The Loners

Name: Alan Ratzor Clan: Malkavian Embrace Date: 1944 Apparent Age: Near forty, weathered Position: Shepherd of Souls, wandering oracle of Prague

Background: Embraced by the Dreamer in the final years of the war, this Malkavian crosses Prague like the city's private confessor: he listens to dead whispers, records misfortunes everyone wants forgotten, and always stops one moment before something, or someone, falls. To the childer he is an uncomfortable oracle; to the city, only a shadow appearing where Death has chosen to look.

It is said his steps follow a cartography only he understands: old cemeteries, hospital corridors about to be evacuated, bridges that have watched too many bodies sink into the Vltava. A cold breeze often announces his arrival, along with tiny chalk marks, dates, and astrological circles on stone and railings. Those who deal with him struggle to decide what is more unsettling, his silences or his questions: he asks no loyalty, only permission to be present when the end arrives.

Quote: "I do not come to save you or condemn you. Only to remind the city how you ended up."

If you want to know more about the Shepherd of Souls, click here...

Name: Natasha Lekov Vlaszy Clan: Tzimisce - Old Clan Embrace Date: Mid 19th century Apparent Age: Approaching twenty Position: Member of the Oradea League

Background: Her first victory, and the one that hurt the most.

All she found was a heap of ashes beside her master's abandoned sword, the only witness to his struggle. Even then she could still feel him at her back, fading like a thread of smoke, offering one last gesture of satisfaction and the touch of an unseen hand on her shoulder in farewell.

Natasha's cry of pain filled her dead lungs and, reeling, she fell into the river's icy water, leaving behind her sanity, the ashes, and the burning vehicles choking that accursed bridge, the last thing she saw before the dark closed over her.

She passed into the care of a distant relative, who gave her a new and singular purpose, though the sapphire blue of her eyes faded into gray, proof that something in them had gone dark for the rest of her nights.

For a long time the lands she inherited were left to fend for themselves, because she refused to think of them as hers. In time, reason prevailed and she returned. She claimed only the humbler half of those holdings, while in the rest she was glimpsed only from time to time, drifting through the old mansion like a restless spirit and letting the ghost stories that gathered around it keep intruders at bay, at least until the rightful owner returned.

Quote: "Pain... yes, why not? Let us speak of the voice I hear whenever silence becomes unbearable."

Name: Zavid Lekov Vlaszy Clan: Tzimisce - Old Clan Embrace Date: End of the 18th century Apparent Age: Mid-thirties Position: Member of the Oradea League

Background: Too long away from home. Too long cut off from my land. Too many years parted from my treacherous sister, blood of my blood in both life and death. Now we drift on opposite shores, locked in bitter opposition, both deprived of our father's protection. May the Great Drozd rest in peace. My father, my sire, my guardian, devoured by blood-hungry hyenas: the Sabbat. And his land, my land, insulted and violated by those hedonistic European Kindred: the Camarilla.

All that is over. The Lord, the Vampiry of these lands, has returned. My sire's legacy is in my hands, and this time there will be no revolt. Vassals will learn their place in these domains, and the natural order will return to its course.

They call me the Angel, born among demons and tempered by the honor and tradition of a land older than your petty, insignificant unlives. In these nights you will learn whose lands these are, and I trust, for all our sakes, that each of you knows the place you must occupy upon the board of the Great Game.

Keep away from my lands, and woe to whoever spills blood upon them and poisons them, for you will suffer our wrath.

Quote: "The land you tread has belonged to my family for generations. You would do well to remember it."

Name: Robert Lang Clan: Ravnos. Embrace Date: 1911 Apparent Age: Thirty Position: Currently none

Background: Robert Lang is one of those childer few have heard of, fewer wish to meet, and many prefer not to remember at all. A largely inconsequential former giorgio whose unlife could be summarized with one word, nomad, though that does nothing to diminish the weight of his exploits, usually at the Camarilla's expense and, eventually, the Sabbat's.

Smuggler, artist, thief, vagabond, useless... all of this has been said about him. The mockery with which he treats his unlife might suggest a fool, yet he was never so amusing when he had to flee several cities with a Blood Hunt on his head.

Fortunately, the reach of those hunts ended on the borders of those countries. Far from Prague...

Among Ravnos who still remember that affair, few believe "Robert Lang" is a true name. Before the siege, stories already circulated of a fixer in the shadows, a walker entering and leaving cities at war, leaving safe routes, measured strikes, and impossible alliances behind him. Some swear the same face used different names and accents throughout the century, and that Prague was only one more stop in a far older journey. Lang never denies anything: he smiles, changes the subject, and reminds listeners that the best lies are the ones no one dares verify.

Quote: "Half of what they say about me is a lie. The other half, you wish were too."

Name: Dvorak Zajran Putanesca Clan: Giovanni, Putanesca family. Embrace Date: Believed to be in the mid-17th century Apparent Age: Thirty, badly worn Position: Lord of the Old Jewish Cemetery

Background: Dvorak Zajran Putanesca is one of the few Putanesca versed in Necromancy and the only Giovanni survivor of the Nights of White Ash. Even so, his reputation, known across the city, rests on other merits: his versatility in Necromancy is so dreadful many would rather endure his tortures in life than die quickly and suffer him afterward; his influence in the Mafia and command of the underworld are well known to those who know how to listen; and some even claim he was one of the two patrons who commissioned the Observer's Chronicle of Prague's Final Nights.

More mysterious still is the fact that his haven is established in the Old Jewish Cemetery and has gone unchallenged for centuries. As far as anyone knows, he spent the last century and a half sealed in its deepest reaches, maintaining outside ties through his ghouls. One can only speculate what kept him so submerged below for so long, but it is known he has finally emerged from the cemetery.

No one knows what drove him to end those studies so abruptly, but everyone already knows he has returned.

Quote: "Death is a procedure. The real business begins when your soul passes into my hands."