I went to Mikveh Israel yesterday and watched them do a Torah service. Then I went to Chinatown, which was nearby, and got some incense, a sparkly wall scroll, and some red bean buns for the Vampire game later that night. Chinatown has the coolest stuff!

I spent the rest of the afternoon transcribing the interview I had with the rabbi at Mishkan Shalom that I'd done for my thesis. I was very excited when it came time for the one-shot Vampire game

drakonous was running, but a few things went wrong.

First, I'd taken some medication in the afternoon that made me feel ill, so I didn't get the character creation done as quickly as I would have otherwise. Second, our Storyteller had to fix a dorm housing problem that some total asshat had screwed up, so we didn't get to the game until late and it's become a two-shot instead of a one-shot.

My character did turn out quite well, though, and I found some merits to "shortcut" my needs in certain stats. I've kept her very in-character, too. The problem is, this seems to be a very combat-heavy game, and my character's forte is manipulation, not combat. Though her Dominate and Thaumaturgy abilities have proved useful, I feel kind of useless when I see other people using Celerity and Protean and the like. Still, I'm having fun.

drakonous says he will be running other one-shots this semester. I made up another Vampire character for a future game, and she's way different from anything I've ever played before.

Name: “Mad” Hettie

Sex: Female

Apparent age: Sixty-something

Date of Birth: 1602

RIP: 1666

Race: Caucasian

Height: 5’2

Weight: 130

Hair: Gray and white

Eyes: Hazel

Clan: Malkavian

Powers: Dominate, Protean, Thaumaturgy, Auspex

Derangements: Irrationality, Vocalization

Equipment: Purse, lockpicks, knife, homemade medicine kit containing bandages, herbal medicines, various operating tools, a stethoscope, curved silver needles, flax thread for stitching, acupuncture needles. She keeps all of her equipment very clean and tidy.

Concept: Mad Hettie from Sandman

Quote: “You don’t get ter be four hundrid an’ some years old wivout learnin’ a fing or two!”

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Hettie was crazy even before she was Embraced by Malkavian thaumaturge Victor Pollard. She’d been a little “off” for her whole life, but with the onset of old age her eccentricities developed into full-blown schizophrenia. It seems – and she will say as much – that being Embraced only made her saner, if only marginally so. There are rumors that she’s putting up a front and is not in fact as mad as she makes herself out to be…although, since she’s a Malkavian, it’s a given that some of it is unfeigned.

Before being Embraced, Hettie was a fortune-teller and general medicine woman for the denizens of her neighborhood in Cheapside, London. The fortune-telling was probably a scam, but the healing was not. She was – and still is – very knowledgeable about herb lore and a competent field medic. Of course her skills aren’t much good for vampires, but they earned her a reputation among a certain class of people in London. After she got it into her head to move to America in the late nineteenth century, she set about establishing a similar reputation among the gang members and street people in Hell’s Kitchen. Hettie provides medical treatment for small sums of money or favors. She is also surprisingly literate, despite her protestations to the contrary.

In addition to her medical skills, she’s picked up “a fing or two” in her time. Her sire had some Protean ability which he imparted to her before he met his Final Death at the hands of a vampire hunter in 1672. She’s also got some impressive Thaumaturgy abilities and a knack for Domination. If anyone inquires as to where she learned these tricks, she will give some vague answer, assuming she chooses to answer at all.

Hettie’s territory is the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, and while she doesn’t object to other Kindred passing through, they’d better behave themselves, or else. The same applies to Mages and other supernatural creatures. Hettie makes her home in the basement of an abandoned tenement building. Her herd is composed of people who live or hang out near her haven. They’re not an “organized” herd, like a cult or a bunch of groupies, just people within a convenient distance who she uses for food. Her ability to Dominate keeps them from picking up any annoying addictions or STDs. It also makes them docile and willing sources of food who wouldn’t dream of telling anyone that they’re “patronized” by a vampire. Hettie is very particular and will only feed on someone outside of her herd if she’s desperate. She will not, as a matter of principle, suck anyone dry.

Though she makes only a little money from her doctoring and whatever other ventures she’s willing and able to embark upon, Hettie doesn’t spend much money either, so she has a tidy “for a rainy day” sum hidden in her little basement. Hettie’s well-acquainted not only with the street people, rogues and black market merchants of Hell’s Kitchen, but also with the local Hollow Ones, who accord her some measure of respect. She doesn’t have much contact with other Kindred, even in her own clan, preferring to operate undisturbed in her own little world.

“You know what a myoclonic twitch is, bonny boy?”

“N-no.”
“Well, when you’re falling asleep. And your mind’s wanderin’. And you’ve crossed over the boundary of sleepin’ and wakin’, and you’re beginning to almost dream, and in the dream you take a step, or move an arm, and in real life it twitches too. And it wakes you back up. You ever had that?”

“Uh, y-yeah. Yes, sure.”

“That’s a myoclonic twitch,”

“Lady, why are you telling me this?”

“Two reasons, young feller-me-lad. One’s because I want you know that Mad Hettie knows a lot of things. She wasn’t born yesterday. Oh, no…she knows a thing or two. And the other reason? Well, that’s to do with dyin’. But that’s neither here nor there, really, is it?”