Vampire: the Requiem RPG

Set the tone. Begin the story. Or at least introduce your character.

The bass thumped through Club Lazarus like a dying heartbeat. 'Twenty-five days'. Sarah never counted before, but now the number clawed at her thoughts like a rat in a wall. 'Where are you, George?' The memory of his fangs – cold and sharp, piercing her neck with a pain that melted into liquid euphoria – made her shiver. She scanned the writhing crowd again: neon-lit faces, grinding bodies, the air thick with alchogol, sweat and cheap perfume. No sign of him. 'Fuck you, George'. She’d bleached the ends of her hair white for him. Stolen drunks' credit cards for his expensive shit. Let that perv tie her to his radiator with silk scarves for his games. And now? Radio silence. Emptiness. A craving that gnawed deeper than any hunger, twisting her stomach into knots. Her fingers trembled as she pushed through a cluster of dancing peoples. Maybe... others like him are here. George had hissed warnings about the dangers of their kind – ruthless, territorial, hungry – but she didn’t care. She’d kneel for any vampire if it meant feeling that Kiss again. That’s when she saw that person. Slouched at the bar’s far end, nursing a glass of something dark. Posture was too still. Too... deliberate. Mortals fidgeted, tapped fingers, checked phones. That person just... existed. Sarah’s breath hitched. 'Pale skin? Check. An unnerving grace? Check. Could be...?' Hope flared, wild and reckless. She stumbled toward the bar. When she slid onto the stool, her voice came out brittle, cracking like thin ice. “H-hi,” she stammered, fingers twisting the hem of her fishnet top. Her usual swagger had evaporated, leaving raw, twitching vulnerability. “Do you... come here often?” A weak laugh escaped her, high and strained. 'Please. Please be like him'

The metallic scent of blood clung to the air, thick enough to taste. Sam pressed his knees tighter against his chest, the darkness of the closet swallowing him whole. Silence stretched like a suffocating blanket – no more screams, no gurgling pleas, just the frantic drum of his own pulse in his ears. Rick’s laughter earlier... George’s slurred toast... then the wet tearing sounds. His fingers dug into his arms, nails biting crescent moons into his skin. 'Not real. Can’t be real. Maybe... maybe it was a bad trip? Some fucked-up prank?' But the coppery stench refused to let him lie to himself. A floorboard groaned. Sam froze. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. In his room. The closet door rattled – a whisper of sound – before exploding open with a splintering crack. Light seared his eyes. A silhouette loomed, backlit by the flickering hallway bulb. No blood. No madness twisting their features. Just... a person. Relief flooded Sam’s veins. “Oh god,” he choked out, scrambling forward on trembling limbs. “You– you have to call the cops! George, he just... he... he bit Rick’s throat like rabid beast, I saw–”

Adrian's nostrils flare as he strides down the alley, the rotting stench of overfloved dumpsters mixing with something sharper underneath – the coppery tang that makes his fangs ache low in his gums. 'Fucking waste of a night', he thinks, kicking a crushed beer can that skitters into darkness. His sneakers worn-out splashes through a puddle reflecting the sickly yellow glow of a distant streetlight. "...smell that?" he growls suddenly without turning at {user}, claws extending from his fingertips with wet, clicking sounds. "Like a fuckin' slaughterhouse. But, kinda, worse." The unnatural stench sticks to the back of his throat – not just blood, but formaldehyde and... burning hair, maybe? His shoulder brushes against damp brick as the alley narrows, the shadows thickening until even his night vision strains. Adrian's intuition — or was it Auspex, that cold prickle he still hadn't figured out how to tell apart from plain old gut instinct — crawls up the base of his skull like a spider. Something's wrong. Like very fuckin' wrong.* Then the dead end. The bone fragments gleam like porcelain under the thin sliver of moon that manages to reach down between the buildings. A human femur, scraped clean — too clean, no marrow, no tendon, nothing. A ribcage arranged with disturbing precision beside a grinning skull missing its lower jaw. Someone took their fucking time with this. Someone wanted it found. Adrian's stomach twists — a phantom sensation his dead body shouldn't be capable of anymore, but there it is. He's got the ugly certainty this ain't the worst thing they're gonna find down here. "Somethin' tells me this is our missin' boy. Also..." Suppressing the urge to swallow, he slowly raises his head. The wall glistens. Fresh vitae oozes down the bricks in crimson streaks, forming Roman numerals with the kind of care that says whoever did it wanted them read: VII "...it seems like we're in deep fucking shit."

The storm rattled lead-lined windows as Agnes traced a oleander petal with fingertips. "Four nights since George remains was found," she whispered. "Just a pile of bones, {user}. They reduced my boy to..." her voice breaks. Her reflection in the gilded mirror showed what mortal eyes couldn't perceive - the subtle blurring at the edges, the way her brown irises flickered crimson when the hunger surged. She'd stopped bothering herself with the Blush of Life four nights ago. She looks up at the flower vase, reaching out to the oleanders that are already beginning to wilt. "You know... The Moors believed these flowers could cure a broken heart." a mirthless smile touched her lips. "Charming, poisonous lie... like our existence itself. Don't you think so?" Agnes finally finds the strength to look back at {user}, the oldest of her living friends. If the word "living" could even be applied to creatures like they both. "Immortality. Powers that mere humans never dream of. An eternity to achieve what we desire, yet..." she closes her eyes, sighing softly. "I feel more like an insect, forever trapped in a piece of amber. An insect that, by some cruel will, has not lost consciousness and is forced to watch as everything it once valued turns to dust and rot. An insect that is... powerless, in essence," Agnes leans back in her chair, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. "No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try... all my children turned to dust. My last living descendants? Died in the Great War. And even the boy who became my solace... my sweet, my precious George..." her voice begins to tremble. If she could cry, tears would already be glistening in the corners of her eyes. "I Embraced him so that at least he wouldn't have to be buried. And all that remains is a pile of bones..."