Chapter One: Thrown into the Mix

Date of Session: Jan 13 2023 (Date in Game: Oct 31 2022)

Beneath the towering obelisk of Coit Tower, hidden behind wards older than the city itself, lies the underground chamber of Prince Giovanni — the true throne of San Francisco. Stone walls breathed cold secrets, and the silence there had weight.

The coterie was summoned.

The Prince, draped in shadow and formality, delivered his decree with cold finality:

“You have thirty nights. Prove that Ventillion is legitimate — that his Embrace was sanctioned, or that his sire was not of this city. Fail, and he will be ash. No exceptions.”

The stone chamber rang with the unspoken truth: The Traditions are not mere suggestions.

The night grew colder as they met Ernie, a Brujah with a spine of rusted steel and fire behind his eyes. Ernie had one obsession: the Vivisect killings — a string of grotesque murders that had haunted San Francisco since Prince Kent’s death in 1998.

A blood hunt had been declared by Prince Giovanni. A rare move.
The killer was said to be Kindred — or something that used to be.
Ernie believed that solving the case would earn more than survival. It would earn prestige. Maybe even protection.

Ernie brought them into the FANG — an Anarch coterie on the fringe of civility.

• Trina Von Dutch: Punk-rock Gangrel with a silver switchblade and no patience for Camarilla hypocrisy.
• Declan O’Houlihan: A Malkavian whose insights came tangled in riddles and whiskey.

Their haven: Pier 22 ½ — salt-stained concrete and broken neon. A place where Kindred went to disappear or plot revolutions.

The coterie crossed into old territory: the dive bar known as Pitt & Kent.
One of the last places in the city not painted Toreador pink.
A relic. A safehouse. A battlefield.

There they met Saint, a Toreador who had abandoned pretense for grit. He nursed a broken piano and bleeding poetry.

But peace didn’t last. The bar was firebombed.

Ventillion, reaching with Auspex, caught the scent in the astral air — Wang Shi, a ghoul of the Jiang Ji, had orchestrated the attack. A clear violation of the uneasy truce between factions.

The coterie traced the aggression to Lin HONG, a Jiang Ji agent operating out of the White Tiger in Chinatown. The ceasefire — broken. Blood would answer blood.

Desperate for leverage, the coterie sought out Guadalupe Garcia — a possible Ventrue, or something close to it. She dealt in information the way others dealt in coin.

In exchange for rumors of truce violations, they asked for help with the Vivisect killings.

She offered platitudes. Misdirection.

And then… nothing.

A dead end in silk gloves.

 Date of Session: Jan 20/2023 Session (Game Date is November 14 2022)

Valmont awoke not with a whisper, but in chaos.

His mind clawed its way out of an aphasic stupor — a mental fog laced with static and whispers from nowhere. Gunfire cracked the silence. Flames licked the sky. Bullets sprayed like hail across the freeway, ricocheting off steel and bone.

A Chinese ambush? No confirmation. Just muzzle flashes, Mandarin curses, and death echoing off asphalt. No time for clarity. Just survival.

Later, the coterie arrived at CORE, nestled within the Transamerica Pyramid, now transformed into a fortress of sound and shadow. The club pulsed with synthetic beats and bloodlust.

There they met the elusive owner: Ishitowa Tekki. Charismatic. Obsessive.
Tekki spoke like a man building his own legend — always trading information, always listening. Flanking him, his chief of security: Jackson — a massive presence, obsidian skin, silence personified. Unmoving. Watching.

Tekki, amused by the coterie's presence, gifted them three metal VIP pass cards, tokens of favor — or bait.

But the real gift was on the wall.

A Rune, ancient and wrong, carved into the club’s steel bones. It pulsed faintly beneath the strobe lights. Something magical? Or older?

Date of Session Feb 5/ 2023 Session (Game Date is November 30 2022)

The coterie returned to Coit Tower, once again descending into the subterranean sanctum of Prince Giovanni. The air down there always smelled faintly of wet stone and old blood.

They brought news: a lead in Los Angeles concerning Valmont's sire — a name from another life, Azul Pantera.

The Prince, cold and calculating as ever, granted them a contact in LA — Fedor Redzovic, a Kindred of some infamy and a man not easily forgotten.

Fedor Redzovic greeted the coterie with open arms and a booming laugh. His chop shop, sprawling and littered with half-gutted cars, pulsed with the sound of metal music and the smell of oil. His demeanor was affable, though edged with menace — the kind of man who would skin you alive and still offer a drink.

Fedor made a call. And then, she arrived. Azul Pantera — stunning, poised, her beauty a blade wrapped in tech-savvy confidence. Her eyes lingered on Valmont, confused and wounded.

“You disappeared,” she said. “For decades.”

Valmont had no memory. None of her. None of 1989, the year she claimed to have sired him — when he had been a notorious wine dealer in LA’s vampire circles.

Then she asked the question that split the night in two:

“Where are the keys to the vault?”

Valmont’s silence was answer enough. Something had been stolen from his mind.

Back in San Francisco, Maxwell Knight received a chilling message from Mayor Franklin Major. His daughter, Sara, had been murdered by the Vivisect Killer. Official channels offered no help. The mayor wanted protection — and answers.

The coterie investigated the scene. Gruesome. Personal. Surgical.

Valmont, reaching with Auspex, pulled a name from the ether: Ed Hall. A sketch was made.

At Club Hell, the coterie debriefed the Prince on the LA trip. Nobility and filth mingled in the same velvet-soaked booths. The players met Toreador Primogen Graham Corey, who appeared amused — his bodyguard Nobu stood silently behind him.

Also unveiled: the Prince's own enforcer, a towering figure shrouded in dread and voodoo aesthetics. His presence was a promise of death.

News came that Ed Hall had been found — burned in a car, body sent to the morgue.

Granted access to the morgue, the coterie was met by Peter, a hospital security officer. He led them to the vault, into the cold.

And into a trap.

Five thugs lay in wait in the crypt. Violence erupted. Bullets. Screams. Blood.

Four assailants fell quickly. But then, Peter turned — drawing his weapon and firing at Maxwell. He missed — the bullet tearing through his own ally instead.

Knight mauled Peter, leaving him half-dead.

Then Valmont saw it — a bomb nestled in the shadows.

The coterie dragged Peter’s twitching body out just in time. The explosion shattered every window on the first floor. A warning, or a silencing?

Valmont, once again, reached into the ether — saw a vision of Peter and Ed Hall, an exchange, and a license plate. Azul was called. She agreed to run the numbers.

Ban, ever pragmatic, fed Peter one point of blood to stabilize him, then delivered him to Lazo Gajic’s residence for safekeeping.

Azul traced the plate back to Ed Hall’s address — a decaying apartment in the Tenderloin. The building stank of filth and hidden violence. The apartment itself was a trap: a gas line rigged to ignite the moment the light was switched on.

But the true surprise was a man already waiting inside. Floyd Jarvis — mid-50s, weathered, with a Southern drawl that masked something sharp underneath. A former hunter? Or something more? Jarvis said what none expected: “Ed Hall ain’t the Vivisect Killer. The man you’re lookin’ for... is Harland Park.”

A new name. A new terror.

Jarvis promised more answers.

He would meet them the following night at Jefferson Square.

If he lives that long.

Date of Session Feb 17/ 2023 Session (Game Date is December 7 2022)

In the fog-shrouded silence of Jefferson Square, the coterie reconvened with Floyd Jarvis, the Southern-blooded informant who might finally have a thread that would pull the Vivisect Killer into the light. The whispers were growing louder. The bodies piling higher.

Maxwell Knight cracked the encrypted phone of Sara Major, daughter of Mayor Franklin Major, whose murder had become the spark to this inferno. Her last known activity: a meeting with Harland Park at a café called Lucky, downtown.

Park never showed.But the café’s clerk, persuaded by Maxwell’s unnatural Awe, surrendered the surveillance footage. The video told a different story.

Ed Hall was there. Watching. Following. Hunting. Sara never had a chance.

Valmont Ventillion, still wrestling with fragments of forgotten lives, asked Azul Pantera to query the national law enforcement database using stolen police access. The results were terrifying: 600 confirmed murders matching the Vivisect Killer’s M.O.400 of them in San Francisco. The scope of the horror dwarfed any theory the coterie had formed. Even Jarvis, a man not easily shaken, went quiet.

Jarvis arranged an audience with Peter Takin, Primogen and Director of the Masquerade. The meeting took place again beneath Coit Tower, where the air hangs heavy with silence and the Prince’s bodyguard, Ghul, lingers like a shadow forged in bone and malice.

Takin, awkward and stuttering but sharply intelligent, listened as the coterie laid out their lead: Harland Park was hiding somewhere in Chinatown.

Permission was granted — a rare and dangerous thing — to operate clandestinely in that tightly held domain.

Jarvis returned to the café and confirmed Ed Hall lived just across the street, outside his known Tenderloin safehouse.

They found him in Apartment 201.

The interrogation escalated into torture — Hall remained mostly silent, staring blankly with eyes hollowed by something darker than mere fear. His apartment was a museum of madness — newspaper clippings, photos, threads of red string across maps.

Obsessed. Controlled.

Ventillion uncovered a hidden chest beneath the floor, filled with:

• Fine black soil, soaked with the feel of the grave
• A vial of red powder
• A bag of human teeth
• A faded brochure for the Sutro Baths

From the soil, something began to emerge — a black, withered hand… ancient and not quite dead.

The coterie fled with Hall before the thing beneath the floor fully awoke.

Ban Stradh led them to a Tremere safehouse near Fort Point, its wards old, strong, and twitching with arcane energy. There, as the group interrogated Hall further, the wards flared red — Ventillion was psychically assaulted.

He changed.

Something inside him shattered, revealing a version of Valmont from another time — arrogant, powerful, confident. A mind not bound by the present. A Kindred reborn as he was in 1989, back when he was feared.

This Valmont tore into Hall’s mind.

And saw: Harland Park controls Ed Hall, reaching him psychically from the Sutro Baths — a ruined temple of forgotten decadence on the edge of the sea. The Kindred’s network buzzed. Lazo Gajic, Stradh’s sire, ordered immediate action. Park must not escape.

But the coterie argued.

Plans. Doubts. Paranoia. Time bled away in the car while the storm gathered.

Eventually, they arrived at the Sutro Baths.

There was no welcome. Gajic had already been there. Four of his men lay dead, bullet shells scattered like cursed runes across the floor.
Blood soaked the ruin.

Inside the structure, they climbed to the second floor, where a Revenant — bloated with flesh, gore-streaked and twitching with unnatural vitality — devoured one of the fallen.

Gajic’s cloak lay shredded on the floor.

The Revenant turned, lips peeled back into something like a grin.

Steel tensed. Blood called. The final confrontation had begun.

Park was near. Maybe watching. Maybe feeding. Maybe becoming.

The Vivisect Killer was never just one man.

And death awaits.

But for whom?

Date of Session March 10/ 2023 Session (Game Date is December 10 2022)

The wind howled off the Pacific, cold and corrosive, as the coterie ascended the rotted stairs into the shattered remains of the Sutro Baths. Water pooled on the floors. The scent of mildew and old blood clung to everything like a shroud.

On the second floor, lit only by flashlight halos and the occasional flicker of dying bulbs, they found it:

A Revenant — hunched, devouring what had once been Kindred.

A tattered cloak lay nearby, soaked in crimson. Lazo Gajic’s.

Without hesitation, Maxwell Knight fired—two rounds, head and heart. The creature hissed but endured. Ban Stradhwas already in motion, his blade cutting into the abomination with monstrous strength. Valmont Ventillion fired too—but his weapons, perhaps sensing their owner's panic or poetic flair, jammed uselessly.

Ban did not falter. With a clean, decisive strike, he took the creature's head. Whatever it had once been—human, Kindred, or something worse—it now lay still. The body beneath it, unidentifiable. A warning soaked in gore.

The hallway led to a rust-slicked metal door. Ban kicked it in.

The claymore mine wired behind it screamed.

A storm of shrapnel ripped through the corridor. Blood sprayed. Alarms flared inside undead minds. Agony—rare and biting—seared their nerves.

Then, the gas.

A faint hiss, almost inaudible over the ringing ears.

But Maxwell, ever the soldier, recognized the scent. Nerve agent. He rallied the group, ushered them to seal mouths, eyes, lungs. Somehow, they endured.

Ban, low on vitae, turned back to the entrance to feed. But when he arrived—

The bodies were gone.

No blood. No trace. Just drag marks. Something had cleaned up.

They regrouped and discovered a spiraling metal stairwell descending into the black beneath the cliffs. Four stories down, the rust groaned like a beast in its sleep.

At the base: a tripwire, then a collapsing floor—a trap meant for mortals.

They narrowly crossed the flooded hall. Maxwell slipped, vanishing into the water below. His grenades lost to the brine. When they looked around—Floyd Jarvis was gone. Maxwell narrowed his eyes. 

“He’s either running... or watching.”

The next passage was submerged. They dove beneath the earth, water bitter and cold. In the dark, something struck Ban, tearing into his leg with jagged teeth. He screamed.

Maxwell, ignoring the blood in the water, lifted both Ban and Valmont from the depths. Teeth scraped metal. Something brushed his boot.

They made it to the other side.

A cavern awaited them. Wide. Hollow. Wet with history and hate.

In the corner: a single table and chair, eerie in their domestic stillness.

Valmont approached, touching the feeding tube embedded in the wood. His psychometry flared, drawing him into the past:

Ed Hall, silent and sunken-eyed, seated at the table, draining blood into the tube. It flowed into the ground. A ritual. A sacrifice.

A low rumble shook the cavern. Gunshots above. Explosions.

The coterie turned— And Floyd Jarvis stepped through the door.

“Apologies,” he said, oddly calm. “There are illusions here. I took another route.”

In his hands: Maxwell’s lost grenades.“I used these. You’re welcome.”

Then: “We should dig.”

They smashed the table. Tore up stone and soil.

Valmont and Floyd broke off to explore adjacent tunnels. In the flickering torchlight, Valmont saw Floyd pocket something — a glint of metal or bone, quickly hidden. No questions were asked. Yet.

Back in the chamber, Maxwell and Ban unearthed the body.

It was Harland Park.

The Vivisect Killer.

Still. But not dead. In torpor.

Footsteps echoed through the tunnels. Then shapes.

Lazo Gajic, blood-smeared but breathing, entered with what remained of his retinue. Behind him: Gunnar Torsten, the primal Gangrel Primogen, and Vicar Kraus, the Ravnos illusionist.

All gazed at the torpid killer, their faces masks of grim victory.

“You’ve done the impossible,” Lazo said. “This city... has long memories. You’ve earned your place in them.”

Days later, the coterie was summoned to the Primogen Council.

The chamber was carved in old stone. Candles burned where lightbulbs had long since gone dead. The city's elders sat in a semicircle, the weight of centuries in their eyes.

Maxwell. Ban. Valmont. And Jarvis.

All four stood before them, blood-streaked and victorious.

Respect was given. Territory promised. Lines redrawn.

For the first time in years, the coterie stood in the center of the web.

Later, in a quiet corner of the Elysium, Valmont and Floyd Jarvis shared a final conversation. They talked of wars not written in history, of cities drowned in blood and neon, of Kindred politics, and the deeper things that sleep beneath even the Masquerade. Floyd is strange. Unsettling. But he knows things.

And now he owes them.

For the first time, Valmont is unsure if that’s comforting… or terrifying.

Date of Session March 10/ 2023 Session:

The Vivisect Killer case may be closed… but its shadow still lingers.

In the aftermath of Harland Park’s capture and torpid confinement, Primogen Lazo Gajic and Peter Takin began their investigation—working in the depths of the Chantry, combing the fractured remnants of the killer's hidden lair and the increasingly unhinged mind of Ed Hall.

Only because of the coterie’s relentless pursuit—and the near-suicidal dive into Sutro’s cavernous maw—was the truth laid bare.

Harland Park, once a brilliant and ambitious medical student, descended into madness upon his Embrace into Clan Malkavian. His compulsions were not rooted in rage, nor vengeance, but in the dispassionate cruelty of a surgeon who seeks divinity through anatomy. He believed suffering to be the purest form of revelation.

Though he entered torpor nearly five years ago, Park's Malkavian blood—sick and potent—allowed him to extend his will beyond sleep. Using his domination, even in his unconscious state, he puppeteered the feeble-minded Ed Hall like a marionette.

"Through Hall’s eyes, Park watched the world. Through Hall’s hands, he killed. And through the blood fed to him drop by drop, Park dreamt of returning."

What the coterie believed they saw within the Sutro Baths—the Revenant, the desecrated corpses of Lazo’s men, the chaotic firefight—was not entirely real.

It was a vision, a Chimerical reality, so intricate and invasive that it hijacked their senses. The Tremere confirmed: Chimerstry, or something akin to it, had been used.

But Harland Park was 10th generation—he should not have had access to such deep illusion-crafting.

Questions remain:

• Was Park merely channeling the madness of another?
• Did someone augment his powers?
• Or was there something ancient buried beneath Sutro, something that fed on thought and fear?

The answer has yet to surface.

When the Tremere warlocks returned to Ed Hall’s apartment, the sandbox—the patch of fine black earth where something once stirred—was gone. So too were the teeth, the vial of red powder, and the hidden artifacts.

Whatever was in the dirt, whether ghoul, homunculus, or bastard revenant, it had awakened—and vanished.

The War Tribe, elite Gangrel rangers, inspected the Sutro site and confirmed the aquatic creature was not a Lupine. Rather, it bore the marks of experimental bloodcraft, a thing possibly twisted by Park, or something else that hides beneath the city.

The Tremere speak in hushed tones of a Great Purge that once cleansed San Francisco of werewolves—but they are less confident now. Old monsters rarely stay dead.

Prince Ambrogino has ordered a quiet inquisition into the possibility of forbidden disciplines being practiced within the city. If Park was aided—who was the benefactor? Was it one of the Primogen? Or something older?

Peter Takin—ever the eccentric protector of the Masquerade—is deeply unsettled.

The city grows paranoid, the air thick with distrust. And still, beneath it all, the Vivisect murders may have been but a smokescreen.

Floyd Jarvis, ever cryptic, speaks to Valmont and the coterie in private:

“You think the killings were the storm. They weren’t. They were the thunder. The flash meant to draw your gaze... while something else moved in the dark.”

But when pressed, he offers no further details.

“You’ll know it when it knows you.”

And with that, he’s gone. Or watching. Or both.

Word spreads throughout the city.

In 90 nights, a grand Kindred gathering is to be held at CORE, the prestigious Toreador nightclub that now occupies the Transamerica Pyramid.

The event will serve as:

• A celebration of the resolution of the Vivisect killings.
• A mask of stability for the Camarilla.
• A political battlefield for old grudges, new ambitions, and secret pacts.

Attendees will include:

• Azul Pantera, Valmont’s elusive and brilliant sire, returning from L.A.
• Fedor Redzovic, the Russian underworld Kindred, a wildcard and known associate of Azul.
• Numerous Primogen, Anarch influencers, and possibly even foreign delegations.

It will be a night of fashion, flirtation, treachery—and possibly betrayal.

Date of session March 17/ 2023 Session:(Game Date is April 15 2023)

CORE UltraClub.
The tower gleamed, and the music throbbed like a heartbeat of the damned. For one night, San Francisco’s Kindred gathered not to plot or scheme—but to celebrate.

The Vivisect Killer was no more.

In attendance: nearly the entire Primogen Council, including Prince Ambrogino Giovanni himself—resplendent and unreadable. The club teemed with power:

• Didi Giovanni sipped absinthe in silk gloves.
• Peter Takin lurked like a neurotic crow in conversation.
• Elise Sutton, the Silver Rose of the Toreador, watched everyone through cold blue eyes.
• Gunner Torsten and Felicia Nocturne held quiet dominion over their corners of the room.
• Floyd Jarvis, dressed in black, sipped tequila, heavy with secrets.

Tekki, in his usual hyper-manic energy, greeted the coterie warmly, offering them a cordoned-off VIP balcony, complete with chilled blood-wine and shadows thick enough to breathe.

While moving through the crowd, Valmont saw something that struck deep—a man wearing a vintage VV WINES shirt, an artifact from his forgotten life. That fragment of the past blurred into the present.

Then, something colder:

A Nosferatu, cloaked in Obfuscate, breached the party unnoticed. When revealed, he was brought before the Prince.

“He used the metal card,” Tekki whispered. “No one uninvited can do that.”

Prince Giovanni, always a calculated sovereign, allowed the Nosferatu to stay.

But Graham Corey—ever Toreador, ever paranoid—was displeased.

Tensions stirred beneath the glitter.

Later, Valmont overheard something bone-chilling:
A massive Kindred, built like a god of war and dressed in understated authority, muttered the words: "Camarilla. Vienna. Audit."

This stranger—unnamed, unreadable, undeniably powerful—spoke with the Prince briefly. Their interaction was low, direct, and closed.

Even Floyd Jarvis took note.

Ban was drawn into a circle of Tremere, meeting:

• Susana Jansen (revealed to be a childe of Lazo Gajic)
• Luca Pal (elegant, venomous)
• Eugene Bowchiew (stoic, silent)

The conversation turned arcane. Ban learned that Susana carries her sire’s fierce loyalty—but also his hunger for secrets.

Above them all, the Sky Lounge opened. The band: Ministry, their rhythms reverberating through Kindred bones.

Trina Von Dutch, the Anarch rebel of the Fang, caught Max's eye. Their conversation was cautious—but not unfriendly.

And then—Floyd let something slip. Too many drinks. Too much history.

“They remember me wrong,” he said. “But yes… Pat Garrett was me. And Billy wasn’t the villain.”

The crowd may not have heard. But Fabian Bullard, Ventrue mobster and eternal rival, did. He approached. The air grew cold. Their exchange was brief, venomous, and laced with long-forgotten debts.

As the music shifted, Ling HONG arrived. Not alone. Nine gang members in traditional and modern Chinese garb formed a wall of menace.

“You killed my ghoul,” she accused.

Valmont, in his older, sharper personality, suddenly understood her words—in Mandarin.

Nobu, always at the edge of the narrative, stepped forward.

“They didn’t,” he said. “But you came to a place protected by the Camarilla. Back down.”

The Prince arrived—flanked by Gunner and Ghul.
His presence was absolute.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t threaten.

He commanded.

Ling HONG relented, but not without warning:

“This isn’t over.”

Valmont used his Auspex to read her mind. She truly believes the coterie acted unprovoked.

But someone has clearly manipulated her perception—or memory.

Big Trouble in Little China? Perhaps. Or just the first tremor of an even deeper conflict.

The Prince has summoned the coterie to give a full accounting of what happened at Pitt & Kent—down to every bullet and breath.

The Masquerade is on shaky ground.
The Truce is strained.
The Chinese underworld is restless.
And the audit from Vienna could change everything.

Date of session March 24/ 2023 Session:(Game Date is May 3 2023)

The coterie’s brief respite following their victory at the Satro Baths was shattered by a message from Saint.

“I got a message from Azul. Binary. Urgent. She and Fedor have been abducted.”

The location:1001 Majestic Ave, northern San Francisco—an abandoned hillside mansion.

Maxwell began decoding the binary text Azul had hidden in the message. The encryption was complex—Azul was scared, but careful.

At 10 PM, the coterie—joined by Floyd Jarvis (Pat Garrett)—met Prince Ambrogino Giovanni at Salesforce Tower, the Camarilla’s inner sanctum.

They delivered the news: Azul Pantera and Fedor Redzovic—respected Kindred and close to the Prince—had been taken.

The Prince didn’t hesitate.

“Didi, call the War Tribe.”

The elite enforcers of Kindred law and vengeance were activated.

The hunting party:

• Felicia Nocturne (Lasombra, tactician, deadly)
• Gunner Torsten (Gangrel Primogen, raw ferocity)
• Vicar Kraus (Ravnos Primogen, illusions and trickery)
• Ban Stradh, Maxwell Knight, Valmont Ventillion
• Floyd Jarvis, still half-shadow, half-sheriff

The Prince gave a singular command:

“No mercy. One survivor.”

Through the dark and wooded hill behind the house, they moved like ghosts.
14 armed kine and 3 Kindred were entrenched.

A brutal firefight erupted.

• Vicar threw himself in front of Ban to absorb a grenade blast.
• Maxwell engaged in a ferocious duel with an Asian Kindred wielding a blade and Celerity. Max was nearly finished—until Felicia stepped in. She beat the Kindred into unconsciousness and diablerized him on the spot.
• Valmont and Ban flanked from the eastern entry and dispatched several kine before encountering a powerhouse Kindred named JINX, who hurled Valmont up a flight of stairs with casual violence.

A coordinated counterattack by the coterie brought JINX down.

Valmont reached into his Auspex… and touched the truth.

The necklace JINX wore pulsed with memory. It had once belonged to BOBO, a founding member of the long-dead Anarch gang “The Nightcrawlers”—a group that supposedly died in the 1997 Purge.

Flashes of symbolism:

• The Torch, leader of the Nightcrawlers
• The White Tiger, once again...

Why was Jinx wearing a relic that should have been ash decades ago?

The house was engulfed in fire. 1001 Majestic burned.

But Azul and Fedor? Rescued and unharmed.
This was deliberate. Too clean. Too precise.
A warning? A test?

Date of Session March 31/ 2023 Session: (Game Date is May 25 2023)

The storm has passed—but the aftershocks continue.

Following the violent raid at 1001 Majestic and the rescue of Azul Pantera and Fedor Redzovic, the coterie regroups in quieter surroundings:
The Pagon, a speakeasy-style bar from the 1920s hidden in plain sight.

Azul and Fedor thank the group again. Fedor, true to his word, promises to send three armored sedans from Los Angeles as a gift—a subtle but meaningful gesture of trust.

But the questions remain:

• Why were they abducted?
• Who wanted them out of the picture?
• And why was JINX carrying BOBO’s necklace—a relic tied to a gang that was supposedly exterminated decades ago?

“This wasn’t random,” Azul warns. “Someone wanted us watched—or removed.”

Later, Valmont visits The Devil’s Acre, a moody wine bar that hums with the echo of the past.

There, he meets Vic Kelly, a human wine connoisseur and accidental historian. They talk of old vintages, and Vic recalls the legendary VV Wines—once the toast of the elite during the 1980s and 90s.

He casually mentions that Marion Elliot, Valmont’s former business partner, kept the label alive for a few years after Valmont’s “disappearance.” The brand disappeared in 2001, the same year the Vivisect killings peaked.

Valmont quietly ponders: Was VV Wines just a front? Or did it die with part of him?

Elsewhere, Maxwell Knight visits Ernie at The Fang’s HQ at Pier 22½. The two Anarchs exchange memories and musings about revolution, decay, and what remains of the old fire.

Meanwhile, the coterie strikes a deal with Nobu, the information broker. In exchange for the rare and dangerous Powder of Rigidity, Nobu provides intel on one of San Francisco’s strangest enigmas:

Father Darwin Trout – a Malkavian who never leaves his haven at Mystique Mansion on Lombard Street.
Trout is known throughout the city for his terrifying Demontation discipline. They say he can pull out forgotten truths like weeds—and leave the mind hollow in the process.

Nobu: “You want your memories back, Valmont? Just be careful what else you bring up.”

To prepare for this mind-rending encounter, the PCs visit Mavis Murray, a powerful voodoo practitioner at The Scotch Bonnet, a secretive spot in South San Francisco.

There, during a rite of blood and bone, Valmont’s spiritual tether is revealed—a presence long whispering behind his eyes.

Dean Hawkes—a Giovanni of old, and once Governor of San Francisco under Prince Kent.

But he’s dead. Gone. Forgotten.

Or is he?

Meeting later at the Sling & Saloon, Pat Garrett (Floyd Jarvis) connects the final dot.

“Hawkes? I knew him. 25 years ago. Ruthless. Brilliant. And dead as dust—or so we thought.”

The danger becomes clear. If the wrong Kindred discover that Hawkes is communicating with the group—especially through Valmont—it could unravel the delicate political structure of the city.

The Giovanni clan has always been secretive. Hawkes was part of something deeper, darker. His return—if it is a return—could break the masquerade in more ways than one.

With memories haunting them, enemies watching, and ancient names resurfacing, the coterie prepares to face the being who might open Valmont’s mind—and possibly shatter it.

They climb the foggy hills to Mystique Mansion, its gates closed, its aura heavy.

Inside waits Father Darwin Trout. A Malkavian of unknowable age. A master of memory, madness, and meaning. They step through the doors...

...until next session.

Date of Session April 14/ 2023 Session: (Game Date is May 30 2023)

The PCs are formally welcomed into the dim, musky halls of Mystique Mansion, a rare Elysium on Lombard Street, where all Kindred tread lightly — for here reigns Father Darwin Trout, a Malkavian feared and respected across San Francisco.

Though small and frail in appearance, Trout wields the terrible gift of Demontation — the power to peer into minds and extract secrets at a steep price: a permanent loss of one Willpower point per session.

The mansion itself is an ancient fortress of faded opulence, with richly adorned rooms and ironclad security.

Valmont is the first to undergo the “Clarity” session. Through the ritual, he reveals a haunting past:

• Embraced in early-mid 1990s Los Angeles, Valmont flourished and amassed a fortune of over $100 million in gold.
• In 2015, he was captured and tortured by six unknown assailants who forced him to betray his vault’s location.
• Left for dead, he fell into torpor for five years, awakening only to slaughter five innocent investigators—an event that fractured his psyche.
• Since 2020, he has wandered San Francisco in search of himself, haunted by nightmares and protected by a mental “Valmont 2”—a hedonistic split personality guarding his true self.
• Throughout his time here, he has been shadowed by the spirit of Dean Hawkes, the long-dead Giovanni governor of the city.

Father Trout reveals that Hawkes knows the identity of Valmont’s tormentor and fortune thief. Only by reclaiming his wealth and exacting revenge can Valmont hope to heal.

Ban submits next to the clarity. He learns:

• His sire, Lazo, has gone to great lengths to assure the Tremere elders of Ban’s loyalty.
• Yet there are powerful forces uneasy about Ban’s rapid growth and potential to break free from control.
• Hidden in the Primogen Elysium lies a dangerous tome — The Book of the Damned — authored by Elliot Spencer, containing potent magic and secrets from the last night of the Purge.

Max’s session unravels his sirehood mystery:

• His supposed sire, Felica Nocturne, cannot actually sire—her blood is too weak.
• His true sire is Brijah Austin Steele, a secret unknown to even the Prince.
• Max is bound by a Dark Fate, only breakable by acquiring three legendary artifacts:
  
  • The bones of Vanguard (a former Nosferatu),
  • The blood of a Methuselah,
  • The ash of the Jade Dragon, rumored buried deep in Chinatown.

Pat Garrett undergoes clarity and learns the shocking truth:

• Billy the Kid (Henry McCarty), a kindred embraced in 1906, still lives—hidden in Arrowhead Junction (Route 95 & 66).
• A living legend lurking at the edges of history and myth.

As the PCs leave, the mansion echoes with violence:

• Father Trout is shot in the back with a dragonsfire shotgun shell, falling instantly into torpor.
• The PCs quickly secure the mansion, carrying Trout deep into its heart.
• Ban discovers a Tremere tome: Lure of the Flame by Rohan Thack, and pockets it.
• In the cellar, behind a boiling plate, they find a withered Kindred in torpor.
• Following a hidden stairwell forty feet down, the group discovers an ancient, sunken chamber filled with pre-1906 earthquake imagery and an abandoned cable car tunnel.
• The PCs flee through the tunnel and emerge near Russian Hill, narrowly escaping unknown assailants.

Back at Ban’s Golden Gate Bridge haven, the group feeds Father Trout blood, reviving him enough to utter one chilling word:

“Sting.”

Suddenly, the other torpid Kindred vanish from their minds, disappearing into the night.

Recognizing the danger, the group decides Trout is safer in Pat’s secluded gas station hideout in South San Francisco.

• Fedor delivers promised cars from LA as thanks for the rescue.
• Ban speaks with Lazo, who reveals that Sting was a deadly betrayer of the former Prince and a near-unstoppable killer during the Purge.
• The PCs are now entrusted as caretakers of Mystique Mansion, managing its power in Trout’s absence.
• Valmont is visited by Hawkes again, who names the villain behind his fall: Fabian Bullard, Venture Mob boss and old enemy.
• Graf Orlock visits the mansion with dire news: a Sabbat sect led by Gambetta orchestrated the attack on Trout. He reveals their symbol, confirming the sect’s creeping influence.

The PCs prepare for the next session, dated June 1, 2023, with heavy questions on their minds:

• Who truly is Sting, and what is his next move?
• What will Fabian Bullard’s capture or downfall mean for Valmont?
• How deep does the Sabbat’s infiltration run?
• What secrets lie buried beneath the city’s surface—and in the shadows of the past?

Date of Session MAY 7 2023 Session:(Game Date is June 6 2023)

The grand meeting room sits cloaked in near-darkness, the only illumination the flicker of candlelight and the dull gleam of antique sconces. The air is heavy with the scent of old leather, polished wood, and a faint trace of spilt blood. Outside, the city pulses with mortal ignorance, unaware that in the heart of the night, kindred lords and power players conspire in whispered urgency.

Prince Ambrogino’s voice cuts through the heavy silence, grave and deliberate:

“This city has endured much—rebellions, blood feuds, the Purge—but tonight, the scales tip towards chaos once more. Archon Orion’s presence is no herald of peace. He bears the weight of the Justicar’s gaze, and with it, the judgment of those who would see our kind purged from these streets.”

Eyes around the table shift uneasily, each weighing their own past sins and the fragile order they’ve so carefully maintained.

]

Graf Orlock, usually a silent shadow in the corners, now leans forward, his voice rough but resonant like distant thunder:

“The Justicar’s agents are legion — each with their own cruel purpose. The Alastor stalk those marked for death, the Praetors enforce unyielding law, and the Dogcatchers — they seek our lupine enemies with relentless fury. We are fools if we think we face but one enemy.”

There is a chill as he names Sullivan Dane, a mortal human yet hunted with a vampire’s fury:

“Sullivan Dane — the only mortal on the Red List. His name alone is whispered like a curse.”

The Prince’s phone rings sharply, slicing the moment like a knife. The message is grim, a token of the Sabbat’s renewed aggression:

“Guadalupe Garcia, Venture and loyal to the Camarilla, has been found cold in Chinatown. The message is clear — the Sabbat’s shadow lengthens.”

The gathered kindred rise, the weight of impending conflict settling like dust over their shoulders. As they prepare to disperse, a figure materializes from the darkened hallway — Ms. Ling, a ghost from the city’s underbelly, her presence both threat and promise.

“Information is a currency more deadly than any blade,” she murmurs, voice smooth like silk hiding steel.

“I hold the key to Fabian Bullard’s secrets. But know this — to hear, you must bind your tongues. The Ritual of Silence will seal your lips, and any betrayal will be met with consequences far worse than death.”

Word arrives of an attempt on the mortal mayor’s life — an act meant to unravel the city’s delicate web of power. The would-be assassin, Mike Ermentrout, is in the grip of Max’s security detail, broken but breathing.

Valmont slips away into the shadows, seeking the restless spirit Dean Hawkes. Their whispered conversation turns to impossible things — body swaps, stolen lives, and the promise of resurrection. The line between life and death blurs, and with it, Valmont’s fate twists tighter into the city’s dark design.

The dance of power continues, played in whispers and blood. Old ghosts awaken, new threats rise, and the ancient city holds its breath.

Who will fall? Who will rise? And who will survive the judgment of the Justicar?

MAY 7 2023 Session:

Letter to Max

If you seek the true power behind the Sabbat’s shadow, look no further than the USS Jeremiah O'Brien. What stirs there is not merely Sabbat, but the Black Hand itself — a force far older and darker than these city elders realize. Their ignorance is your danger.

You will need guidance. Mavis Murray, the voodoo shaman of the city, holds knowledge hidden even from most kindred. Approach her cautiously — the kindred politics here are a tangle of secrets and loyalties.

Why would she aid you? Speak the name “Constantine.” It may open doors or seal your fate.

Plan wisely. One misstep, and this city will drown in catastrophe.

— A Friend

Date of Session MAY 21 2023 Session: (Game Date is June 9 2023)

Scene: Aftermath at the Scotch Bonnet, South San Francisco — Midnight

The acrid scent of smoke and blood lingers in the air as the last embers of the Gargoyle’s fiery assault die down. The rain begins to fall—cold and relentless—washing over the cracked sidewalks, mingling with the spilled vitae and seeping into the shadows.

Max’s hand throbs with searing pain where two fingers once were, his pale skin slick with blood. Ban’s body smokes where the fire clung to him, his breath ragged, the heavy weight of his wounds pulling him close to the edge of oblivion.

Mavis Murray stands solemn and unyielding amidst the chaos, her serpent eyes glowing faintly beneath the hood of her cloak. The darkness she wove still coils in the air like a living thing—an ancient magic born from forgotten wars.

“This was no random attack,” she says quietly, voice like distant thunder. “The Sabbat grows bold… the Black Hand moves in the shadows. They strike where the Masquerade is weakest. We have little time before this city burns.”

Choices for the PCs:

• Heal or flee? Will the group tend to their wounds and risk another assault in the open, or retreat into the safety of hidden havens?
• Hunt or hide? Will they pursue clues about who sent the Gargoyle and ghouls — the Sabbat command on the USS O’Brien — or lay low and gather allies?
• Trust Mavis? She is powerful but mysterious; can they accept her help without losing control or being manipulated?

Possible Threads to Pull:

• Valeria from Egypt — what is her role aboard the Sabbat ship? Is she a liaison, assassin, or something darker?
• The silver cache at Jian Carlo’s — can the PCs raise the 200 lbs and arm themselves for the coming war?
• Remus and his grudge against Bullard — could this alliance shift Oakland’s power balance?
• The ritual of silence — what secrets bind the PCs now, and what consequences might breaking that vow carry?