The game is now over...

[Morrigan]

But it isn't completely finished until we have heard your stories. Please post here, both your backgrounds and IC stories, and also how you think your characters story ends...

Please also let me know if you want to make any of your forum public for people to read and/or any scenes that you did.

[Sir Mogilovich]

Please make all my forums public.

This is my background, I'm still to shattered to write the Epilogue, it will hopefully come soon.

Semyon was born in a small village near Vladivostok in 1915. This was a chaotic time. The country was in the grip of revolution and war, but all that politics was far away from his life. His father was a Vor V Zakone, a Thief in Law, the Russian mafia long before the term mafia became popular. To become a Vor a man has to be initiated in prison or a gulag. On one hand, this meant that the Vori were the toughest and meanest sons of bitches around, on the other, they spent most of their time going in and out of jail.

His father knocked up a girl in a small village near Vladivostok whilst using the village as a base of operations to smuggle drugs and tainted vodka. In February, right in the middle of a horrible winter, she gave birth to triplets. All three outlived their mother that night. For the first three years their grandparents raised them in the village. It was a very harsh environment to grow up in, still, at least they had people who cared about them. The problem was, under the first few years of Communism their grandparents could no longer look after three energetic young boys. They had to give two of them up for adoption. Roma got to remain under their care.

The two boys got taken to Vladivostok. This was a really bad time to be up for adoption. There was chaos, there was war, and no one had the time to give the boys proper care. They lived in a boarding house that hardly even had enough resources to keep them alive. In a city where temperatures in winter drop below 50 and you would often get six meter high snowfalls, this meant a very low survival rates for orphans. The boarding house very quickly became little more than a place to spend the night, for all intents and purposes they were street kids. By the time Semyon and Vasili were 8 they were already mean little fuckers, the fell in with a gang of street kids. The gang did petty crime and got into fights. They would pull off complicated heists to get their grubby little hands on bottles of cheap as shit vodka. The vodka alone killed a couple, when the cops got their hands on any of them, the beatings they would receive often crippled, sometime killed. Semyon got caught once, he was still only 8. The cop beat the living shit out of him, he kept hitting him with the butt of his rifle till he thought Semyon was dead. It was a harsh time, for everyone. Vasili was always the intelligent and cunning one. He never got caught. By the time the brothers were 10, they ruled the gang. Vasili was the brains, Semyon was the brawn. It was the ancient war of the kids versus the adults.

When the brothers were 13 they became men. There was a war going on, the City Central boys against the Naval Kids. The CC boys were all the orphans, the NK were the kids of the many marines stationed at Vladivostok, ready to go to war against Japan. The CC boys were much tougher, Semyon in particular would just keep going and going, no matter how much punishment he took. One of the NK boys stole his father’s gun. Next time the two warring factions met he shot Semyon, the bullet hit him in the shoulder. That day, the NK kids went back to their families and schools. For the CC boys, it was no longer a game. Semyon was taken to a hospital and treated with no complications. There would not be anymore wars for the kids. There would not even be revenge. Now, it was pure survival. They started to have to avoid the equivalent of social services in the Soviet Union. In Soviet Russia, they used the cops. The Soviet Cops were just as likely to kill you as to arrest you.

When he was 14 a bullet caught Semyon in the back of the leg, the cops captured him and social services relocated him to Moscow. He would never see his brother again. Semyon adapted. There was little choice in the matter. He was finally placed in a foster home. Within the first week his new brothers tried to bully him, so he fought back, there were three of them but he just kept taking their punches and dealing out punches of his own. Eventually all three were down. The eldest had a broken jaw, the all had broken noses, the youngest, his age, took a hit in the temple, he was knocked out, never quite the same when he woke up. Semyon shrugged his shoulders and simply left. A month living on the street and he was rolling with another gang of young misfits. This time it was more organised. Their leader was getting orders to run small time jobs for the Vori.

At 15 Semyon got his first stint in prison. His crew robbed a small liquor store, the owner had a gun, Semyon got shot in the back and went down. He had already caught the eye of the Vori. During his first stint he got his first stint he got his first prison tat. This made him an associate of the Vori. Prison was tough. He would get into a fight, break the dick of an inmate who would try to rape him, then get beaten to within an inch of his life by the guards. What made him special was that he always had that last inch of life left. No matter how many times he got beaten, or shivved, he simply survived. He was cut loose only when he was 18. He wore many more tats by this time. He left prison to have organised crime waiting for him with open arms. Having earned his name in prison the Vori took him in, not a full member but working for them. He only made it one year on the outside. The Vori used him as an expendable enforcer, all brawn no brain. By this point Semyon simply did not care. He did the only things he knew how to do and made no complaints. He wasn’t happy or unhappy about life, life simply was. The Red Army was used ambush the operation he was a part off. Twenty gangsters in a warehouse full of drugs and illegal firearms had a shoot out with the fucking army. The leaders got away, the rest were simply left as cannon fodder. They were over powered and gunned down.

This time Semyon went away to do serious time. He got sent off to a gulag in central Siberia, the type of sentence few survive. The weather was actually a little bit nicer than that of his hometown. For an associate of the Vori who had proven himself, this meant full membership. Semyon got his stars, became a Vor, he didn’t even know that he was just like his father. Finally he had complete respect of his peers. He had all the luxuries a man could have in a Gulag. All the contraband he could want, special privileges. Within the next six years he established a name for himself. There were men who were stronger, faster, more cunning, but no one was as tough. The problem was, when you’re the toughest motherfucker in the yard, everybody wants to take you down. For the last year of his service it was all the same. Each time new prisoners came in he would beat them down. A LOT of people were going into the gulags those days. Finally, there came the great call. The Red Army needed shock troops. They gave permission to prisoners to join the front line in the war against Hitler. The Vori are not allowed to join the army, to work under any government is a betrayal of their sacred vows. However, Semyon could clearly see that if he stayed that he would eventually be taken down. At least at war there was chance and possibility.

He was sent to the front line to die. The bastard just wouldn’t die. He was damn good with small arms. He had what it took to survive under very harsh conditions. He was just a damn good soldier. After three months of combat a Commander was gathering a special unit, tough bastards to be sent behind enemy lines. He got picked. Him and two squads of tough as nails soldiers were flown over the front lines and parachuted down into the Western front. The Red Army needed intel but they also wanted to show off that their soldiers fought on all the fronts of the war. Cut off from the Motherland the troops functioned at greatly reduced capacity. They killed a lot of Nazis but eventually they got overwhelmed. The Nazis gassed the then shot them down as they retreated. Semyon was taken to a POW camp. Here he met (Hamish). They weren’t there long before (Hamish)’s sister broke them out. Semyon was shot in the stomach as they were escaping. They took him to France to recover. Here he very quickly fell for (Anna). She rejected his advances which only made him want her more. His romances to this day were restricted to dirty fucks with street girls. There was never any romance, this left Semyon quite smitten in the streets of Paris. The Brits left and Semyon, left heartbroken, made his way back to the Soviet line. Being solitary he was able to avoid detection. He was quite happy to hide and live off the land in solitude. At times he felt himself being watched but he persevered. Eventually he made his way back to the Soviet line, much to the amazement to many a soldier and officer. He was in Berlin when Hitler was finally defeated. Semyon stayed in the army, he got married to some street bimbo he knew from before going into the gulag but she only wanted him for the security he would provide. Semyon and Katya had one kid, a son, named Boris. In 1950 his skill as a soldier was finally acknowledged.

He was accepted for Spetsnaz training. At 35 Semyon was already a seasoned and decorated soldier. The majority of the training came easily to him, but there was one asshole officer who just had it in for anyone who spent any time in a gulag. He kept riding Semyon’s ass but Semyon just kept taking it. No physical punishment could take him down, so this officer started spreading rumours and belittling above and beyond everyone else had to endure. Finally, Semyon snapped. He turned around and knocked that prick on his ass, breaking his beaklike nose. During the night the officer came for Semyon. He had three Spetsnaz soldiers with him. Semyon was no match for them. They took him out into the Siberian forest near which they were training. It was the middle of winter. First they beat him down. Then the officer cut off both of his trigger fingers. Before they left him to die, the officer shot him, once in the belly, once in the balls. After an hour of bleeding in the snow, Semyon started moving. Tomsk was only a few days away, but the snow was deep and he was bleeding freely. He didn’t even think of what would remain of his testicles, just survival. One foot in front of the other.
He knew that he would die. He was dragged out here in his sleeping clothes. Not even a knife, nothing to make a fire with.

“Why don’t ya just lay down in the snow and die? You know you’re gunna.”
Semyon was too out of it to question the gruff voice that came out of nowhere.
“One foot in front of the other. I’ve lived through worse. Gotta survive, nothing else matters. One foot in front of the other.”
“True. Nothing else matters. You got balls, I’ll give you that.”
“HAH! I probably don’t even have those anymore.”
“Well, you’ll survive the night, you just won’t live.”
Then the world went black. It was 1950, in the middle of the Russian winter when Semyon Mogilovich finally died.
When Semyon woke up, he found a grizzled man with a long beard and tattered clothes.
“You’re a vampire. Don’t believe me, then just walk out into the sun and fry, no skin off my bones. You need blood to survive, animal will do till you grow much older. Your blood carries power within in, explore it yourself. There are vampire communities, go into any city, you’ll stumble upon them. Wanna know bout them and their rules, ask em yourself. Sun’ll kill you, stakes in the heart’ll paralyze you. Fire, bad. The rest you can figure out on your own. See ya kid.”
With those words he turned into a wolf and loped away. Semyon was bewildered, he did not know what to think. The cold wasn’t killing him anymore though. He checked his wounds, all healed. Almost all that is. He found that he was missing one testicle, and his trigger fingers haven’t grown back either. Otherwise all healed. Could’ve been worse. He figured that he survived so far, all he had left was to keep on surviving.

He spent the next five years in the frozen taiga in the middle of Siberia. He had had enough of human society for a while, it finally killed him after all. He took it slow, tested his abilities, and tested his weaknesses. The problem was, after a while, he did not know what to do next. The only things he knew in life were crime and war. He wasn’t going to be much good at crime no more, what’s the use of criminal on Russian streets who couldn’t even fire a gun? Still, he found that he was even tougher than he was in life so he was certain that he could at the very least survive.

When he returned back to Moscow he found that life was very different. It was now the Cold War and the country was settling down. His wife had remarried, which didn’t surprise him, all kids raised in the streets adapt fast. He didn’t bother her. The biggest change was in the criminal world though. To the Vori, all those who served in the war were Suki, scum whom they would not allow back. This meant that a new wave of organised crime hit Russia. New gangs rose up who embraced all the displaced soldiers. These gangs were much more adaptable and were able to take a lot of power away from the Vori. You no longer needed to get your tats in the gulags to get any kind of power. They were carving out a brave new world for organised crime. Another five years flew by, years filled with violence and manoeuvring. Semyon stopped counting the amount of times he’s been shot by now. He already had a reputation for living through injuries that would have killed many other men.
It was only after five years in the capital of Russia that Semyon finally stumbled upon another vampire. They were trying to remove a rival gang from their base in a factory. The fighting was heavy, Semyon had to be part of the strike team since he was useless at range. He turned a corner to find himself frightened for the first time in his existence. The man that came at him was hardly intimidating. He was a fucking business type, but it felt like he was a rabid wolf and Semyon was just a puppy. The man was on Semyon before he could react. He was amazingly fast, but once Semyon started fighting back he had little chance. Semyon could simply take a lot more than the man could deal out. When the man was suitably beaten down he backed off and started to talk. Semyon was an unknown vampire in the city, he had no introduction. When the stranger determined this fact he took him to see the Prince.

Semyon truly did not enjoy the vampire society. It was quickly determined that he was a perfect candidate for a Hound. So the Sheriff put a leash on him. He did not care enough about politics to join a covenant. He found it far too hard to have to do the Sheriff’s bidding whilst at the same time keeping his links in the mafia. Yet he did not want to burn the links to the only life in which he was comfortable in. The Sheriff used him like a dog. He was now being pitted against being that he could not always match. Furthermore, the ones that he couldn’t beat down, tended to carry grudges. To add insult to injury, he found that his gang activity was encroaching on other’s territory. He couldn’t make a move without being hit by one wall or another. For a while he stuck it out, he was a survivor after all.

1980 finally gave Semyon his chance to escape the shithole situation he was in. The border restrictions were finally lifting and the greater world was opening up. For gangsters especially, Semyon joined the migration of Russian gangsters to London. The city was perfect for him. Organised crime did not use guns. English gun laws were so restrictive that it was simply not worth it for anyone to possess a gun. Here, Semyon was at a great advantage. He was free from the bonds of Moscow, he was set up with his own branch of a Russian mafia being established there, and he would no longer be getting shot on regular occasions. At first it was a constant battle, he had to displace the already established gangs as well as battle other newcomers. It is during these battles that he met the other members of what was later to become the Carthian Mafia. At first he fought against the other vampires in the organised crime business, but eventually they grew to respect each other. Eventually, the annoyance at the restrictions of the Vampiric society brought the four of them together. It was not long after they combined their powers that the Carthian Mafia were quite severely kicked out of London. So they went for New Zealand, one of the most promising of the colonies, with hopes that they wouldn’t be so suffocated by a younger society.

[Alexei Karpov]

Final survey results are done, so feel free to make my forum public now.

[Sponsored content]