Feels Like the First Time

Autocratik's #RPGaDAY

August 13^th – Most Memorable Character Death

Vald Tepes, Anarch, Nosferatu, biker, animal lover.

Vald was my first character in Vampire: The Masquerade. He was a good character, well, no he wasn't, but he was my first character, so I loved him.

He was the kind of character that makes veteran Vampire players cringe, a leather clad, katana wielding, badass, who lost his taste for bubble gum, the moment he was embraced.

Vald was part of a motley crew of Anarchs, hell bent on replacing the powers that be with 'our man', a price for the people. It's funny, looking back I think we'd have played Carthians in Requiem, had it been available at the time.

As with many second edition games, our primary struggle was with the Sabbat. The zealots thought our city easy pickings, as they do most cities with an Anarch infestation, and they were right. Infiltrating both the movement (I told you Requiem has been creeping in), and the existing Camerillia power structure, they successfully played both side off of one another, eliminating the most powerful kindred, and keeping many others distracted.

The final assault, split the coterie, seeing each of us protecting our own territory, and eventually falling to the fangs of the Sabbat. It was a fitting end for a chronicle that had lasted almost two years, and saw much in fighting, both in character, and unfortunately, out of character.

Each of us had our own figurative, 'moment in the sun', dying hero's deaths. My moment in the sun, however was much more literal. Vald was defeated in a city park he watched over, and staked on the top of a gazebo, left to greet the morning sun. The final words of the chronicle were spoken to me, delivered in an emotionless deadpan.

“You're burning, you're burning, you're dead.”