Vampire History

From Gothpoodle

Revision as of 21:05, 25 January 2006

San Francisco has a population of XX Kindred, ruled by the Invictus Prince Michel Dufresne since the 1906 earthquake.

Santa Clara County to the south has around 35 vampires ruled over by the Prince of San Jose, an Invictus member and childe of Michel Dufresne who established himself in the city in the 1950s. Soon after claiming his territory, he showed an alarming degree of liberalism in forming a Primogen with considerable power and influence, putting himself at odds with his sire but earning him a great deal of loyalty from the Kindred of the South Bay. A great deal of enmity exists between the two Princes, particularly since the tech boom made San Jose the largest city on the bay.

Oakland to the east is home to another thirty vampires, broken into small warring Carthian factions from the highly intellectual socialist coteries of Berkeley to the street gangs of Oakland. A small contingent of Muslim Lancea Sanctum members in Fremont is the only sizeable contingent of non-Carthians.

History

Barbary Coast (1847-1906)

Seamus Quinn, an ambitious Ventrue businessman with extensive shipping interests in Boston, New York, and New Orleans, came to San Francisco by ship to exploit the new city and establish himself as Prince. He brought with him the ghoul, Michel Dufresne, who ran his New Orleans business and quickly Embraced an influential member of the rapidly growing Chinese community, Jin Ai. With the explosive growth of the city, he decided to Embrace Michel in 1880 to act as his liaison to other California Princes.

Reconstruction (1906-1950)

The fire after the 1906 Earthquake destroyed Quinn, a newly arrived Lancea priest, and a visiting Nosferatu gambler. Michel's broader power base allowed him to win the resulting power struggle and become the new Prince. He formed the Gold Coast Society and his rival formed the Seventh Company. Their respective coteries were the only Kindred in the city until the Great Depression and the return of the Lancea Sanctum in the form of the Church of Endless Night, which was established by a Mexican priest hoping to tend to the spiritual needs of the growing city's Kindred population. Quietly towards the end of the Second World War, an Austrian refugee named Solomon Loeb, one of the mysterious Ordo Dracul, arrived and was granted sanctuary.

Counterculture (1950-1980)

The time after the war saw the establishment of a new coterie, the Cult of Lilith, by a Boston member of the Circle of the Crone. Tension between them and the Church were immediate, but never escalated past rhetoric. A childe of one of its members, Larry Fan, left to join the Carthian Movement but never gathered any followers and only occasionally managed to be a thorn in the side of the Prince. A decade later, a Brujah biker gang called the Nighthawks arrived in the city and, after coming and going for another ten years, finally decided to settle in the area when its leader was converted by the Lancea.

Decline (1980-1990)

The late 80s saw the arrival of the Flame Runners street gang, a Carthian coterie originating in Oakland which came to the city and set up house in Hunter's Point in order to spread the word. Their utter disregard for the Prince's authority would have led very quickly to a blood hunt if the coterie hadn't been weakened by its two female members defecting to other covenants. The Runners opted to lay low until they could recover their numbers and a high profile assassination by VII among the Invictus distracted attention from their presence long enough for them to dig in. The VII assassin was never found and rumours persist that they are still hiding out in the city, though the Prince insists he has evidence they have moved on.

Dot-Com Boom (1990-2000)

Hell's Children, a small coterie of Satanist vampires, quietly formed under the radar of the city Kindred and has yet to be noticed.

Present (post-2000)