Riley and Jean-Pierre, a Masked Vampire - Code-Switching and Authenticity with Aetherius Bordeaux (Vampire the Masquerade 5e)

If your therapist of years kills you, you can't send like a basket of pears and chocolates and a card to like make up for that. If I enter this space authentically, that's just a standard for me to continue to do that. Like I don't want to show up as an edited version of myself. I did not want to present a series of black angels who are all superheroes, who all never did anything wrong. We're completely saints because nobody is like that. I've never to this day. Played at a table with another black player.

Hello, friends. Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star, content warning this episode for assault and lack of consent in a non sexual situation. There's some colorful language as well. Maybe not the best episode for little ears to tune into this episode I'm joined by a AAetherius Bordeaux your new favorite vampire Himbo He is a mystery thriller horror content creator and lifelong answerer of the question."Who dunnit?" AAetherius is a theater kid turned TTRPG baby and has finally fought off his anxiety long enough to launch into content creation. AAetherius, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited and I'm, I think the audience might be able to immediately, I'm coming in hot guys. I am pumped to be here. I'm elated. The concept of this podcast, which is fabulous. I find so fascinating because this is something that is so near and dear. To so many people, we really put a lot of ourselves into creating these characters and creating this world. So I'm just, I'm grateful to be here. I'm happy. I'm fangirling. It's, it's, it's a good, it's a good experience so far.

AAetherius, do you want to tell listeners anything about yourself?

Sure. Sure. Yeah. So my name is AAetherius Bordeaux. I really focus in particularly on mystery content. That is really kind of my brand of strawberry jam. That's like where really, really shine. I have always had this lifelong affection for mysteries. One of my grandmothers, when I was maybe I think seven or eight. Gave me her old, and I don't know if it was the first print, but it was old, an old Set of Nancy Drew chapter books that I like tore through, and then I graduated to Agatha Christie, and then I'm just kind of spiraled to present day now, where I'm an adult who gets to, you know, be on the internet and, and solve mysteries, which is something I love. Theorizing. I love like the, the community aspect of it. And so it has been so professionally gratifying to, to be able to be here. The, the one other thing I'll mention about myself, and I kind of touched on this a little bit before we started recording, I am like a former PR and media professional, like traditional media. And so I have prepped a lot of important people for interviews like this, right? Like I have made sure that people felt comfortable on camera or pre podcast have gone over talking points and made sure they were on message. This is one of the first times I am here as myself, as my authentic me. And there is such a significance to that, that I, I felt compelled to share it. I have ghost written, right? A lot of speeches and a lot of things. In my life. So to be here and to be here as a theorist, um, and as vampire himbo is, is very satisfying. So I just want to say a gracious thank you for having me. This is again, something that is really personally significant.

I also got into mysteries from Nancy Drew. My mom, like at a yard sale or something, got an entire gigantic box of Nancy Drew's. And we just tore through them, me and my sister.

Yes! Oh my god! Oh my god, I love that! I feel seen. I feel like I'm with a kindred spirit here. Nancy is a real gateway drug into the rest of the mystery genre, of which my favorite is the I Love a Good Whodunit! I'll introduce me to a cast, kill one of them, and then tell me one of the survivors killed that person. Oh! Oh, it doesn't even matter the quality, honestly. I've watched things that are terrible out of just, like, I need to know. It's been nice, uh, to have, uh, space to kind of creatively Explore that. And I've been, yeah, just really humbled and gratified by the support so far, particularly as like a new content creator of color stepping into the TTRPG space, the amount of support that I feel like I've gotten from the folks on like TTRPG threads and other places has been really encouraging. Like I said, in the, the bio that I wrote, which I don't remember writing, but it sounds so I like, no, I did is so me, it sounds like it was written in my head. I did have to conquer a lot of anxiety. You know, it was much easier for me to prep. Others for, for things like this and to, to step into a space as myself. Authentically again, it's, it's such a big deal. Y'all that I've said it now twice and I won't keep repeating it, but it just, it is, it's very gratifying. And there's, there's a sense of catharsis I'm experiencing. And we're not even like a full five minutes in.

Just you wait. I will say I need to make a recommendation to you. And I just want to leave it at this. That if you like mysteries and you like TTRPGs, you have to try one of my favorite games called Brindlewood Bay. Which is like Murder, She Wrote meets Call of Cthulhu.

There's someone listening who's like, Oh my God. Yes, yes.

I will put a call out right now. Please, somebody come on the show and talk about a Brindlewood Bay character with me. It is one of my top five games.

I see Murder, She Wrote with H. P. Lovecraft, and I Okay, what? This is a whole You know what, this is a rabbit hole for another day,

another time, another time I have to make that recommendation.

Thank you. Thank you. Immediately. Like in reading the, the synopsis for this, it's yeah. A lot of these words are hitting. Oh my God. Yeah. I w I will, I promise to not in real time. Make a printable day character because the temptation is there. I'm going to give this a bookmark and then I'm just going to casually close this window. There we go.

So who are you bringing to the table today?

Oh boy, is that a question? And as you'll come to see, this is a little bit unconventional. So the character that folks will be introduced to this character is a character that I've loved vampire, the masquerade for a very long time. I love, love, love, love, love for the masquerade. It is my favorite Setting. It is my favorite system. I think that the way that it is built really lends itself to collaborative storytelling in a way that is exciting where mechanically all of the pieces are supporting that kind of real time collaborative storytelling. So I love, love, love, love and obsessed with it. So I've had different parts of this character kind of kicking around for a while. And recently I was cast in the Camarilla side of Philly by night. Which is hosted by the fabulous ErinMyLaundry. And yeah, you know, it to me was such an exciting prospect. I, I feel like, again, like a real kinship and kind of connection just to Vampire the Masquerade. The stories it tells, the way it presents vampires, the idea of being otherized in society. There are a lot of things that make it really like resonate for me. So to answer your question, I am bringing a Jean Pierre Baptiste to the table is who we will be meeting. So here is the rub. This is the tea. I feel like I am giving your listeners the real juice, the real tea. Because my character concept contains like kind of a fundamental plot twist. There's more to Jean Pierre than like appears, but I'll go into the basics. So the, the person that folks will meet in Philly by night is Jean Pierre Baptiste. Ostensibly a member of clan Toreador, for those unfamiliar, Toreador is the clan of the Rose. They are the artistic ones, the aesthetic ones. They are known as the Divas, uh, throughout, both by nickname and by reputation throughout the Camarilla. And Jean Pierre is, again, ostensibly a member of. And in Philadelphia, in reality, and this is the, the T you guys. So this has to stay between us. Don't tell anybody about this Jean Pierre Baptiste is not only my character. It's not his real name. He's also not a member of playing Toreador either. Uh, he is actually a member of a clan that I feel like is. Criminally underrepresented in the world of darkness. And that is the ministry or the serpents or the Settites. They are cultists that have had a really successful rebrand in the, uh, in recent years,

a rebrand in game or rebrand in the books,

both, I would say, I would say. I'm honestly like bias, a couple of things for those unfamiliar with vampire, the masquerade. In lieu of what a lot of TTRPGs would present to you as like class decisions, wherein you are choosing person and empower in vampire, the masquerade, we have different bloodlines. There are like 13 of them that I cannot name off the top of my head, but I do know that there are 13 central ones. And when you create a vampire or a kindred is what we would sell for it. You would never call yourself a vampire. You would call yourself a kindred. When you're creating your kindred, you are choosing one of these 13 lines. And it's a very. Significant decision because it is going to impact your place within vampiric society or kindred society. It's also going to really affect how the embrace, which is what we call when we are turning someone into a vampire, the embrace becoming a vampire has really distinctly different effects. Depending on the clan of the person who turned you. So I'll, I'll focus just on Camarilla because a, like the zooms us in and it's also the Setting in which Jean Pierre will, will be playing the ministry is not a member of the Camarilla. I want to like, I want to base this with the foundational knowledge I'm approaching, explaining this, like. If I had never heard of vampire, the masquerade, if I'd never known any of the terminology. So if I am explaining things that seem like overly simple to portions of the audience, just know that I want to frame this up for people who have no idea.

I am one of those people. I know practically nothing about vampire except. That there are like all these different bloodlines and that all of my goth friends in high school played it.

Mm hmm. Love that. Love it. I am hitting my like late in life, baby goth phase. So I am into that. Yeah, it, it is, I think one of the things that is the most exciting to me about it and this itself describes as political horror as one of the central genres. Particularly. Oh my God. And the Camarilla, which was what I was explaining ADHD following trains of thought successfully, the Camarilla for all our Camarilla, depending on who you are, like we, the community has gone back and forth. I do not know where we have fallen. So I'm just going to say both. Cause I'll be wrong either way, but the Camarilla serves as kind of the vampire high society, government, science, democracy, I think it's important, you know, that, cause I said government that you, you don't. You are not an equal amongst the rest of the ring. It is very, very, very political in nature. Folks are constantly climbing over each other in these like centuries long, sometimes battles for power in your character. When you come into it, depending on your age and your clan is becoming like a chess piece on the board, essentially, particularly when they're coming into the, the Camarilla. And to me personally, one of the most exciting things about building a Camarilla character is envisioning that chess piece is figuring out in the grand kind of political schemes and the web of everything that's happening in the Camarilla's con they are always doing something bad, always doing something evil. I wouldn't even say evil, but self serving. They're very, very self serving. Their regard for human life varies, I'll say, kind of like territory to territory. But if you are not familiar with why Vampire the Masquerade is called Vampire the Masquerade, the Masquerade is this idea that the way to best protect kindred and to maintain, they would describe as kindred supremacy. You know, it is best that humans do not, are not aware that vampires exist. So if you've ever seen something like a property, I'm a vampire, like I've dipped and dabbed, name it. I probably had a little taste of it. If you have ever seen the television show on HBO, True Blood, this is the antithesis to that. In True Blood, it is a fictional drama where vampires are coming out of the cloSet. I'm doing verbal, verbal air quotes there. And so it really answers the question, what if vampires became real? What if they became a political class? Yeah, yada. In Vampire the Masquerade, the Camarilla, at least, that is the worst thing that could happen. That, to them, is like the apocalypse. The Masquerade is important. It helps vampires maintain, or kindred maintain, the power that they have in society. And breaching The masquerade is a grievous, grievous sin in the views of the Camarilla to expose yourself or to expose other kindred is usually met with swift, decisive punishment and what that punishment looks like is going to vary. Kingdom to kingdom kind of prince to prince, which is what you would call the quote unquote, like king or queen of a city, but yeah, that is, I feel like a good operating framework for vampire, the masquerade. So your character, again, when you come in as one of the 13 clans, there is a Set for those interested in mechanics. There is a preSet list of discipline and powers. So you have separate disciplines, which might be your different schools of magic or et cetera. Here, all of the disciplines and company, a range of skills, vampires, the skills, the abilities, the talents that they have wildly differ from one to the other. So, uh, there is no kind of biological makeup of vampires. They are all very kind of like unique.

You said they have different disciplines and different powers. And you mentioned magic. Is there a wide spectrum from, for example, more physical powers to more supernatural magical powers? Like what kind of things might be a power?

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a really, really good question. It really spans the gamut. There are some powers that are things that you might traditionally associate with kind of vampires, like one of them is fortitude, which is kind of your strength. I don't know enough to quote a power from Fortitude, but that you have that option. If you want to build kind of like a big brawny vampire. And then you have things on the opposite end of the scale, like animalism, which is your capacity to create animal familiars at higher levels, certain kindred could actually shape shift into one specific animal, for example, Jean Pierre has Auspex, which is something that allows you. Any skill in the Auspex tree is about perception. One of the key kind of powers in it. So discipline would be the kind of overarching umbrella, like Auspex. And then the power of this case would be like an ability or skill or a passive that you have under, under that tree. For example, like Jean Pierre has Auspex heightened senses. This means in a room, he can hear things, he can kind of selectively tune into things, which makes vampire Elysium, which is kind of like vampire fancy. Let's all meet up and not kill each other time to be like for a short explanation. Uh, it makes it very, very interesting. That is the kind of political hype for it. You know, honestly, like There is this, I don't even know how to describe it, but it is a very antiquary feel to the Elysiums. It is very much a holdover from, from vampire societies of late. So even those who may identify, like there's a, a clan of vampires called the Gangrel. Who are known for their animalism, which we just discussed and are not necessarily always known for their great fashion sense to an Elysium. And in particular, if they're called by the Prince or the leader of an Elysium, they're going to show up dressed. They're going to show up at their attempt at formal wear. It's a very different field in the Anarchs, which is a whole other thing who don't entertain the pomp and circumstance. All of the traditions mean nothing to them. They are vampires who reject the rigidity. I think they would describe a vampire or vampiric society. And so as such have a whole other thing, kind of this now co running, they've grown in size, opposing force to, to the Camarilla. So Philly by night, for example, is broken into two parts. We have the Anarchs who are the folks who I just described, don't give a literal shit about anything related to the Camarilla or the rules. And then you have the Camarilla who are the. The high society snobs.

So you mentioned that Jean Pierre is not Camarilla, but is kind of hiding within that. Is Camarilla a bloodline or is it just the political power?

Yeah. So it's the political power that at one point contained most of the vampire clans. Until the schisms have happened over the centuries. So where now it is like the two opposing forces. So in some ways it is, and it isn't. So there are like typical bloodlines traditionally kind of associated with like, uh, clan Bruja, for example, are the clans of the rebels. They are like the visionaries. From a protester on up to like eco terrorist vampires of that clan have this like very kind of like rebellious streak, but yeah, it is that, that first choice of navigating which of the disciplines and powers is really kind of defining in a way. I think this is maybe like, uh, uh, if you step into vampire, it really helps to, to read those and to, to better kind of ground and conceptualize your vampire. If you know what their vampiric powers are, like what, what flavor, what flavor of vampire are they? What flavor do they got?

What is Jean Pierre's bloodline?

Oh yeah. So let's, let's get into this. So as you mentioned, Jean Pierre is masking in the Camarilla, which is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game. To be discovered would almost certainly mean certain death, but this isn't as you will come to find a decision that Jean Pierre had any kind of consent in a did not choose to be a person, you know, whose life has become lies and duplicity and subterfuge. He was very much thrown into this, uh, much to his chagrin. And he is a younger vampire as well. He is someone that was turned in 2018. So he's been at this for less than a decade. Uh, but it seemed to know his place a little bit, but yeah, but still fairly. So we meet Jean Pierre the Toreador in reality. My character, their real name is Riley Howard and they are of The Ministry, which is a much different clan. And to reiterate, Toreador, are the divas are the artistic kindred, the ones that have an eye for an aesthetic and value beauty, literally above all else. And the Ministry, again, is a cult who looks for folks that are questioning authority. One, there was a time when the, I was in researching for this character, I found this like fun little tidbit. I don't know if this is still the case. But in the research, one source I found said that the ministry would embrace, like they would take on vampires, it falls into three categories. So the first is someone of Egyptian descent. Because the ministry is actually like at its core religion. They believe in the Egyptian God Set and that he is the progenitor of vampires and they kind of worship him as such. It's more complicated that, but that's kind of like the TLDR. And that is kind of antithetical and maybe even heretical to a lot of other vampires. So for context, the traditionally accepted vampire, the masquerade lore that a lot of vampires follow and believe is that the very first vampire and kind of the progenitor of everything that happens and all of the vampires that will go on to live is none other than Cain of Cain and Abel from the Bible. Cain kills his brother, and then as restitution and punishment for killing his brother, God forces Cain to walk the world forever and to need blood to subsist Cain eventually turns, you know, I think it's either the next generation or the generation after. I think he turns 13 people, and those 13 people go on to be the progenitors for the clans that we now see. So the idea of the ministry, they reject that notion. They don't believe in Cain or the Christian Bible. And instead follow like this much, much older religion. And really, I think one of the, the biggest kind of characteristics or traits of the ministry is this influencing nature, right? This idea of being really the epitome of the devil on someone's shoulder. Like they like seeing breaking people's beliefs is like a big thing. Getting people to question, establish like authority and religion. So one of the reasons I chose to make Jean Pierre or excuse me, Riley Howard of the ministry is I thought that would be to have that instinct right through blood to question authority and to make others question authority. And then to be forced into the Camarilla, a place where that is sometimes punishable by death, depending on the severity of the prince, but like something really, really exciting, like narratively,

you talked about the ministry being a cult when I think of cult. I mean, there are religious cults, these kind of mystery cults that are, you know, these kind of ancient religions. There's that part of it, but then I'm also thinking of Heaven's Gate, for example, modern cults.

Jonestown.

Right, right. Those kinds of cults. What kind of cults is the ministry?

That is a really, really good question. I think the ministry, especially now where we are finding it, when Riley is turned. Again, is, is kind of on the other side of the successful rebrand. So the ministry made an earnest attempt to join the Camarilla and that didn't work. And again, I, I don't even want to touch that cause it's a whole other rabbit hole to fall down, but just know that the clan slash cult that is the ministry. They make a really earnest attempt to join the Camarilla doesn't work. And so they ended up really falling in with the Anarchs. And so what I have for, for Riley is really like a devastating kind of story of his embrace, but I thought it kind of really narratively Set up like a lot of exciting things. And we'll get to that in a moment. To me, it's really interesting, and it informs the character choices you make.

It seems that lore is super important in Vampire, and it's foundational to character building. So I think it's important that listeners understand it, and that I understand it, so I can ask you informed questions. But to get back to this kind of idea of what kind of cult is the Ministry, I think of cults as being authoritarian, as in there's a leader and they're followed unquestioningly, but then you're also talking about the ministry being rebellious or, or kind of rebelling against authority. How does that work?

That's a really, really interesting question. And maybe internal struggles born of what you just described may have to do with their like unsuccessful attempts to like integrate into vampire society. I think you're kind of acutely picking up on a really good question there. If there is a cult, which again, as you pointed out is like supposed to be centered around like a common belief. If that belief is. F beliefs, what does that look like? And it's not that like the ministry won't believe anything. You know what, actually, if it's okay with you, I pulled an excerpt that I thought was really, really, really good. And this is after a paragraph in which they're kind of describing the like kind of seductive nature of the ministry and their compulsion to kind of pull others to their side of thinking or to question authority. It reads, none of this is to say that the ministry is amoral precisely, quite the opposite. To the ministry mind, questioning is itself a sacrament. Without sin, what value has righteousness? And what is condemning sin but a method of control? The way of the ministry is to challenge the prevailing morality, To ask why is this forbidden and to test the merits of what can be gained by subverting that morality. If it just so happens that challenging what is forbidden can expose a weakness in others that the minister can then turn to their advantage. This is my favorite line of this. It reads, well that's practically creating a divinity in one's own image. So that perversion of thought, the idea that you have to question The unquestionable, uh, and even if you question it and you learn that it's there for a reason you had to have done that I feel like is, is better and more inarticulate and cogent explanation of the dynamic that I've been trying to explain that I can put together like that really encapsulate the like, why is this forbidden being a central question? And when you become a vampire, having your clan's like tendencies put into you like that, yeah, is, is, is as you can imagine it, a lot of those people it trying to all be organized and to achieve the same end has success sometimes, but other times, yeah, it leads to less than successful endeavors.

Let's talk about Riley before and after the embrace. What was Riley doing before it happened?

Yeah, I really, and this is perfect because I've kind of bifurcated Riley into these two, these two sections when I was developing the character. I really started with the kind of pre, like what would lead this person. To be embraced. So in vampire, the masquerade, when someone becomes a vampire, if they are part of the Camarilla, which we've been discussing, which is like vampire high society, in order to turn someone, you need the express permission of leadership. You have to go to the Prince of an area. You need to get, it's basically the paperwork. You need to go through the vampire bureaucracy. They're like stamp of approval. And so often what happens is clans will identify, like in this case, Riley was actually identified, uh, and marked to be turned by clan Toreador when he, he grows up and you'll see this in his childhood. I'm about to explain. He has an affinity for creativity, for art, for drawing. Eventually that turns into fashion. And then on the other side of his embrace, we kind of see like the fallout of that. Yeah, he, uh, Riley grows up with a single parent household. His mother's name is Cara Renee Howard. She is a receptionist at a local pregnancy clinic. She makes just enough. To kind of keep them food secure, but does not have much outside of that. She really relies on the assistance of her sister, Sasha and another character that will come into play momentarily. So Riley grows up on the South side of Chicago and a less than glamorous neighborhood on what I think a lot of folks would define as the rough side of town. And when we meet Jean Pierre, the Toreador, who I feel like in a lot of ways is Riley self actualized in some senses. He is very, uh, feminine presenting. He is a lot more confident within himself, but in these early years, that same feminine femininity really paints a target on his back and he experiences a lot of otherization, a lot of harassment, a lot of things as a result of that. I really wrote this out. If you can't tell, this has like a layers to it, it's really difficult for Cara as a mother to feel any sense of inadequacy and being able to take care of her son that she loves so much. So much so that she takes some of his art unbeknownst to him and she submits it to. The admissions board for a gifted and talented high school. She doesn't tell Riley about this because she doesn't want to get his hopes up. She doesn't want to, you know, she kind of sees this earnest and genuine optimism in him, right? This thing that we see in the children that we love where the world hasn't like broken their like sense of like, You know, the world, uh, the nastiness of the world hasn't hit and she like wants to preserve that as much as humanly possible. So she submits that and Riley is accepted into this gifted and talent school, which means he'll be going to school outside of the neighborhood where he is really struggled. I think he. Has gone into kind of self camouflaging, he's not dressing in the way that he would prefer to. He's very much trying to pass as a lot more masculine than he would be out of sheer necessity, out of like safety of his both psychological and physical health. This is like a survival mechanism that has like activated in him. And I think seeing that in him over time has really affected her.

Would you say that Riley is genderqueer? Or is he just a more feminine man? Like he still identifies as male?

Yes, so Riley, uh, uses he they pronouns. And would identify as somebody who is a femme presenting male. He initially like exclusively used he, him, and this is based off of someone that I know. I like took this from real life, but open that to he, they, because he was being misgendered a lot as, as she, and as somebody who identified as like a male who is just femme presenting, it felt like including the, they might help prevent some of that. So yeah, he's a femme presenting, uh, somebody who would identify as male. But yeah, so he gets accepted into this, this, you know, gifted and talented school, which I think to young Riley is incomprehensible the fact that he wasn't aware that this was even an option. He was not present during the admissions process. He had no idea that his art was taken. So he literally just learns this. One day and is like ecstatic things are going to take as I've been going too well If you I feel like if you're familiar with narrative structure, you know that things have maybe been going a little bit too great A few weeks later Cara in the mail receives an additional letter that has all of the like kind of admissions things He's gonna have to meet with the counselor first and a number of different things as she is sitting on her bed the last Piece of paper that she pulls out of this, this packet that they sent is a financial breakdown of the tuition and the quote that she had in mind, the quote that she had discussed when she was, you know, going through the admissions process because she would didn't want to subject Riley again to disappointment, which is why she didn't tell him about it in the first place. That quote was already unaffordable, was something that she was going to need to figure out how to take care of. And she reads the rest of it. And this is if you have, you know, spent a day in college, you know, what is up? You read this day, like, All of these fees, um, she's looking at the cost for his books, all of these things. And she is like silently weeping. She like feels so bad because she opened this door and presented this opportunity out of like love and support and, and, uh, and wanting to place Riley in a place where he can be a little bit more self authentic and his creativity can go. And so they both have this kind of gleaming moment in the sun where this is happening. And they. Are exchanging ideas and going over the commute. And Riley's talking about all the classes and things that he's hoping to take all the electives. And this is when a, uh, this is my least favorite character in Riley's background by design, right? Like I, again, things have been going a little too well at this point. This is when, and Riley as an adult has trouble remembering this part of his life, but he does remember around this time in general. Uh, this is when uncle Vincent showed up and I'm going to do a verbal, uh, air quote around uncle Vincent, an older gentleman shows up who he sees that his mom has a deep kind of familiarity with. He can by context clues and just by being there, see that there is some, some deep familiarity there. He knows that his mom has been crying a lot, but has not, he doesn't know she hasn't told him about the tuition thing. And suddenly, after a few visits from Uncle Vincent, his mom isn't crying anymore. That initial joy seems to have, like, returned to her of excitement. She has gone back, and Riley noticed this, that, like, they were having conversations about his electives and all these things. And suddenly it seemed like that stopped, his mom became very sheepish, very coy and responding to it. Didn't want to outright have a negative reaction to it, but at the same time harboring that doubt. So he, he's intuitive enough, even at eight to realize that there's something, okay, something has happened to you or something is different. I'm going to pan the camera back just for like, uh, to meta put the story in, to like make this a little bit more concise. So what has happened is that over time, Riley will notice behavior in his mom begin to change. He has all of his life tuition is paid for. In addition, uncle Vincent starts buying him a lot of clothes. Uh, and this is one of the things that'll kickstart Riley's eventual, like love, passion and affection for fashion, but accompanying this, and it's something that Riley looks back now and feels regret about not being more attuned to. Accompanying these gifts and this kind of inflow of money. His mom became more and more distant, seems more and more foggy, he would find her like standing over, you know, the burner in the kitchen with a, uh, like a pan on the fryer, almost pantomiming flipping pancakes, and he has to go and ask her like what she's doing and make sure she's okay and she shakes it off, a very, very long story short, in Vampire the Masquerade, Um, yeah. Um, yeah. You can, a vampire, a kindred could feed a human their blood enough to make that human what is considered a ghoul who is then kind of essentially in all purposes, bound to that person and almost a servant to that person. And we, we learned that uncle Vincent is, uh, has done this to Kara has done this. To his mom, he will not come to conceptualize this. I haven't even decided if he knows this in present day, I wanted to do this because I wanted to have Riley have a brush with the supernatural, a brush with this darker world or the world of darkness so that when he like has these experiences later in life, some of these dots might connect him. Cause I think that might be satisfying narratively to like. Holy shit, like that, you know, Oh my God, that's what

that moment of realization is good, good drama.

It's a lot. I, it's a very kind of complex, like web that I have woven here to go even further. And this is really, really giving your listeners the exclusive, the exclusive tea, Uncle Vincent is Riley's biological father, the relationship, the familiarity, those nuances that he intuitively picked up on were because there was a relationship that existed, Riley's father. When you become a kindred, you are encouraged by the Camarilla to abandon your family, abandon your life. You were dead. You cut all connections. It is very much frowned upon because it is viewed kind of as a threat to the masquerade, which as we've discussed is like one of the highest sins that you can commit. And so upon being turned against his will, Riley's father, unfortunately, has to leave his family. And it isn't until his mom becomes like desperate and reaches out that this connection has gonna be it becomes a entire thing. All of this, by the way, is before he's kindred. This is before finally is it. And the story where we're at, he's like nine or 10, which is why I thought Riley and Jean Pierre was the character to bring to Characters Without Stories, because he feels very like lived in a lot of things that have happened to Riley. Like the, uh, misgendering is something that somebody I'm very close to has experienced. And so there's this like very personal, uh, connection to him.

There's a sacrifice that has to be made. By his mother in order to get him ahead and that sacrifice, he may or may not know about it eventually. He's going to have to make a sacrifice himself, right? When he gets embraced. Is that negotiated? Does Riley know what's going to happen or is this against his will?

It's very much against his will. And it's so sinister, which makes it very like on brand for the ministry because it is so duplicitous in nature. And so almost violating the way that Riley is embraced. Yeah. Riley is embraced by his long term talk therapist. His licensed long term talk therapist is the person who embraces him. He is embraced in what he unwittingly and doesn't know is going to be their final session together. He kind of picked up on a lot of like weird finality in the language that her name is Amelia. Amelia DuPont is using Dr. DuPont is what he would have like referred to her as. You can imagine what this would do to anybody's sense of trust or capacity to trust to have what is supposed to be and what we are all kind of raised. And there's like the sanctity almost right to that relationship. There's this very like out of character and out of the story. I personally have benefited from therapy, highly, highly recommend it. But again, Vampire the Masquerade is described as political horror. And I thought. What if someone took that trust, this kind of indescribable relationship that is developed between therapist and patient and use it for less than less than kind purposes. It was willing to leverage that and it felt very on brand for the ministry.

It also sounds on brand for vampire when I think about the game, I think of like a lot of boundary pushing and these kinds of moral questions and you have this very immoral idea of somebody pushing boundaries, somebody going too far, taking somebody against their will, essentially assault is to me, it's, it makes sense within this kind of story to have somebody that you trust deeply be the one that betrays you in that way.

Mm hmm.

Why was Riley in therapy to begin with?

Well, here's the thing. I'm going to glaze over this. There's an experience that Riley has very young where he is on his school bus. This is prior to the gifted and talented school that he goes to. And unfortunately, the driver of the school bus loses control. And unfortunately, like hits the side of the building. All of the kids get off the bus safely, Riley who is sitting at the backseat is in this bus that's engulfed in flames, and he finds himself, like his reptile brain does the fight, flight, freeze thing, he's frozen, but it isn't with terror, it is with this sincere, genuine sense of awe, like in his exiting of this bus that's on fire and there are police cars coming and people are, you know, obviously running away to become safe, Riley feels like he sees colors deeper and more rich that his hearing and he's a human during this, he feels like this heightened sense, like all of his senses are being really, really stimulated and it isn't until Riley is off of the bus and like, he's listening again to all of the chaos and the sirens. And it takes on this near melodic quality to him in a way that he does not understand. And it takes Riley walking by someone who is like holding a bandage to the side of their face and is walking by who's making kind of a face at him for him to realize that he's smiling. He's like, has this childlike grin happening in this, this is a moment and he's, you know, pretty young when this happens, where he's like, realizes that there, there's some relationship between him and danger and him and these types of things. He just doesn't have the faculties. I think an adult would struggle with that. So certainly as a child, it's something that he, he doesn't understand. Fast forward. This happens again. He has another. Very intense experience surrounding like a disaster that happens in his, this is very, very dark. You know, again, I want to point out, and this is something that is said in the vampire, the masquerade horror books, you almost never play a hero in vampire, the masquerade. By the nature of your existence and the, like, you are required to consume the blood of other people, you can struggle to hold on to your humanity, and that's where I think a lot of the, the really brilliant storytelling is, because I think that even though It is a system in a universe, like, obviously built around, like, vampires and supernatural entities. It is incredibly human. The reason I chose, for example, Amelia DuPont, the doctor, to be Riley's sire, because that idea terrifies me. That fucking terrifies like, the idea! I have this implicit trust. And I sat and I imagined, like, imagine if this, and this is his long term therapist, y'all. This is not somebody he's seen once or twice. That, to me, evoked a type of horror that I had trouble articulating and that excited me. The idea that it felt very real.

What is the relationship with your sire? I'm wondering because if he has to have a relationship with her after she's made this massive betrayal, What is that relationship like? Or can he just avoid her and forge his own path?

Riley ideally would do, in his mind, would do the latter. He would never see Amelia again. I don't think he sees any form of reconciliation. The, like, violation of trust there is so significant. I just don't see a bridge back because it's not only did you, like, breach my trust in a way that is, like, wholly inappropriate and that is entirely, like, Just so, so, uh, just a scummy, scummy thing to do. You also killed me, right? Like I'm also now dead. So thank you for that. I don't see them like finding a way back, but Riley doesn't really have time to conceptualize that because he is abandoned by Amelia. She turns him in the final session and disappears. We'll learn later on that this is instructions that she was provided. This is a litmus test of sort provided by the ministry for Riley. But to him, she kills him. She like does all these things and, and she is gone. And so I think in Riley's mind, if he never saw Amelia Dupont again, it would be too soon. He is doing his best to compartmentalize every part of his life that had something to do with her. Put that in a nice little box and keep that in the back of his brain.

Yeah, I guess my curiosity was about whether or not there was any sort of inborn relationship that had to happen, a sort of compulsion to your sire. I know that happens in other forms of vampire fiction.

Yeah, I think that does exist to some extent. I think that you have what's called a blood bond between you and your sire. Your sire can compel you to do things. Typically you, there's a subservient kind of nature. If you are a kindred lucky enough to have your sire present both pre, during, and post embrace, that's best case scenario. That is you winning the kindred lottery, right? So many tales in vampire fiction, even, even in a lot of the games begin with someone who's turned against their will, thrust into a vampiric society and forced to adapt. And I think that that is where so many of these stories come from because If there isn't a selection process where you're consenting this, the groups of people that are picked are people from very different walks of life who now need to depend on and trust in each other in a way where they're, they're quite literally putting their lives in each other's hand. Um, but no, to the question about the sires, there's definitely a bond there. There are ways you can work to break that, but often you have some level of subservience to, to your sire.

I guess it would be against the masquerade to inform anybody that you were going to turn them. So that always has to be an unknowing occurrence or else it is illegal, essentially.

I'm going to guess just because with, with TTRPG Settings, I like to imagine that every conceivable thing has to have happened at this point. Yeah, right. Right, like everybody guessed that that's the exception. But what's really, really interesting is that like you, you're touching on something that I do think is crucial is that When you are embraced, when you are turned, when you are thrust particularly into the Camarilla, right? The Camarilla has a saying, which is that you being turned into a kindred is only your first embrace. The second embrace, the important one is when you join the Camarilla. That is when they believe that you have fully. Become a kindred. And so you being thrust into such a high stakes political environment where favors are traded, it is like everybody is spying and worried about what everybody else is doing, but is presenting a very nice face as they sip on like blood while a string quartet plays nearby, right? They're all going to very much smile at each other's faces and then immediately plan each other's demise upon leaving. And in that kind of environment, it helps to have an ally. It helps to have any kind of guide. And thankfully, and this is where Riley's story turns and this is where Jean Pierre is introduced. The reason Riley is turned, he is immediately, well, it's not immediate. He is at first identified by clan Toreador. There's a primogen. So a primogen is the leader of a clan in an area, right? So there's a primogen of Toreador in Kansas city, right? Who for the Toreador is kind of the leader. So Riley has a very successful career after college ends up doing a lot of design work. He is featured in a Vogue live stream, wherein he is featured amongst a couple other creators of color. And he's talking about his experiences, which is when he catches the eye of Annalie, who is the primogen of Toreador. Annalie is a black woman who's been a black woman for like 70 or 80 years in America. So she is remarkably kind of unfazed by most things. Uh, it's kind of hard to quantify her resiliency. This juxtaposition that I think, uh, makes Annalie at first identify Riley as somebody who wants to turn, is this real talent for art. Uh, his, his fashion is something that she finds striking. That provokes thought in her, she really truly enjoys this part of her and she would never admit this, that is hoping he might style her or like, you know, help her out in that regard.

You got to show up well to the ball, right?

A hundred percent. And if you can like turn somebody who's been your now professional Vogue stylist, like, it's a good move. She's a smart woman. It's not like a bad plan on its face. However, um, Annalie has had a decades long relationship with one Dr. Amelia DuPont that did not end well. And as is the case in a lot of like vampire interactions, things are very heightened. So to call it a bad breakup, I think is an understatement. This is resulted in a near like blood vendetta that is very weird because they obviously still carry love for each other, but are openly trying to kill. It's a thing. It's a thing that like has existed and has really absolutely nothing to do with Riley at all. None of this. Has to do with him. So I mentioned earlier, and I don't even think I finished. I had an ADHD, like tangent that the ministry, I read somewhere that they would turn to three groups of people, people who had Egyptian descent, people who had red hair, fascinatingly. And if for no other reason than that, they believe Set had red hair. So they're very, they're pro ginger. Yeah. It's one of those things that you roll with. The third group, and this is when I learned this, this is the moment Jean Pierre was born and I learned what the, this third, uh, contingency of people is. The ministry, they will turn humans who have been identified by other vampires to be turned. They will sneak in and that is part of their rub. They want to get in there. And so Annalie has not turned anybody for decades, for over three decades. So she identifies Riley. She is really going through every precaution to cover her tracks. She knows that Amelia is not dead. She knows that what happened is something that she was within the realm of possibility for her. I think Annalie realized she was accepting a risk in turning Riley, but like, Felt compelled in particular after seeing his, his art, his style for fashion juxtaposed with this unapologetic blackness that he brought, he speaks very openly about his experiences in the fashion industry and like the things that he feels like he has had to do that he has not had to, he's very direct about that in a way that Annalie really respects and finds refreshing. So her efforts to conceal this fail, unfortunately. And so this all happens, uh, and Amelia, who has been seeing Riley up until this point, who knows Annalie so well that even before she herself had gone to officially request that Riley would be turned, started seeing him, started navigating what she needed to do to make sure that she would be the therapist that he would see. I'm going to like, as a writer, I just, they're going to take a little bit of a lazy turn here and say she did some cool vampire things to make her herself, Riley's therapist. But yeah, so she identifies this and through her sessions with Riley, she comes to develop like some level of respect for him. The ministry again is about people who are questioning systems, existing systems. And Riley has been like openly doing that using his platform. And even his fashion, his art itself to make statements about the nature of like the Black experience in America, specifically in the experience of those in particular, African Americans who are descendants of slaves. He's really passionate about like speaking to that group. So he, yeah, in this. Really almost century long kind of feud between these two lovers. Unfortunately finds himself in the middle of it is turned by Amelia, immediately abandoned, but then thankfully, and this is where things, this is why this is unusual and where Jean Pierre comes in. He is thrown pity by Annalie realizing that Riley's chances as a member of the ministry, which the Camarilla fucking hates. I don't know if I've expressed that enough, but the camera really does not fuck with the ministry. They are like, you guys are weird cult. I don't know. We hard pass, you know, thank you. But no, thank you to them. So she, she realizes that he's, he will die whether he is a kindred left in the city out to his own devices, not knowing how to feed breaking the masquerade unwittingly, and then being hunted down. Or whatever that looks like. Annalie takes pity and essentially becomes the like foster sire almost to ri knowing that he is going to have to really blend in in order for this to work. Annalie works with Riley essentially to kind of like become and cosplay in some ways Toreador again, because of his choice, and I kind of said this earlier, he is no choice. And any of this deception he's thrown in a, in this space wherein keeping this facade is the only option available. There is no out, I think he's kind of actively looking for that. He's willing to like, again, he has that ministry blood. He can be like, fuck the ministry. And honestly, there are parts of the ministry that would respect that he might actually get, you know, a promotion in some section, but yeah, that, that is. How Riley through Annalie becomes Jean Pierre, the, the switch. It's a lot, there's a lot that is happening. Him being like caught up in to say, I wanted to write like a vampire story that would span near a century. That wouldn't go too deep just because I do not have the wherewithal to be telling like a, a sixth century story. I was not going to go back to the Victorian ages for this. I'm sure, I think Amelia in particular is very, very old. I'm sure she has been around for a long time, probably before the implementation of like modern technology and the industrialization of the world. But like I said, Riley is a very, very young vampire. So when we find him in Philly. He is masquerading, uh, as a Toreador unbeknownst to the rest of the Camarilla. And the really fun thing about this is I am presenting to both the, like my player characters and my storyteller, like. This facade that I think is going to be very fun to play with narratively. I am really going to be digging in because I am playing someone who is impersonating somebody else. And in my mind's thinking, I think Riley will occasionally miscalculate and maybe go to Toreador. Right is maybe kind of taking things to be the extra extreme and just him like finding out calculating that in real time, like learning through context clues, how to be a diva, how to be like a kindred account of the rose, I think will be very fun. Also, his relationship with Annalie is complicated. She's the catalyst for all of this. Had she not selected him, had she not chosen him, had she not carried interest in him? Which he's flattered by. None of this would have happened.

Riley, as a child, had to hide himself. He had to hide part of himself. Riley, when he was turned, has to once again hide part of himself. How does that feel for him?

I think you just hit on like the poetry of the, there's, I wanted like this almost parallel or echo, Riley, his backstory is heartbreaking. It is really like, I felt very comfortable writing. I was raised by like a single parent, so I felt very kind of familiar with what some of the, and I know that my single parent that raised like. Really dealt with that. And since we have, since I have grown up, we have like had really healthy conversations. I was raised by an amazing woman. I was raised by my, my grandmother, but like, I know personally, like, especially as like a black woman, not facing the same, like economic opportunities presented to people with her same level of education, her same level of experience. That she felt the weight of that, of wanting to do better, of wanting to provide better in the tension that that caused again, I think that a lot of things that scare me personally, there's a lot of personal horror and I'm realizing this in real time through talking to you, there's a lot of things that like I personally would find terrifying, like the idea of having no consent, feeling powerless in this, you have been a pawn in a game for years and not even known it. That is how like insignificant you are in the larger space of things. And I think that that lack of certainty, that lack of control, that lack of identity, which I think you touched on, which is something that he has struggled with for a very long time. We will see him struggle with that. And I think we'll see that exaggerated by the ministry tendencies. He already has this compulsion, as you pointed out. And I don't think post embrace any of that is going to improve. Unfortunately, I wish it would, like, ideally I love Riley as a character and I want well for him. Like I want him to live his best life, but he also has a fictional character, like a narrative and so I, unfortunately, like as, as a writer have to torture him a little bit, but yeah, I think you, you pick up on something that. Is those parallels and also like, I think Riley will really struggle with his affection. I'm going to say in very distinct relationship with danger, which is something that I don't think that he still has the ability to articulate everything that he's ever talked to somebody about that with was with Amelia, unfortunately. And now he questions everything. A lot of the work that was done, which I would say, like, out of character as the person writing Riley, I think was good work. I think there was some like foundations laid there for him, but ultimately he, there is, again, there's no recovery from that. If your therapist of years kills you and abandons you, it's just, it's not, you know. You can't, you can't send like a basket of pears and chocolates and a card to like make up for that. There's, there's no coming back for that in my mind.

Yeah. Another thing that I noticed about Riley's story and later Jean Pierre's story is the presence of a lot of strong women. Mmm. I mean, except for Uncle Vincent, who is plainly a villain. You know, some of the women are also villains. Obviously, Amelia is a villain. But you have his mother and his aunt, I imagine, you have Annalie. It sounds like you've written a lot of really interesting female NPCs into his background. You also mentioned that you were raised by a single mother, that you had, you were raised by your grandmother.

Mm hmm.

Is that something that you, you have a lot of women in your life that you're basing these characters on?

Yeah, I was exclusively raised by women in totality, which if you like learn this fact and then go back and listen to the beginning of this episode, back on up to this place will retroactively make a lot of sense, you know, I, and this is something that like growing up around so many strong women. And realizing, I think like growing up as someone who is black, who is queer, who is neurodivergent, God was like, pick a struggle. And I'm like, I saw, I think I picked up on a lot of that. I think it's difficult to be black in America. I think it is. There's a particular difficulty to being a black woman in America. A lot of the things that I would celebrate black women for, for their strength, for the tenacity, for the resilience in a lot of predominantly white cultures are associated with a lot of negative, nasty stereotypes about like angry black women and et cetera. And there are angry black women in Riley's story. And I have written angry black women. But I've written them with the lived in experience of not making them A, like caricatures, B, like a child's drawing of a black woman, or C, a trope, a cliche, or a punchline. Amelia is a villain, but she, nobody is a hundred percent either way. Same with Annalie, and I think that is something Riley will struggle with. The idea, you know, I think he will vacillate sometimes with the comfort and the security that accompanies Annalie and her really stepping in as this maternal figure in his life, juxtapose with the knowledge that had she not had that maternal affection that he values so much, he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be dealing with this. He'd still be alive. So there's something, and I'm unpacking a lot of this in real time. So glad I came. I highly recommend if you want to like really three dimensionalize your character and make them like a living, breathing human, this is the place to do it. I was really, really like happy with where Riley is, but these lines of questions have really, like, I feel bad for Riley. I feel like he's somebody that I know. I definitely relate to that being otherized. I relate, obviously Riley is also Black and queer. Riley's a lot more feminine presenting than I am, but to like, I have met and know a lot of Riley's Riley pre embrace. I have known a lot of just queer people in general, who have had to retract into the smallest versions of themselves in order to survive in order to make it. And that is heartbreaking to watch. It's heartbreaking to experience. And again, I think. I am like picking through this and there's so many core parts of Riley's story. The parts that I think that are the most dark are things that I personally, carry like a fear of. And I think really exploring that through role playing, and I don't know if other folks have had this, like there's an opportunity, I think for catharsis that is almost unmatched in inhabiting this other person. It is much different, right? Than even having an affirming conversation with somebody with the identical experience. Like that's great. But there's something about like stepping into to other people. There's certainly, I guess, the more concise way to say it is there's definitely like a therapeutic quality.

I interviewed a disabled woman who created a disabled character. And one of the things that she mentioned was she wanted to play in a world in which she had to confront ableism because she could be loud about it in the game. She could fight that. Gaming gave her a space where she could be loud and she could fight against things that she doesn't feel like she can in real life. Do you feel the same way?

I'm gonna fucking cry on this podcast. It's like the most beautiful that's ever happened. So like, Oh, heart warmed. I love that. And yeah, certainly, thankfully, like I am someone who has worked in public relations and politics and media and have leveraged a lot of that and have used my voice, dedicated much of my career. I was very up until recently, the end of last year, I worked for the center for health equity for the state that I live in. And so I think for me, there's part of it. That's almost the inverse. Whereas like, I, I think that there's part of some subconscious part of me that I'm now kind of pulling a thread on that maybe wants to like re explore some of these things through the lens of a powerful undead being, even if he did not become kindred. Even if Amelia doesn't exist, Annalie doesn't exist, he goes on. I wanted Riley to feel like a fully developed character. I wanted him the most interesting thing and the most engaging things about him not to be that he has fangs, but more so his journey there. But most importantly, his journey forward, because we find him on a razor's edge, we find him living this lie that because of the nature of who he is and what he's become is becoming increasingly more and more difficult. To keep up and the stakes are death. So I think to some extent that is, that's fine. That's so beautiful. That like touched my heart. The idea of like, I just want to, and this, I just feel so heartwarmed by that. I want to like, Hey, the, the person that I have to go back and listen to that episode and then personally, like cry in private and not mid episode.

Yeah, I believe that's season one, episode five, that's Rachel and her character was Madam Azlu.

Being able to use role playing as a means. To confront a society that you might otherwise feel powerlessness in, which I, I know that I have experienced as someone who's like othered in so many ways. And I don't want to, you know, speak for the, the person that, that did that, that interview and, you know, inject powerlessness into their experience. But I know that creating this space. In which you can enact some of the justice that is so desperately needed in the world where you can really right some of those scales to me. I think those are some of the most satisfying role playing experiences, and I hope that person had such a fucking good campaign. I hope you gave it to the system, to the patriarchy. I hope you fucked shit up. Cause that is, that is so beautiful that just, I love that. I love that she was able to do that. It's a really special thing.

Well, I hope she was able to play that character. Like I say at the end of every show, may all of your characters find their stories. I really do hope that for everyone because we're creating people that we, we long to play and we long to explore that space.

Mm hmm. And again, there's, there's a really no comparable methodology to do this through, right? Like to me, To build a character, to have the autonomy and the power, right. Which is something that like we discussed is kind of in very short supply when you are, otherwise there's something really, really encouraging about it, like I I'll speak, you know, just really quickly on this. I, in the month of, I want to say December, I have no sense of time. I am completely timeline. It could have been yesterday. It could have been three months ago. I. I had a post that I had drafted that I was very nervous about posting to threads. I have done advocacy work on the governmental level. I've done it for elected officials. I am very used to going to even like people in positions of power and telling them things they don't want to hear and yada yada, because that is what I am there for, if I'm an equity advisor. Or in that position, my job is not to make you feel good about our equity efforts is to make sure that they are efficient, right? That they matter and that they aren't window dressing so that we can give ourselves some giant self congratulatory backpack about the ethnically ambiguous people we now have on our website. There's a difference. Between like kind of diversity efforts in earnest and like performative allyship. And so like stepping in to the TTRPG space, coming from where I came, my initial inclination was to just tell it kind of how it was to be like, this is shitty. And this has been shitty for a while. Like, it's not like Dungeons and Dragons or TTRPGs are new by any stretch of the imagination. Magically somehow, even as the community has grown more and more inclusive, that inclusivity in that, that hand, that olive branch, I feel like is not really reached out to racially diverse communities. And as someone stepping into something right with like established patterns. I haven't been here long enough to be complacent. You know, like I haven't been here long enough to be like fine with it. And so I wrote a version of that where I told it like it was deleted that. And I wrote another version that I felt like was maybe a little bit more, I don't want to say tone down, but use, I guess, maybe less direct language. And then I deleted that and decided to go with the first one. I decided in the end, like, fuck it. I feel like coming into this space, like if I enter this space authentically, that's, it's a standard for me to continue to do that, right? Yeah. Like, I don't want to show up as an edited version of myself. I feel like someone who spent a lot of their time like screaming about what feels to me like invisible fires that for whatever reason, I only have the infrared version to see. And like coming into the space, like I've never to this day played at a table with another black player. I've been doing this for like, what, maybe two and a half years now that I've been playing. I've never once, never once have I had the opportunity. And I don't like that. And I'm inclined to like, not only identify it, but to be an agitator of sorts to say, okay, like, I think this isn't cool. Right. Like, I think we may have all grown comfortable with this, but like, I see a lot of posts about diversity and I feel like we might be headed. In a right direction, but in the, in the moment of like posting the threading question that I brought up, I felt this hesitance because I did not see the representation that I would like to see in these spaces. And it's one of the reasons why so many of the key characters, almost all of them in Riley's backstory are African American, are African Americans who are born descendants of United States slaves. I love the idea of these two bad women, these two like absolute killers, right? Who have this like decades long weird thing between them. I think most of us have had a weird thing at a point in our life where you don't really fully understand your feelings for someone. Yeah. It was important to me to have that representation, even in NPCs. You know, we may never see Cara Howard. Who plays this huge part is one of the like key figures. She is still alive. There's this whole thing that happens where she and Uncle Vincent that are supposed to show up to Riley's college graduation and they don't, and the conversation that they have leading to that is the last conversation that he has with the two of them. And then they, they have disappeared into the ether. So his mom, Cara is still alive. She is still out there, but we may never meet or see her, but it felt right. It felt good. I feel confident in my capacity to write a three dimensional black woman with both merits and flaws, good and bad sides. Like we all are. That's the kind of representation we need. I did not want, and this is kind of a separate thing, to present a series of black angels who are all superheroes, who all never did anything wrong and we're completely saints because nobody is like that. But like walking that line and knowing that I am. Essentially writing this character, no matter what for a predominantly white audience. Right. And so this is an opportunity for me to maybe show an audience and family dynamics and cultural things that maybe they aren't familiar with. And that's a really special opportunity. And again, like having that lived in experience, I have enormous respect for black women. I have this thing. Like older Black women where I fall right into line, right into line. Like if you are Black, if you're a mom, if you're an aunt, if you're older, it's just like, it is like this respect thing. And so it was really, really fun to be able to like create a predominantly Black cast in Vampire in the Masquerade, which to me, like, I just, I don't know that I have seen. I know that we have had a Black character on New York by Night, the actual play, but. And in the LA by night as well, we've, we've had some black representation. Riley is here to just be a hot mess. And so Jean Pierre, excuse me, I've created and started with Riley before the transformation and built him out and built his family and built all of the things leading up to his embrace. And then retroactively put in the relationship between Annalie and Amelia. Man, I thought it would be good. Just to show the extent of Amelia's commitment to this weird, you know, decades long thing that she would know before Annalie had even gone to the Camarilla that she would know her well enough to swoop in. But yeah, it is to me provides, yeah, just an amazing role playing opportunity. I don't get and black creators. I feel like don't have enough spaces and places to talk about the black experience comfortably. And I think that like me doing this through TTRPG is a little bit like when your dog is sick and you like have to give your dog a pill. And so you like put it in a cube of cheese. It's like a little that, but if that is the sugar, if, if vampires are the sugar through which I can like, you know, administer some of the medicine and sharing some of the black experience. I mean, if you listen to Riley's stories, there's no way that Jean Pierre, even being like a new identity and changing. Is not foundationally, fundamentally affected by, by a Riley's growing up. And it's not like becoming a Toreador made him suddenly a different race. He is still a black man in America. The funny thing is that, you know, if you're a black kindred to the average kind, you just look like a black person. They, they don't necessarily know that you could, you know, eviscerate them or eat them and all of these things. So it's not like stepping into the world of darkness precludes vampires of color. You're not suddenly in this like 60s Star Trek esque like racial utopia. You still very much deal with the race issues. And I want to do that in a way that like, I feel like people won't turn away from. And if vampires is the way to do that, then, you know.

You talked about the political maneuvering of the Camarilla as kind of a chessboard. If this is a chessboard, what kind of piece is Jean Pierre? What is his role on that chessboard?

I'm going to say Riley was a pawn. And obviously, like Riley, again, had no agency, which is why it's so scary. It's because it's like that could happen to you. Suddenly, without any choice that you have made in your life. You're put in a situation forced to maintain a facade, which I imagine would be very, very stressful. So I think Riley, even though he wouldn't self describe that as the person who like breathed him into life he was upon, I'm going to say Jean Pierre is probably the queen. I'm going to say we're meeting Jean Pierre after some time as Riley as Jean Pierre. So this isn't immediately after the switch. The dust is very much Settled. In a lot of ways, this facade has worked well enough. Does not mean it's foolproof. I have no doubt that with the skills of the people in the room, with the stories that are telling us, I don't know that this is going to be a secret for forever. Um, but I think Riley having Settled into Jean Pierre in a way that Riley felt like he could never settle into Riley, I think in going back to him being younger and more feminine presenting, he views this opportunity to become Jean Pierre. As he really tries to silver lining it. I mean, being in a position where you're that powerless, you've had no say over everything is like, at least, Hey, I have this opportunity to become a new person. And it is definitely experienced. I think one of the things that is frustrating for Riley out of the masquerade is that he isn't as like forward facing as he used to be right now that he's Jean Pierre, like obviously Riley isn't posting to Riley's Instagram. Kindred have different feelings about social media, but one of the things he's adjusting to is like going from being someone whose talents were, you know, significant enough to land being on a Vogue live stream. So now being like, you know, a fashionable, but ultimately like, yeah, not on the main stage or on channel five level of presence. And I think he'll adjust to that. He's already someone that I think has had to navigate a lot of like code switching within his life. And that has really primed him for success in the Camarilla. Uh, to tell you like a little bit about him mechanically. So again, for framing in Vampire, the Masquerade, you have disciplines, which are things like Auspex, which is like seeing and hearing things. There is fortitude. They're like, uh, a lot of different things. Riley has Auspex in one, which I think I said, he has the heightened senses. This is the really, really cool thing in vampire, the masquerade. There are certain skills that are amalgamations where you can only unlock them if you have skill points in two disparate categories and. because he is ministry, right? And not Toreador is not limited or restricted, which is something he has to be incredibly careful about because doing some of these things would in essence, blow his cover because I think folks would be like, how the hell did you, Hey, hold on a second. So Obfuscate is his main power, which is all of the stealth things, uh, in vampire, the masquerade. So he has two powers. One is unseen passage. He can essentially turn invisible. And as long as he's quiet, if he's still, it's even less like the people. So Riley has, as you can imagine, this would come in handy in a game of political chess with a bunch of like pompous vampires who think they're smarter than you, like, but the one that he has, that is the mix. So I needed to have points in manipulation, which is Riley's highest skill and obfuscate, which is the skill I just described. Gives him something called chemistry or chemistry. I'm not sure on the pronunciation. This is actually something I've rarely seen as a power in vampire, the masquerade. And there was another reason I chose the ministry. I wanted to explore some of these corners, but essentially, uh, what it reads is the vampire can create a brief, but vivid hallucination. Distracting and drawing the attention of those affected. A hallucination can affect any single sense. It can be visual, auditory, tactical, and it occurs long enough to make an impression on a person before ceasing. The user decides on the specifics of the hallucination, though due to its brief nature, it cannot convey more than something glimpsed. So you couldn't, I couldn't make like a fake ID or something, but I could make the sound of someone calling someone in a different room or make someone feel momentarily like they were drowning or, or something like that. I thought that would be both of those things. Well, all three of them, the heightened senses, being able to turn fucking invisible, like at will, but just such a dope vampire power. I love that. Can't wait for that. I've never done it before. So excited for that. And then the chemistry, being able to like manipulate the senses of vampires too. It is not just humans. You can change the senses of vampires. And I'd like to think that that is how he has stayed successfully subterfuge in the Toreador for so long as like a very skillful and strategic manipulation of those skills. That's why he's giving Queen energy.

But he has to hide this chymistry power from everyone because it's interesting. That's a power. You could use it to distract and manipulate, but you could also use it just to be flashy.

I think, especially if no one knows that you have it, right? I think that's a huge thing. The last thing that Riley has, and this is specific. To the ministry, the ministry are sometimes again, because of their association with Set are called Settites or serpents. And so the skill that he has, and I learned about this today, cause I purchased the new player's guide, which is available, this is not sponsored, but I simp for vampire, the masquerade. The eyes of the vampire turned into a slitted serpent, like orbs able to freeze a mortal meeting the vampire's gaze in place. The user can even mesmerize other vampires with this power, though. It's shorter lived, but a mortal, you can do it. As long as you maintain eye contact with, you can free somebody in their stops, which I thought I'm like, Oh, the application, I think in general, the opportunity for hijinks are high. I think being invisible. Being able to make people hallucinate things from invisibility, which is definitely something you will see. I gave him a tool Set that I thought would be fun to play with, but I also thought that he would, it naturally kind of develop over time. Then, you know, I keep calling him Riley. I'm like, Jean Pierre has the, even I gotta get used to it. It's going to be very interesting playing this character playing. And I've never done this before. I've never played a character under an assumed identity. So I, I think it's going to be fun. I'm excited to see how this represents itself in the campaign, but it is such an exciting prospect. Like I said, for so, for so many different reasons, like Jean Pierre, I think you are going to love his fashion when you see him, I'm going to be doing it up or for Jean Pierre and you know what, and I wanted to say this, I wrote this in my notes that I didn't even need because you have such great questions and my brain was already like a shaken up pop can.

Now, in Jean Pierre's life as a vampire, he depends on human blood. What is that like for him, being relatively new to being a vampire, how did that feel for him in that transition? And I think most humans would balk at that a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right there. I think it's few and far between that someone like is turned and immediately is like, Yeah, give me some of that blood! Yeah. So yes, he has a very human reaction to it. He spirals because he is abandoned by Amelia and not immediately scooped up by Annalie. Annalie thinks about it for a minute because it's a big decision. It's her ass, too. If he gets found out, and she is found as complicit, her age, her status, none of that matters. She is in the eyes of the Camarilla, just as much of like a little rule breaking troublemaker. So there is this point in between, immediately after Embrace, where he doesn't understand and is spiraling. It isn't until he is about to, like, strike and feed. Annalie is having him followed, you know, and watched. And he is on a walk. And he doesn't understand. Without someone to explain these compulsions to you, imagine just having an instantaneous craving for human blood. And without the knowledge that you, it's like, it's a very tough concept to wrap your head around. He is struggling with it. When you don't eat, As a vampire and vampire, the masquerade, it affects your humanity. There is something called the beast, which is the more kind of primal thing inside all of us. It's different in each person. What's really fascinating is that storytellers will often voice the beast of specific characters. Everyone's beast is telling them something different, you know, is gnawing at you in a way, and every kindred has a different relationship to that. So it's, it was really, really interesting. The whole, the whole beast thing, but because he is not fed, he is not like full turned into the beast. There is a name for that that is escaping me. I can't remember, but there is a name for once you have completely succumbed to the beast into my knowledge. I believe that that is almost entirely irreversible. I don't think it's something you can come back from. So he is. About to pray, he like goes to a bar. He goes to like a gay bar meets a guy, they go back to this guy's apartment. And knowing that like an untrained and un guided doesn't even understand that he is a kindred yet. I think he might be developing. I mean, the, the, I think the thirst for blood eventually dots, you might be like, wait a minute. Hold on.

I feel like I need to explain for people who are listening the way that you licked your teeth. You're like, I have fangs now.

Wait a second. Hold on, I forget this is mostly an audio medium. My bad. Thank you for explaining that bit. Cause I probably done a number and I'm a very like expressive. Facial person, but yeah, so he, you know, is going to eat this guy and like having an understanding that he is confused. Kind of waiting to see what is going to happen. I think there's part of Annalie that hopes that this kind of self corrects. She has this like, kind of almost magical thinking belief. Like, well, maybe it'll self resolve. Some part of her knows that she's going to intervene, but the levity of this and the commitment that this would require from her is not something she takes lightly. So it is not up until Riley is about to kill this poor guy that he is brought home. He has no cognition of this. They go in his mind where he is making out with this guy to suddenly in what feels like a moment, he is being pulled off. By someone he doesn't know and he has mouth is dripping in blood, understandably confused by the situation. It's, uh, hard for him to, to deal with it is then that he is taken to Annalie. A really cool part of character creation and vampire. The masquerade is that every vampire, every kindred chooses a predator type. And this predator type gives you different kinds of skills and abilities and does things on your character sheet. But narratively and thematically, this is a long list of the different means through which vampires feed on, on humans. And you are selecting, how do you feed? How does your vampire stay alive? You have to eat, even if you eat rats, which is a thing, even if you eat blood out of blood bags, blood out of blood bags, especially like the longer blood has been outside of a human, the grosser it is. So there's kind of this like built in de incentivization. But there are people who, you know, have maintained, I think, like connection to their humanity long enough to do that, which is great. Jean Pierre is what is called a pursuer, which is a predator type that I, Aetherius learned about today in the new player's guide. It was like, what? Okay. I want to, this is what I want to do. So the description for pursuer is. Some people will never be believed while others will never be missed. You study your victim, learning their routine and whether they can disappear without a hue and cry. Then you stalk and pursue your victim throughout the night, only striking when your sensibility and hunger reach their most delicious pitch. So he has become someone who is identifying the folks he doesn't like. I think the first couple of folks that he feeds on are noted white supremacists that he has identified and he stalks these people. He has a skill in shadowing, which is just like being able to follow people. And again, he can turn invisible, which I cannot wait for is going to be such a cool thing to do. That is how he feeds. He identifies people. There is almost this, like, pseudo diet, sugar free dexterism to it, wherein he is, like, there's, like, this false sense of justice he feels like he's getting from targeting, like, shitty people, like, if at least I'm gonna eat, if I'm gonna potentially kill somebody, I would rather do that than, like, a, you know, beloved kindergarten teacher or something like that. I would much rather take the person, you know, who's screaming hateful rhetoric, who's using slurs, who is, you know, doing all these dangerous things. Those are the people he has decided to pursue and eat. I thought it was just like a fun kind of take. Previously, I've done things where there's the Sandman, wherein you wait until somebody is sleeping and you go in. There are the people who are Alleycats, who are like the, kind of like the Pursuers, but they're a little bit more improv y with it. They don't do the, like, legwork. They don't really care.

They're opportunists.

Precisely. I like the idea of like making him a pursuer, I think, in a space where control is just in his eyes been ripped from him so many times in his life. The idea that he can take this thing, which in him, he does, he has a very complicated relationship. As I do, I think a lot of younger vampires do with the hunger, because you are still close enough to being a human. Or that doesn't look like a bag of Doritos to me. That looks like Sarah from accounting. It's very difficult for me to associate like her humanity when you're that young. I think the older you are, the more people look like cans of soda, right? The more that they are just beverages to be consumed. And I think the way that he has found a way to reconcile with the feelings of powerlessness. And this hunger that he resents, he doesn't enjoy being dead or being a monster. The only way that he has found a way to turn this around is to use it to target people that he thinks are shitty. It's like approaching death note y. He's really given himself a sense of self righteousness that I think accompanies like a danger, you know, that you have appointed yourself like judge and jury. But he has Annalise permission. He has the green light. She's supplying him with like any time that like, you know, it comes upon her desk. There's somebody who is like, they, I think have like stopped a lot of potential terrorist acts. I like the idea of this force, a secret force of black vampires who are just holding it down in the dark of night, unbeknownst to everybody. And I love it. I love it. So Annalise. I, when I wrote that, I'm like, she, she's on board. She loves this. This is a reiteration that she made the right choice in rolling the dice. This is a connector between them.

Jean Pierre, what was the last great meal you had?

Mm, Jean Pierre would look at this. You know, he's very like expressive with his hands when he's happy. I forget we're in a podcast. I'm doing like the. If you're familiar with gay snaps, you know, what's up, if you have even an inclination of clear culture, you know, the gay snaps. Yeah, last meal, I would say probably last Tuesday. He was 6'5 very, very, very like muscular built, crazy attractive. I'm sorry, I'm getting distracted. His name was Winston. So I'm going to say Winston. This is my last best meal.

Do different people taste different? Are there, are there good tastes and bad tastes?

Girl, yes. Let me tell you. Do not go out here just biting anybody. Some of these can't like, I, it'd be too young to have adopted like all the vampire supremacy nonsense. But like some of these, you, they're nasty. There's something to avoid. I can smell. What someone will taste like before I taste them. So I've become like a bit of a sommelier for a couple folks, but some people taste divine. It tastes like childhood birthday Christmas. I can't even explain to you. Think of your happiest moment, take that, throw it in the trash, double it by 20. And it's, it's the greatest thing ever. I don't recommend it. This life is kind of hell on the okay side of things is there. There's some tasty people. Other people taste like warm garbage that's been left in the sun for too long. And what's crazy is you sometimes get resonance from folks. You can absorb from them. If someone is particularly melancholic and you eat them, you might not be like the most fun person to be around for like a couple hours on that. But yeah, I think if you're careful, I have what I would describe as impeccable taste in both men and the meals that I have, but I mean, each of us makes mistakes. You know, I was going to say we're all human, but that's not true, is it?

If you were going to describe Winston as a glass of wine, what are the notes?

Oh, yes. We are getting top notes of comfortable with his feminine side. So. We aren't picking up any of those, uh, toxic masculinity, low notes. He is nice to his mom. And I'm trying to think about how to translate that into, I don't know. I'm going to say he was buttery. He was like a buttery. Sweet Chardonnay, such a sweetheart. A little bit too attentive. I have gotten rid of the phone that he had my number for, but a hundred percent, 10 would recommend would diet again. Yeah. Is a tasty, buttery Chardonnay with his mouthfeel impeccable. Love Winston.

Aetherius, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. I wish that I could talk to you for even longer, but unfortunately, I can't edit more than two hours of podcast.

I felt that so hard. I get it. I understand. Yes. Thank you for having me. Like I said, this was so much fun to me when I learned about Characters Without Stories and I listened to episodes. Conceptually, I just find it so satisfying. I love listening to it and hearing other people. Like, obviously I, if you've listened to any of the last, like two hours of me talking without breathing, you know, that I have like this affinity for creating characters and particularly for vampire. And I think it's like a really special thing that you're doing. You're allowing folks to, to share this side of themselves. I don't think we always like accredited as such, but like. There's a lot of creative and artistic intent that goes into these things that goes into writing and creating another person that is to say nothing of then inhabiting said person, like breathing life into them. And I think it's very, very cool what you do here, please, literally anytime I will drop from the ceiling like Tom Cruise mission, impossible style. This was a complete blast. I am so excited. I cannot wait for you to like meet Jean Pierre. Maybe I'll come back after, no, wait, wait. I don't know if it works like that. But like Jean Pierre, we will eventually, he's, he's going to be a thing. And so that'll be super interesting. Maybe I'll come back with another character, cook somebody else up. I have some more strong Black women I think I'd like to write.

Awesome. Do you have anything that you'd like to share with my listeners?

Oh, a hundred percent. Yes, yes, yes. If you love mysteries, thriller, horror, all of that good stuff. You can find me on Twitch. I am at Twitch vampire underscore Himbo and then on Instagram and threads, which to me are like the leftist, gay, commie, fun, like social media sites. I am vampire Himbo without the hyphen, but yeah, come on over, follow me on Twitch. I am having such a fun time. If you spend even an hour of your time with me as a content creator, it is imperative to me that I like meet that commitment, that I give you something that our relationship between viewer and entertainer. Is reciprocal and that I'm providing you something worth your time. You could be doing so many things, but to be here with me or even to be here with us as such an honor. So yeah, follow me on threads. That's where I post everything. My content creation schedule, but the vampire underscore Himbo on Twitch. Yeah. That's where the fun happens. That's where the magic, where the magic comes to die.

For my recommendation, this episode, I'd like to podcast called Gimme Da Loot. In this episode, Aetherius said he'd never played at a table with another Black player. Here's a table where that's not a problem. Featuring a diverse cast and an engaging world peppered with fantasy versions of our modern culture, Gimme Da Loot is a hip hop inflected actual play. I just started listening to it, and I'm really enjoying it. Go check them out! I started a newsletter. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects like my current all woman actual play, and be notified when a new episode drops, you can find the sign up form in the show notes or on my website. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners. Your recommendations help me immensely. Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word. I am so grateful. You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, BlueSky, Instagram, and Facebook as Characters Without Stories. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories or follow the link in the description. Thank you and may all your characters find their stories.