductus pours his blood in the chalice, the Priest does the same, while another member of the pack holds the chalice for her. This dynamic repeats until the circle is complete, and all have hold the chalice for another member of the pack. Before drinking, it's customary for each member to shout a short blessing, something like "For Caine!", "To Camaraderie!", or "To Victory!". When the chalice is empty, the ductus says a few words, summarizing the events that have taken place since the last Vaulderie. Then he opens the floor for any other pack member who wants to tell any story. After that, the priest holds the chalice upside down above her head, and recites the following prayer:

For we are one,
and now we are.
For all that we shared
is what makes as strong.
We have become the same,
and we'll sail this night together.
Caine, thanks for your blessing,
we have feasted in your name.

(EVERYBODY)
For Caine.


Vaulderie (Priscus Nebojsa Kasun): This is a very formal way of practicing the Vaulderie, used by Priscus Nebojsa Kasun. Any number of participants can join in. The most remarkable quality of this rite is the general feeling of paranoia. Every participant watches the rest, looking for mistakes in the execution.

The priest holds the knife with both hands. The chalice is set in the middle of the circle. She takes a step forward, and recites the following prayer while performing a series of pre established movements (those who don't know their part are severely frowned upon):

Caine, our father,
We pray that we may be truly worthy for the many blessings we enjoy this day.
The blood to quench our thirst, the vitae to forge steel bonds,
The power of this gathering in this dark red night.

(EVERYBODY)
Caine, we thank you.
(EVERYBODY CLAPS THREE TIMES)

In the world around us there are many who are weak,
bonded to their Elders, following the voice of their masters,
misguided and fearful, lonely and without direction.

(EVERYBODY)
And they shall burn.
(EVERYBODY CLAPS ONCE)

We pray for your strength and clarity,
to find those Kindred who are cowardly investing of their time and
power to help these miserable people.

(EVERYBODY)
And we shall drink them dry.
(EVERYBODY CLAPS ELEVEN TIMES)

We pray for the Holy Soldiers of the Inquisition,
and for the brave comrades out there,
who are fighting the good fight night after night,
serving the Sword to make this world our promised land,
to free us from the tyranny of the Elders,
and give us to your arms, Caine.

(EVERYBODY)
And so we pray.
(EVERYBODY CROSSES THEIR ARMS IN FRONT OF THEIR CHESTS)

We ask for the power we need to crush our enemies,
the power of this unbreakable bond that will last forever,
and may any imprudent soul who dares breaking this holy communion
burn forever under your enraged gaze.

(EVERYBODY)
And so, the free obey.
(EVERYBODY CLAPS FIVE TIMES)

We ask your blessing on the blood we are about to consume,
the vitae of our brothers and our sisters,
as a symbol of our unity and our loyalty,
as a proof of the unbreakability of our conviction.
Help us live this night as it is the last,
and survive to tell the story the night after.
Bless this Vitae, for it is made of love for you, father.

(EVERYBODY)
Caine, bless us.
Caine, protect us.
Caine, give us strength to crush the misguided.
Caine, we thank you.
Caine, we love you.
Caine, we'll find you.
(EVERYBODY KNEELS AND BEATS THE GROUND WITH THEIR HANDS THIRTEEN TIMES)


After that long prayer, the priest approaches the chalice and pours his blood inside. The ductus follows, as well as any authority figure. The protocol and the hierarchy is very important. After everybody has poured their blood in the chalice, they all start drinking. The first to drink are those with a lower rank, and the last one to drink is the priest, or the vampire with the highest rank. If there's a figure of authority, they can speak at this point, although that is not strictly traditional. Those who have problems repeating the main parts of the prayer earn a very bad reputation among their peers. It is rumored that more than one Sabbat member has lost his life after making too many mistakes in the prayer.
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