romanos

Name: Romanos Skleros*
Clan: Malkavian
Sire: Palamas
Line: Caine -> Enoch? -> Malkav -> Lamdiel -> Addemar -> Palamas the Greek -> Romanos Skleros
Nature: Gallant - Regain a Willpower point whenever you successfully impress another person. Ultimately, the Storyteller is the arbiter of how much you dazzle someone, even in the case of other players' characters.
Demeanor: Gallant, or any number of archetypes depending on the extent of his role of the day.

* Real person. Appears in brief mentions in later historical documents.

Strength	1		Charisma	3		Perception	2
Dexterity	3		Manipulation	3		Intelligence	6
Stamina	2		Appearance	2		Wits		2

Talents:			Skills:				Knowledges:
Alertness	1		Animal Ken			Academics	1
Athletics	1		Archery			Hearth Wisdom
Awareness	1		Commerce			Investigation	1
Brawl				Craft: Carpentry 4		Law		1
Dodge				Craft: Security	 3		Linguistics	1
Empathy	1		Etiquette	2		Medicine
Expression	1		Melee		2		Occult		3
Intimidation			Performance			Politics	1
Leadership			Ride				Seneschal
Malkavian Time	6	Stealth		2		Theology	1
Streetwise			Survival
Subterfuge

Backgrounds:
Generation	5
Resources	4
Herd		1
Status 		1

Disciplines:
Auspex	1
Obfuscation	1
Potence	1
Dementation	1

Virtues:
Conscience	3
Self-Control	3
Courage	4

Willpower	8

Humanity	6

Derangements:
Sanguinary Animism (clan weakness):
This derangement is unique to the Kindred, a response to vampires' deep-seated guilt regarding the act of feeding on the blood of mortals. Kindred with this derangement believe that they do not merely consume victims' blood, but their souls as well, which are then made a part of the vampire's consciousness. In the hours after feeding, the vampire hears the voice of her victim inside her head and feels a tirade of "memories" from the victim's mind -- all created by the vampire's subconscious. In extreme cases, this sense of possession can drive a Kindred to carry out actions on behalf of her victims. Diablerie would be particularly unwise for an animist. Whenever a vampire with this derangement feeds on a mortal, a Willpower roll is needed (difficulty 6, or 9 if she drains the mortal to the point of death). If the roll succeeds, she is tormented by the "memories" of the person whose soul she has partially consumed, but is still able to function normally. If the roll fails, then the images in her mind are so strong that it is akin to having a second personality inside her, an angry and reproachful personality that seeks to cause harm to the vampire and her associates. The player must roleplay this state as if the mind of her victim in control. During the moments just before dawn, control reverts to the vampire.

Bipolar Disorder:
Kindred with this derangement are constantly on a hair trigger, never knowing when the next mood swing will strike. Whenever the vampire fails a task, the Storyteller has the option of secretly making a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) for the character. If the character fails the roll, she lapses into depression. Additionally, the vampire will go into depression whenever one of her rolls is botched, or if her blood pool ever drops below 2. The Storyteller should roll a die to determine how many scenes the character remains depressed, keeping the number a secret.
Vampires in a depressive state have their Willpower ratings halved (minimum 1). In addition, the vampire may not access her blood pool to raise Attributes. Upon emerging from the depressive state, the character is energetic, relentlessly upbeat and active (obsessively so) for a number of scenes proportionate to the time spent in depression. When a vampire is in this manic state, the difficulty of all rolls to resist frenzy is raised by one.

Merits/Flaws:
Concentration (1 pt. merit) - You have the ability to focus your mind and shut out any distractions or annoyances. Characters with this Merit are unaffected by any penalties stemming from distracting circumstances (e.g., loud noises, strobe lights, or hanging upside down).

17/17

Background:
The Skleros family had fallen from grace generations ago when they failed in bids to intermarry with the rising Komnenian Dynasty and their Ventrue backing. Skleros had fallen beneath the notice of the high clans. A few of the low clans were happy to pick up the scraps; the Skleros family remained in civil service long after, and Greek peoples were not hit as hard by the riots as the Latin quarter. Indeed, being civil servants outside the deadly games of the upper class gave the Skleros family a remarkable stability by comparison.
Romanos Skleros became the heir of the greater part of the family's fortune, not by nature a power player nor particularly a socialite. He enjoyed puzzles and dabbled in such fields as mathematics and theology; while his knowledge of politics and law sufficed to keep him in good stead within and without his family, he was happy to leave the worst of such problems to lawyers and servants whenever it would not be a grave insult to his company. He preferred straightforward people and straightforward talk, and the less said about city politics or the woes of his family, the better. He was not a maker of money, but rather a spender of money, as so many third-generation scions are. The usual pattern is that the first generation to make the funds is frugal and brutal, the second generation well-versed in finances but less cautious or competent, and the third generation benefits from nepotism and becomes incompetent, leading to poor decision making from a life of luxury. While Romanos did not descend so far as to become an imbecile, he preferred abstractions and higher pursuits instead of dirtying his hands with silver.

One of the family, known as the Plague-Bride, had an experience not wholly unlike Romanos' in her embrace. Clan legend claims that Malkav tried to preserve something within her when he gave her the Embrace, but this spark was extinguished by his blood and Malkav withdrew from her, deeply disappointed.*
* This sentence cribbed directly from http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/The_Plague-Bride
Addemar's childe Palamas the Greek had been watching the Skleros family closely since before the Ventrue gambits which toppled them from power. Palamas didn't know what he was looking for, but knew it would appear in time. As a master of Obfuscation, Palamas insinuated himself into the household constantly and in multiple guises, or none at all, walking the house with impunity, searching for something in its woodgrain, in the peeling of the paint, the occasional broken pottery, and the moles and birthmarks of the family members. The Domain was his, and even the Prince would not try to wrest him from it, knowing better than to argue with a cunning 5th generation elder. In return, Palamas stayed out of city politics almost entirely, continuing his strange quest and leaving most matters to his childer and cousins in town.

Profile: Palamas the Greek
Addemar sired many childer over the centuries in his pursuit of the Grand Prank. His travels took him to Rome during the Punic Wars; like most Malkavians, he did not participate in the destruction of Carthage, and instead spent his time in the huge city's underclass. He met Palamas the Greek, a frightful predator of a man who had risen through the ranks of a criminal syndicate by virtue of his wits, will and physical strength. Perhaps Addemar sought to teach him that he had not reached any apex of power at all, or perhaps Addemar simply wanted a brilliant conspirator to continue his pursuits. It's even possible he simply wanted to destroy Palamas, or deliver him in the distant future as one more meal for Lamdiel. Addemar's motives are his own.
Palamas disappeared from kine society immediately upon his embrace, taking a few loyal compatriates with him and leaving a gaping power vacuum in that part of Rome.
Palamas' embrace certainly brought with it the insight that he had sought power in the wrong ways and places. The embrace brought with it a new destiny, power previously unknown, and voices which urged him to build a new community to the east. He was among the first Malkavians in Constantinople, laughing openly at the Lasombra cult to Aphrodite before Alexia destroyed the Cappadocians of the region. Palamas built a new center of power there, which survived plagues, riots, political games and internal dissencion, no small part of which was his own doing, driven to erratic behavior by what would now be called paranoid schizophrenia. His favorite tactic was to take on the face of a trusted friend in order to engineer a sense of betrayal, though he was not above simply driving a servant mad in pursuit of some twisted voice in his head begging to grant them understanding.
It was one of those voices which brought him to the Skleros family.

Whatever signs Palamas sought, he saw in Romanos, and began to focus his scrutiny on him for the next two decades, an eerie presence in the household which nobody could pinpoint. A whole wing of the family manse became known for a curse or a haunting, some servant of Lucifer which could never be cast out. In that time, Palamas the Greek approached Romanos almost nightly in the guise of an angelic figure, feeding occasionally (an act which brought ecstatic bliss) and telling the boy he would some day be an "edifice," that Romanos belonged to him alone, and demanding young Romanos keep their perverse relationship a secret. He was frequently anemic and withdrawn, despite a welcoming and kindly personality, and developed a great deal of interest in woodworking and the workings and makings of locks. He even saw to the improvement of his bedroom, making ever more complicated locks on the doors and windows, even designing a few of his own which none had ever seen before. His possessions were locked away in intricate puzzle boxes, again usually of his own design. By Romanos' twenty-third year, Palamas had driven away all the young man's lovers, enforcing the strict faithfulness of his growing protege. Romanos was never certain why he could not hold onto a loved one, why even cousins were driven away from the estate if he sought their solace, as Palamas never told him; indeed, Romanos almost believed himself delusional regarding the figure who would approach him at night, though he had honed his will against the creature enough that, when Palamas inevitably vanished before his eyes, Romanos would seldom forget that he had been there. Indeed, there were often physical clues, easily overlooked, to indicate the elder's passing, but such subtle matters were often too easy to write off to nerves or delusion. Certainly he had no intention of telling another soul about shameful nighttime visitations of an angelic man who bit his neck and drove him to sexual rapture. Physical evidence of his frightful mentor's passing often disappeared from his puzzle boxes and his room's hidden compartments, always left intact but empty, though occasionally not quite how he'd left them.
For Palamas' part, he knew Romanos was who he'd been called to find. Where we would call it an untapped potential, Palamas saw a hole, a gaping hole where something should be. That hole would be filled with Malkav. Every open place in the young man's mind would be consumed, leaving a soul overful, bleeding out at the seams like a wineskin filled beyond capacity. He would not be a leader, but a switchboard, a coordinator, a subconscious dispatcher and a powerful warp and weft in the Tapestry. The Malkavians of Constantinople would find their correspondence and community strengthened by this new cousin.
Midway in the year, Palamas approached Romanos on the new moon in his usual angelic guise, telling him he had something to deliver unto him, that his time was at hand and he could not refuse it. Romanos argued with him for hours, asking questions and only getting terse riddles in reply, repeatedly informed that their liaisons over the young man's life and his constant loneliness spoke to a permanent emptiness which for most people is filled by the Church, the blessings of God, and a good soul. He slowly convinced Romanos he was already damned, and that his only way out was to become part of something greater, something incorporeal but precious. Romanos finally succumbed, his face streaked with tears.
The Embrace very nearly killed him. Even to the very end a part of him resisted, relenting only when a voice screamed at him that the BLOOD would keep him, would bring him security and warmth. His will survived, his reservations literally died, his perceptions and wits emerged dulled by a thousand voices suddenly welcoming him with recriminations, joyful song, mad ramblings and the sight, such as one might call it sight, of a thousand gashes and tears, the most yawning and awful of them swallowing parts of him he never knew he had. Fragments of otherworldly things of unfathomable power, the memories of childhood friends long forgotten, passions, all disappeared into that abyss, recalled thereafter only as something seen but no longer felt, like they happened to somebody else. He saw a vision of an elderly patriarch living in his dilapidated mansion, his grandchildren singing around the fire, and knew this was to have been his future. He saw the fire snuffed out, the elderly man become a dessicated corpse in his chair, his children crumble to ash. The ceiling caved in, and the abyss swallowed this vision, too.
Into these dead places rushed the blood of Malkav. Things real and unreal passed through his mind, leaving clues to the nature of the world in their wake. Things he knew to be true proved false or unreliable, and every area of knowledge was tainted or infected with the deep red of vitae. The pool of blood refracted the light reflected by his vision, and where it soaked in it warped the paintings and scriptures. The blood soaked the mansion and he saw it dissolve like sugar or salt. Romanos reached out with his will and the blood began to drift in and out in tides, washing over him and staining his hands as he sifted through the waves for the wooden planks which were disappearing into the curdling foam.
He awoke with blood on his hands and dripping from his newborn fangs, staining the floor of his bedroom, a vein spraying blood into his throat. He suckled viciously, like a wild dog tearing into a grouse. When his hunger was sated he looked down at the limp and pallid corpse, filled with remorse and self-hatred. He asked himself who this woman was, and knew immediately her name had been Herena, that she was a mother and wife, that she was kindly and innocent and he had hungrily and blindly destroyed her.

The Skleros Family Mansion:
Nobody enters the Skleros mansion without Romanos' permission, though more than a few do so. The "haunted" wing is his own, barred off and inaccessible, though the servants swear there are noises from that part of the house, and the neighbors often see visitors emerge from side doors built of scrap wood and impossible to open from without. No paintings or images remain of young Romanos, all long since lost in a burglary in the dead of night along with all the young man's beautiful puzzle boxes. After so many years, nobody remembers what he looked like, though if they see the anemic-seeming man walking up the stairs in the middle of the night, the blood chills in their veins as they can't help but think him familiar. When they follow, though, he disappears into a shadow and is not seen again for the rest of the night. The mansion is, after all, haunted, so it's no surprise if an apparition appears now and again to walk the halls only to vanish after turning a corner.
The house caretaker must surely be mad, though. The second floor of the mansion is lit by bright lanterns of colorful glass constantly flickering through a spinning shutter propelled by a water mill wheel outside the house, an intricate and remarkable mechanism whose sole function seems to be to keep that part of the mansion in constantly changing, shifting patterns of light through curtains upon curtains of hanging beads and bells. Only the lights one brings oneself grant any clear vision, such as when nervous workmen in daylight nail home planks and boards or decorate with ceramic tiles the walls and floor, which themselves are canted dangerously to and fro as if built on the sides of low hills. The changes are often sudden and vexing, and seldom do the servants pause even a moment on their way to the attic, preferring to leave these sickening experiments to the workmen. It's never so great a drain on the family resources as to destroy their fortune. The work always continues through the night, though only one man works so late and always by only the light of the spinning lanterns. Nobody asks. For the most part, they don't want to know. The second floor has only one window, deep within, so even in daylight anybody who steps into the second floor is at the mercy of these artificial elements.
One particularly curious and brave servant ventured into the second floor, tailing the apparition. He heard the bead curtains rattle and followed after, emerging into the absurd cascading lights. He felt for a wall, fell into a ten foot pit and broke his leg. He was dismissed from the house not for his trespassing, which nobody even spoke of thereafter, but rather because he was no longer employable on account of his injury.
The workmen are the most reliable source of intelligence on the second floor. When they heard about the servant who broke his leg, they were sympathetic, but most had been down into the pit at one point or another to install new decorative facing for a pair of wooden doorframes. Neither had a lock which was in any way ordinary, and neither door was open. This was consistent with much of the second floor, the rooms of which apparently are neither level in their construction nor accessible without stepping up or down a sharp drop. Most of the walls are sticky with pitch or tar, which tends to track awkwardly about now and then. The workmen have been instructed to touch the walls as little as possible. Occasionally the workmen stumble over hidden compartments, usually empty, occasionally filled with broken glass, and occasionally with jewelry, women's clothing, or other paraphenalia with stranger implications. As these sometimes supplement their pay, the workmen never talk about the compartments, even to each other, unless it's a warning about glass.

Romanos Tonight:
Romanos’ role in city politics is limited, quite indirect in that he operates more as Malkavian infrastructure, a resource for agreeable cousins, a source of crash space, and occasionally a liaison to the saner but blind clans and their representatives. He has largely disappeared from the world of the kine, hardly distinguishable from any other citizen; he keeps the voices to himself, and most don’t see him often enough to identify any difference in his moods. His cainite acquaintances know him better, of course. They often see him in the Elysium frantically drawing a schematic or languishing miserably in a chair. He’s not unliked, but neither is he ambitious or influential among his kind. He more often does favors than asks them, though he tends to fritter away his prestation on relatives of the blood somewhat generously.