Session 1 - Last Sunset

Well, let's introduce our victims.. uhh, the cast. Yeah.

Marsten - The GM.

Dan - David Scott, Gangrel. Wanted to be a soldier, but didn't cut it in the try-outs. Since spent his life digging into the dirt on politics, and becoming involved in conspiracy theories.

Jane - Flora Rizzo, Mekhet. Came to LA with hopes of making it big in Hollywood. Like most, didn't succeed. Now works as a fortune teller, quite aware that it's all a hoax.

Steve - James Adams, Nosferatu. Former Irish Republican paramilitary specialist, emigrated in order to start a new life. Currently employed as a dock worker.

N/A - Jude, Ventrue. College drop-out and self-styled surfing bohemian. Jude is our fourth party member, and I've made him to be controlled by the party in general. His purpose is to help out when they need it, such as "Jude, attack that ghoul", "Jude, research ancient Russian lore", and "Jude, hold that door to stop the werewolf getting through while we run away." Also, "Jude, give me some of your blood, I'm thirsty", no doubt.

As our game began, none of the characters had met one another. The purpose of this session is to bring the group together, and give them a 'rebirth' to their new vampiric world. Each start as mortals going about their day-to-day life.

Santa Monica is preparing for Mardi Gras. The celebratory atmosphere is thick in the air. Students on their holidays are enjoying the beach and the surf. But three people are about to experience their last sunset.

David Scott got off lucky. Pulling a late night researching away at an internet cafe, he eventually decided to walk home when he was accosted by three muggers. Naturally he didn't really stand any chance here, given that the nWoD system is absolutely brutal when it comes to being outnumbered. But thankfully that's what was all scripted to happen. At the last moment, he was rescued by a dapper gent, who dealt with David's attackers in a most brutal and bloody fashion. "You'll die if you don't accept my help," said the gent, "drink."
David woke up in a silk bed in a palatial Russian mansion. His benefactor, Vitaly Sergai Rozenko, spent an evening regaling him with tales of imperial Russia, and gently broke the news to David that he was no longer human. Sergai fed the young one on his own blood, over the course of three days, forming a blood bond between them. He taught David how to harness blood to fuel his abilities, and explained the dangers of his new unlife.
On the third day however, Sergai told David the reason he had saved him. The elder explained that he was old, his blood too strong, and that only rest could subdue and thin his blood. He lead David into the family crypt, and there he interred himself in a coffin beneath the earth. Upon leaving the crypt, David discovered that the mansion was nothing more than an illusion created from the elder's memories, and that his Sire rested beneath a secured basement of an apartment block in Santa Monica. Swearing to check on his Sire's resting place each week, David gave his oath that he would revive Sergai in a hundred and fifty years. In exchange Sergai left him with eternal life, and a mysterious journal written in Russian.
It was not long before David encountered Santa Monica's Kindred sheriff, Lucius Kyle. Panicked by his first encounter with another vampire, David fled in a mad frenzy. Once calmed, he gradually began to talk with Kyle, who explained that all young and uninitiated Kindred are to be brought before the Prince to be introduced.

James' introduction to the night was considerably less pleasant. Injured while at work, he was waiting in the ER when he first encountered his Sire. Posing as a doctor, surgical mask and all, the Sire escorted James into the dark recesses of the hospital, where he subdued the dock worker. James awoke in a basement room, on a stone floor etched with emblems sketched in human blood. There, his Sire informed him of his fate; that he would play a part in an experiment into the nature of vampiric kind.
James had no intention of being a pawn in anyone's experiments, and struggled bravely, setting alight to his Sire's notes, and spitting into the vampire's face. This only infuriated the elder Nosferatu, who killed James without a second's thought, force-feeding him the Kindred vitae that would reanimate him. When James awoke, his Sire proclaimed his offspring to be nothing but a worthless failure. His experiments to produce Kindred offspring who were not tormented by the Beast would have to continue with another test subject.
Rather than kill him, the Nosferatu left James chained in an isolated basement. There James met two others; Lance, another 'failed experiment', weak and starved for blood. And a female Kindred who was overtaken by the Beast, ruled by feral impulses, who lurked in the dark and had consumed the other experimental subjects. Carefully, James was able to pry his way free of the basement, and with Lance's help they escaped into the hospital morgue.
There they met Kyle, sent to investigate suspicions of the elder Nosferatu's actions and enforce kindred law. James watched in awe as the sheriff commanded the feral vampire in the basement to 'sleep', and agreed that if the stranger was truly looking to bring justice on James' Sire, he'd trust him.

Perhaps the most skeptical of all to her new life was Flora. As someone used to fleecing others for their money, she didn't consider her new client on that night to be particularly unusual. A little pale, perhaps, but not unusual. The woman who asked for her fortune to be read was very interested in what Flora had to say, seeming to judge her psychic abilities.
When Flora seen the woman in a bar later, they started to talk, and the stranger confessed that she felt that she had the ability to see others' destinies. Soon they both were walking on the beach, Flora growing more and more apprehensive. The two paused by a bonfire on the sands, and it was there that the stranger told Flora that she had seen that she would give Flora a gift. I think we can guess what that gift was, eh?
When Flora came to, the stranger tried to tell her more, but Flora was too scared to listen. Sadly, the stranger confessed that she had forseen that too, before she walked into the bonfire. Much of the wisdom that the stranger had to pass along, sadly, was lost in Flora's panic; as was Flora's perception of the fact that her own heart was no longer beating.
By the time the ambulance had arrived, Flora's Auspex had flared up quite involuntarily, and the blazing auras of the celebrating humans had convinced the fledgling Kindred that the night was nothing but the result of a bad drink. She went back home, where she slept, until awakened by the blazing sunlight penetrating through the curtains. Stumbling into the windowless bathroom, her arms burned, Flora slept in the bathroom that night.
That evening, newly waking, Flora found no reflection in her mirror. She was interrupted by a knock on the door, encountering a strange man called Kyle. The man explained in slow and patient terms to an unconvinced and skeptical Flora that she was no longer human, explaining why food turned to ashes in her mouth, why the sunlight burned her, why her face did not show in the mirror, and why her heart was no longer beating.

Kyle had a long night that night. Escorting first Flora, then David, then James to a local Cathedral, he left to gather the fourth of their fledgelings. The three talked eagerly amongst themselves, discussing their shared experiences, the strange people they had met, and their new condition. Soon they were joined by a fourth, Jude, who explained that after an extended necking session with a woman in the back of an alley, he had been drained of blood, only to be saved from death by one of the woman's friends who had seen a 'certain something' in him. Together the group boarded Kyle's landrover, and were driven in relative luxury to Santa Monica Marina.

There, at the end of one small pier, between the boats on either side and overlooking the endless dark waves of the sea, the four fledgling Kindred met Carlos Santiago, Prince of Santa Monica.

Experience points - Everyone got 3 EXP for this session, enough to get them a head-start for next session, which will be their first real adventure together.