By Ari Marmell and C.A. Suleiman Vampire® created by Mark Rein•Hagen Credits Authors: Ari Marmell and C.A. Suleiman Vampire and the World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•Hagen Developers: Justin Achilli and Mike Lee Editor: Scribendi Editorial Services Art Director: Pauline Benney Book Design: Pauline Benney Interior Art: Matt Dixon, Udon, Shane Coppage. Michael Phillippi, Travis Ingram, Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, Avery Butterworth, Cyril Van Der Haegen, Mark Nelson Front Cover Art: R.K. Post © 2005 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Re- production without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for per- sonal use only. White Wolf, Vampire and World of Darkness are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. 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Table of Contents Prelude & Introduction 4 Chapter One: A Look Back at the Big Easy 12 Chapter Two: Points of Entry 24 Chapter Three: Games of the Elders 44 Chapter Four: Wheels Within Wheels 72 Chapter Five: Working the Street 94 Chapter Six: Storytelling 116 Appendix: The Dead Travel Fast 132 The Coming Storm Not too distant is your memory of a simpler, happier time. Not too long ago, you were enjoying New Orleans as it was meant to be enjoyed: by the living. The dead, you’ve found, know little of true joy. They know decadence, to be sure, and debauch- ery in spades. Yes, they certainly know excess to excess… but not joy. Never joy. But as happy (and as painful, now) as that time may have been, it has passed. Into the realm of memory it fled, and even memory—as the Damned know very well—is no safe haven for joys past. For the mind of one caught up in the Danse Macabre is as porous as a skeleton’s skull, as befuddling as the steps of the dance, itself. Of all the things you miss the most, the ability to retain the simple joy of life is the one most grieved… and the one the Beast seems to despise. “It’s for the best,” others have cautioned in your time among the Damned. The con- stant, enervating struggle against that which must be is no way to spend eternity, they say. Best to just let the Beast within have its pick of the most select, most choice cuts of memory, they say. It’s madness to resist, they say. If that’s true, then it’s the path of madness you have chosen (at least for now), as one of the only things of which you are certain in this existence is that your memo- ries, however fleeting or painful they may be, are all you have left of you. And no struggle, no matter how draining or unending it may be, is too much struggle when the price of loss is so high; when the price of loss is yet more loss. Let the Beast come for its meal, if it must. But let it also fight for its reward. Still, as much as you defend your ongoing struggle for retention, you can’t deny that memory is the root cause for the situation in which you currently find your- self. Yes, “precious” memory is undoubtedly to blame; the only question now is whether time will reveal its emergence as blessing or curse. When you saw him, he was standing just inside the doorway of the Sasparilla Club, in almost exactly the same position as when you last saw him, so many years ago. Back hunched forward slightly, sneakered feet pressed together, shaky hands tucked into the pockets of the jacket he never seemed to remove. That jacket… it was the single disparate detail of the image. Were it not for the fact that this man wore a black and gold sweatshirt (where Henry’s jacket had been an old-fashioned wind- breaker), the casual viewer might well believe the two men to be one and the same. The sight of him snapped you from your jazz-induced reverie. The sounds of the club around you faded as though dialed down on a stereo, and memory rushed un- bidden onto the screens behind your eyes. The image before you wavered as your inconstant mind, now agog with pur- and second, they’d get the Prince to dis- pose, superimposed Henry’s distinc- pose of Mason for them. All in all, it wasn’t tive face over the features of the a bad plan. anxious black kid shuffling ner- Too bad Mason was onto them. vously by the door. Scared as he was, not to mention en- You knew Henry was gone, of tirely alone, Mason figured his only course, and had been for years. But move left was to beat his treacherous you’d been thinking about him an aw- packmates to the punch. So he set up a ful lot, lately, and that briefest of meeting between himself and Donovan, flashes—where living memory once the local Sheriff and, in recent nights, again intruded on your foggy Re- the long iron arm of Vidal, himself. Ma- quiem—was enough to set some rusty, son was given a place and time where he deep-seated cog in motion. would meet with one of the Sheriff’s And so you rose. agents, who would then bring Mason ‡‡‡ safely to Donovan himself at a second, He said his name was Mason, and he as yet undisclosed location. Once with claimed to be a member of the Dirty the Sheriff, Mason would turn his erst- Throws Krewe. You were confident while allies in and throw himself upon you’d heard both names somewhere be- Vidal’s mercy. Another solid plan. fore, but you’d been hard-pressed to Too bad the rest of the Dirty Throws dredge up anything more about his co- were onto him. terie than the fact that the Dirty When you first saw him, Mason was Throws, like every other legitimate trying desperately to figure out how Kindred krewe in the Big Easy, was he was going to get to the meeting composed entirely of neonates—most place in one piece tonight. If the Dirty of whom tried very, very hard to stay Throws caught up to him before he below Prince Vidal’s increasingly un- could turn himself in, they would forgiving radar. never let him survive. To Mason’s way The kid’s story, and a remarkable one of thinking, it was either them or him. it was, went something like this: And that was no choice at all. The Everyone in town knew about the re- problem was, there was only one of cent rash of poachings. (That’s a term el- him… and they could be anywhere. ders around here use to amuse them- And that’s where you came in. selves; it means somebody’s been feeding ‡‡‡ in another vampire’s territory.) Well, Ma- Once Mason realized he wasn’t son claimed that he knew who was guilty alone at the Sasparilla—well, not of these indiscretions, or at least the most the only undead one in the establish- recent spate of them. And the reason he ment, at any rate—he nearly broke knew was because the culprits had been down under the potent combination his own coterie, the Dirty Throws. of hysteria and relief. You simply Due to various personal problems Ma- had to help him. Surely, you saw that son had with his packmates, however, the there was no other way. Couldn’t you rest of the krewe decided their only way see that he was desperate here? out was to make a scapegoat of Mason. Something in the way the frantic They intended to “turn him in” to Prince neonate spoke disposed you to help- Vidal, in the hopes that their efforts ing him out, and it wasn’t just the would reward them two-fold: First, in the kid’s uncanny resemblance to form of choice feeding grounds (a gift of Henry. Sure, that may have been thanks from a grateful authority figure), part of it. Hell, you’ll even admit that consciously. Why wouldn’t you? But Despite his paranoia, Mason led just as much, part of it undoubtedly had with surprising alacrity, his to do with the fact that you were but a loose-laced Nikes scuffing first neonate, yourself. And being a part of the sidewalk and then the foggy anything that would shine favor down grass as you both climbed into upon Mason would invariably shine Louis Armstrong Park at its similar favor down upon those who northern tip. At this hour, one nor- helped him out. Who knows, maybe you’d mally expects the park to be dead even end up with some choice feeding quiet, with little activity to speak grounds of your own out of the bar- of.