Book 2: Chapter 1: A New Vison

Over the next 125 years, the coterie quietly wanders the world, gaining experience and knowledge while carefully avoiding disruptions to the timeline. Their travels eventually bring them back to San Francisco, where they learn that Ban Stradh sustained catastrophic injuries and has entered a rare form of torpor. His motionless body was shipped to Vienna, where he now lies under the watchful eye of the Tremere Circle—if he ever awakens.

Prince Ambrogino expresses deep gratitude to the surviving coterie members—Valmont, Jarvis, and Max—for stopping Cyrano and preserving the timeline. As a reward for their efforts, each is elevated to Status 3 within San Francisco's vampiric society.

The fate of several others remains uncertain. Nathan Kent, Sting, and numerous unresolved threads seem to have faded into obscurity. It is whispered that these ancient Kindred simply retreated into the darkness, continuing their eternal lives in silence.

• Elise Sutton – Slain during the Primogen Attack by Luca Pal.
• Peter Takin – Former Primogen and now declared traitor; officially placed on the Red List.
• Vicar Kraus – Ex-Ravnos Primogen; mysteriously vanished.
• Nathan Kent – Has ascended to become one of the 12 global leaders of Clan Ventrue.
• Vanguard – Status unknown.
• Ticker – Status unknown.
• Lazo – Returned to San Francisco and resumed his role as a Primogen.
• Cliff McCloskey (Ban's mortal alias) – Fate unknown.
• Amelia Crimson – Chose to settle in San Francisco. As recognition for her part in saving the city, the Prince granted her ownership of CORE (now known as Sky Bar) at the Pyramid.
• Enzo Dante – Believed to have returned to Europe.
• Graf – Resumed his position as Nosferatu Primogen.
• Ghul & Sting – Current whereabouts unknown.

The Prince meets privately with Valmont and Jarvis. He tasks them with reaching out to Damien Bolden, a former Sabbat Nosferatu who recently emerged near San Jose. Damien claims to hold crucial information regarding Sabbat operatives Renwick and Kaine and wishes to establish dialogue with San Francisco’s Kindred.

Valmont and Jarvis are appointed as emissaries, sent to assess Damien and determine his true intentions.

A formal meeting with the Prince and all involved parties is scheduled for:

January 11, 2025 – 8:00 PM

A Chronicle in San Francisco

Under the neon-soaked sky of San Francisco, Valmont and Jarvis ascend the heights of Salesforce Tower for a quiet, high-stakes meeting. At their side: Damien Bolden, a scarred Nosferatu with a haunted past. Once Sabbat, now independent, Damien presents himself to Prince Ambrogino—a relic of darker nights, offering insight, not allegiance.

The Prince listens in stoic silence as Damien speaks. He has no love for the Sabbat, he claims—only information, skills, and unfinished business. He names names: Fabian Bullard. Renwick. Kaine. And hints that his mysterious sire connects them all. It’s a dangerous web.

Before they leave, Ambrogino hands Valmont a black envelope sealed with an arcane Tremere sigil—one held in trust for this very night, January 11, 2025. Inside: a skeleton key and a single address…
66 Greenwich Street.

There, tucked away in the shadows of the city, they find VINO—a blacked-out, fortified building cloaked in anonymity. To their surprise, it belongs to Valmont. The interior is pristine, luxurious, armed to the teeth, and ready for something… more. In the cellar: a treasure trove of vintage wine worth millions. In the corner: a port for SchreckNet. Soon, a Nosferatu tech named Diego arrives, and the network begins to hum with secrets.

But peace is never still in the night.

Damien receives a desperate call. Sonja Vossen, a young Toreador with fear in her voice and enemies at her back, pleads for sanctuary. She’s fled Boston and her Sabbat pack, pursued by her former leader—Rex Nite.

Her story unfolds like spilled blood. Phoenix. A burned Elysium. An accidental blaze that scorched more than stone. Now a Primogen named Zane Roman has given her and her companions a chance at redemption: Find Murrian, somewhere in San Francisco, and their debt will be forgiven.

Sonja isn’t alone. She brings with her three unlikely allies:

Nate Nestor – brooding and quiet.
Valentine Strangelove – dangerously eccentric.
Reyes Murik – all sharp edges and restless energy.

As the group settles into VINO, Valmont watches them, the past brushing against the present. They remind him of another time—of himself, Max, Jarvis, and Ban, when their own story had just begun.

Now, with old powers awakening and new players entering the game, the city’s nights grow deeper—and deadlier.

New alliances form.
Old ghosts stir.
And the hunt begins…

The coterie gathered beneath the red-stained chandeliers of VINO, Valmont’s sanctuary of blood and vintage silence. The scent of vitae and old wood lingered as Jarvis, Damien, Max, and Valmont exchanged wary glances. There was a tension in the air — not just between them, but in the city itself.

Talk turned first to Ban — once a companion, now a memory. A shade lost in the endless game of survival.

Then the night's grim litany began.

• CORE, once the neon heartbeat of San Francisco's Kindred nightlife, was no more. Prince Ambrogino had gifted it to Amelia Crimson, a reward for vanquishing Cyrano, the rogue. She had renamed it SKY BAR, dressing it in chrome and shadow.
• Tekki, CORE’s old maestro of the floor, now spun the decks at HELL ULTRA CLUB — a deeper, darker scene.
• The Tremere, ever secretive, had sealed themselves within their old Chantry, locking out all others with unspoken wards and unseen sentries.
• Pitt and Kent, long dormant, had been renovated. The purpose? Unknown.

But it was the Primogen Council that bore the most chilling change:

• Isabel "Raven" Gutierrez, now Director of Communication, her silver tongue said to influence both kine and Kindred.
• Horacio Nelson, the Director of War, a brutal strategist with Sabbat scars and a cold heart.
• Arias Kannakis, Director of the Masquerade, a Lasombra who knew how to erase even the echo of your name.
• 
  

And then came the whisper of Zane. Ventrue. Elder. The Phoenix Primogen.
Still obsessed with reclaiming Murran — a name now spoken in caution, like a curse. Rumors tethered Zane to Oakland, and to a mortal named Joe Cross, who once sought out the enigmatic Father Trout, now dwelling in the Tenderloin’s rot.

The silence of VINO broke when Sonja Vossen arrived. Flanked by her coterie — Nate, Valentine, and Reyes — she moved like thunder wrapped in silk.

• Reyes: ex-Hells Angel, the steel in Sonja’s hand. Old, worn, and dangerously quiet.
• Valentine: a Harpy’s Harpy, dripping Toreador allure. Poison in perfume form.
• Nate: youngest, but loyal. Eyes like storm clouds.

Sonja spoke of Murran. She wanted help — or perhaps allies. A fragile line. Rumors leaked between glasses of vitae:

• Corey Graham, an ambitious Kindred, was building a new club, vast and unseen by the Prince’s eye.
• Joe Cross had become something else after speaking with Trout.
• A group known as Eclipse Court was en route from Chicago, bringing with them winds of change. This intelligence came from Nobu, a traveler whose words were rarely wrong.

Sonja then mentioned something... someone... that Father Trout had been in contact with. But she was silenced — for her own safety. Max promised introductions to the Prince, in time.

The coterie ventured next to the Asylum — a place forgotten by most, but not by death. Only one figure lingered there: Janice Lockheart. A husk of what she once was. She spoke in a broken tone of Father Trout, and how he still owned the building.

In the basement, they found him. Trout — a Kindred priest, mad, brilliant, dangerous. His asylum was no sanctuary, but a prison, where revenants, lupines, and other half-dead things rotted in cells hidden beneath the city.

He spoke of a man named Joe, in a blue SRO, fourth floor. Years ago, Trout had helped him. Now, Damien’s visions returned — a cold, dark lighthouse, standing alone against the sea. The dream had become lucid. The lighthouse was real.

The group tracked Joe Cross to his room in a downtown SRO, its halls reeking of mold and misery.

They broke him.

With intimidation, pain, and blood, Joe spilled everything.

• Murran was held in the Navaro Lighthouse.
• Joe acted on Renwick’s orders.
• Renwick was the hand in the dark. The one calling to Zane. The one who would see Murrain rise again.

When Joe’s second ear hit the floor, silence returned.

The Navaro Lighthouse beckons — a place of crashing waves, occult imprisonment, and forgotten horrors. The coterie knows what awaits them is not just Murran — but the truth behind Renwick, Zane, and the creeping rot within San Francisco's own veins.

The Kindred of the night are moving.

The city pulsed with the heartbeat of the damned. Neon flickered outside shuttered windows, casting broken halos onto slick pavement. Within the confines of a low-lit haven, Damien, Valmont, and Jarvis whispered like ghosts.

Peter Takin had vanished — slipped into the cracks of the night. Word was he’d been named to the Camarilla’s Red List, marked Anathema. A death sentence whispered on the winds of Praxis. No one hides for long from the Alastors.

Later, Valmont and Jarvis made their way through the shadows to Elysium, that sanctified ground where violence was forbidden but betrayal fermented. There, they met with Graf Orlock — old-blooded, his eyes sunken, his tone dry as grave soil. They spoke of new tensions. Graf confessed ignorance of the gang recently risen under a Kindred named Sonja, but did drop a name that made even the walls grow still: Renwick.

“Renwick walks with the Sabbat,” Graf muttered, “but even they fear him.” A Nosferatu of terrible potency. A creature not merely twisted by the Embrace, but shaped by the dark alchemy of time, power, and obsession.

Scene: The Next Night – VINO

The coterie reconvened at VINO, a modern-night haunt for the Kindred elite—cold, clean, and soaked in pretense. Damien brought new intelligence on Zane, the Ventrue Primogen of Phoenix: an elder with old-money blood and an empire of mortal pawns — police chiefs, judges, politicians.

“Zane opposed Kent’s rule in San Francisco back in the '70s,” Damien said, fingers idly swirling the Vitae in his glass. “Said his progressive ways would rot the city from within. Wrote the Inner Council. Warned them.”

Classic Ventrue. Order above all.

Scene: The Navaro Lighthouse

Steel and salt, wind and waves — the Navaro Lighthouse loomed like a sentinel of forgotten things. The coterie approached under the weight of centuries, each footfall echoing against stone older than memory. No alarms. No lights. Just the breathing dark.

They broke in with practiced ease. Inside, the stale air clung to the walls like a shroud. Valmont’s Auspex flared. A psychic vision struck: a lone man with long black hair visiting nightly. A face veiled in sorrow and strength.

Ascending the winding staircase, they found her.

A young woman — blonde, hollow-eyed, seated as though her soul had rotted. She looked up.

“You can’t help me,” she whispered. “You’re in over your heads.”

Inside the room, wards pulsed faintly — ancient sigils, woven to cage. Not against Kindred, but against Gangrel. The trap was spiritual. Occult. A prison not of bars, but of bloodlines.

Valmont, ever the cunning one, suggested a desperate gambit: hide her within the Bag of Holding — an arcane relic carried since darker nights.

Scene: Revelation at Elysium

Back within the hallowed halls of Elysium, they coaxed the truth from the girl.

“My name is Pip Dark,” she said.

Jarvis narrowed his gaze. “Not Murran?”

“No,” she said solemnly.

And then she stood, lifted her shirt, and showed them.

Burned into the flesh of her back, scripture, coiled like a brand of ownership. A name not hers — MURRAN. Not a name, they realized, but a Discipline.

She told them of Zane — how he owned her, used her, broke her. She stole money. She fled. And she took what she thought was a diary — but it was no diary. It was arcane scripture, pages soaked in forgotten power.

She read it. And it awakened something.

Scene: Graf's Terror

Graf Orlock entered then. One look at the branding on her back, and he recoiled.

“No,” he breathed. “Not again.”

And he told the tale:

Renwick, the Nosferatu warlock, centuries dead or worse. His obsession: death. Not dying — but the essence, the art, the metaphysics of it.

He had dived into the Koldunic grimoires of the Tzimisce, whispered with Giovanni heretics, and stolen secrets from the Jiang Shi of the Far East.

From that pit of darkness, something rose: a lost Discipline, called Murran — or perhaps, resurrected.

The Antediluvians may have birthed it to enslave their progeny. The Methuselahs tried to erase it. But Renwick unearthed it in 1650 A.D., and from then, a flickering thread of Kindred have sought its power.

Not just Nosferatu cultists, but renegade Giovanni, rogue Tzimisce, and deathbound Jiang Shi.

Those who endure it speak not in words, but in sobs.

“It is the Dark Night,” Graf said, his voice hollow, “and within it, you face what even the Beast fears.”