Several of these characters first appeared in the New York by Night supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade.
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Playable Characters
General
The newly Embraced fledgling.
- Bittersweet Ending: You manage to survive the Second Inquisition and build a coterie but are now just a Blood Bound agent for Thomas Arturo. Verges on being a Downer Ending depending on whether you think death is better than slavery.
- Given that the Fledgling completely disappears in Shadows instead of running around doing Arturo's bidding, it implies that the Fledgling is dead and refused Arturo's offer, making this a Downer Ending.
- Defiant to the End: Shadows of New York implies that the Fledgling refused Thomas Arturo's offer and died for it.
- Fate Worse than Death: The Fledgling becomes blood bound to Arturo.
- Fire-Forged Friends: What you attempt to build among the city's Kindred.
- Foil: To the Bloodlines Fledgling. They are not nearly as powerful or influential or able to change the politics of the city.
- The Heavy: This is the job you have under Sophie and becomes the one you have under Thomas.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Each playable character has a default name (Eric for the Brujah, Amanda for the Ventrue, and Lamar for the Toreador), but the player is given the opportunity to substitute a different name if they prefer.
- Naïve Newcomer: You don't know what's going on or who to trust.
- Unwitting Pawn: You seem to be this for Sophie Langley but are actually for Thomas Arturo.
The Brujah (Eric)
A Hot-Blooded Asian American man Embraced by a girl he hooks up with at a club.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: What he has to do to his ex-girlfriend Jessica to save her.
- Morality Pet: He still has a human ex-girlfriend that he still cares about.
The Ventrue (Amanda)
A hard nosed businesswoman Embraced during a business dinner with a client.
- Ambiguously Bi: Downplayed. While she mentions attraction to men in passing the gender of her former partner is never specified, likely deliberately to allow the player to fill in her back-story to suit their preferences.
- Lonely at the Top: Her success in her career has cost her every significant relationship in her life, including that with her ex-partner.
- Morality Pet: Her boss is her human Touchstone. Averted in that she actually can't stand the guy; she just doesn't have anyone else.
The Toreador (Lamar)
A gay African American artist Embraced after spending an evening with a new patron.
- Morality Pet: His little sister is his human Touchstone.
- Starving Artist: While not actually close to starving by any means, his little sister, Emma, is considerably more influential in the NYC art world and wealthier than he is. In inner monologue, it's revealed that he's received "life-saving concept artist work" sent his way by her, for which he is incredibly grateful.
- Twofer Token Minority: He's African-American and a gay man.
The Lasombra (Julia)
A journalist whose life was systematically ruined by by her sinister and Darwinian sire, Julia is Embraced only after displaying an intense will to live and push through the pain.
- Ambiguously Bi: Definitely likes the company of women but has significant Ship Tease with Qadir and a past male boyfriend.
- Casting a Shadow: Lasombra and all, she has shadow related powers that can grow.
- Deadpan Snarker: Julia has a lot of deadpan sass and sardonicism for people much-much more powerful than her.
- Face–Heel Turn: Commits herself to one in the "good" ending, throwing away her scruples and last big link to humanity in a bid for the power and prestige she'd so long hungered for.
- Goth: A brooding, intense, sarcastic, bitter, and introspective woman who has the classic look down to a T.
- I See Dead People: Gains this ability as she grows in her power of Oblivion. This is implied to include the ghosts of her possible victims in the "Good" ending.
- Morality Chain: Her most humanising trait is her relationship with Dakota. The Lasombra sneer at the concept of ghouls, so her sire allows Julia's live-in partner to be made aware of her vampirism and dragged into the masquerade. Played with a twist in the two endings: in the "good" one, Julia essentially trades Dakota's life for her own ascension to Primogen. In the "bad" one, they reconcile and leave New York and its shady politics behind them.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Her job is basically this as she works out of a fast food restaurant to meet new Kindred not important enough to actually meet with the Prince.
- Sins of the Father: Receives a great deal of flack for being a Lasombra despite not ever being a Sabbat.
Coterie Members
Agathon
A Tremere Neonate feuding with his ex-girlfriend.
- Blood Magic: As a Tremere vampire, he is a practitioner.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Actually is one of these as the ritual he's searching for is designed to make animal blood palatable.
- Killed Off for Real: Hinted at but ultimately left ambiguous in Shadows. Notably, if Julia chooses to believe he's still alive, that actually contributes towards getting the game's "bad" ending. However, the muddy ethics around the whole situation don't necessarily mean that writing him off as dead is correct (in fact, there's evidence to suggest the opposite), just desirable for Julia's goals.
- Meaningful Name: Agathon means "excellence" or "virtue," and is a central concept of Ancient Greek ethics. Considering how Agathon himself is a scholar and a gruff but good person, the shoe fits.
- Morality Pet: He tries to look after his grandmother despite this breaking the Masquerade.
- Special Person, Normal Name: His real name is actually just Javier.
- Spin-Offspring: He's the childe of Aisling Sturbridge, the Tremere signature character who's been a part of the Old World of Darkness source books and tie-in novels for decades.
D'Angelo
A journalist and author turned Nosferatu private detective.
- Becoming the Mask: D'Angelo was the fictional detective hero of a series of novels written by author Reginald Finch before he was Embraced; he subsequently took on more and more of the persona, including going exclusively by his character's name, as a coping mechanism.
- Film Noir: Where he gets his aesthetic from. Amusingly, he even has a tendency to narrate under his breath in the style of a hardboiled book/movie detective.
- Informed Attribute: He's not nearly as messed-up looking as some Nosferatu, and could basically pass for an unattractive human with perhaps a mild facial deformity. Justified in that he's a relatively new vampire and therefore likely of a high generation, so it's not unusual for his clan attributes to be less pronounced.
- Younger Than They Look: Played With. Unlike the other members of the player character's coterie — most of whom look to be in their twenties — he appears to be middle-aged, and may well have been when he was Embraced. However, due to vampire hierarchy and his implied high generation, he's still treated as a young vampire.
Hope
A genius Malkavian hacker and webcam girl of sorts.
- Bait-and-Switch: Pretends to be broadcasting a Masquerade breaching webcam show.
- Gamer Girl: Though not actually shown playing video games, Hope fits most of the stereotypes and is extremely tech- and internet-savvy.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Her exact age isn't mentioned but she definitely presents as one, being a young woman who can barely glance away from her phone for thirty seconds at a time. Justified in that she uses it to manage the many alter-egos who are her only real connections.
- Riot Grrrl: She gives off this vibe in an "updated for the internet age" sort of way.
- Ship Tease: Averted. She only wants a professional relationship.
- Split Personality: All of the people in her chat room are actually Hope herself, posting via different accounts — hence why she can never leave her phone alone for more than a few seconds. Zig-Zagged in that unlike most uses of this trope, Hope is fully aware of the fact that she's creating and controlling these characters herself; however, she still regards them as real and herself as a hive mind with no true singular personality.
Tamika
A Gangrel who lives with her brother in her own park.
- Action Girl: Is unafraid to get her hands dirty and demonstrates this against the Second Inquisition.
- Mercy Kill: Can be persuaded to give this to a Gangrel Elder.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Shadows reveals that she and Torque had an intense but short-lived relationship between games. Especially interesting since they never once interact in Coteries.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Is motivated by the death of her sire and later her brother.
- Spin-Offspring: She mentions she's the childe of Jezebelle, a minor character from the New York By Night sourcebook that the game borrows heavily from.
The Camarilla
Qadir Al-Asmai
The Sheriff of New York, which makes him responsible for finding the player character and bringing them to the Camarilla court at the beginning of the game. He is the player's first introduction to the harsh, ruthless world of the game.
- The Dragon: To Prince Panhard, acting as her official muscle and right-hand man.
- Everyone Has Standards: In the Good Ending to Shadows, he grows markedly distant towards Julia — with whom he was previously developing a Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic — after she agrees to have him "dispose of" her human ex-girlfriend in order to cement her power.
- Hidden Depths: Though he puts on a show of being a heartless enforcer, is also a huge baseball fan and very critical of Sophie's taste in literature.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Qadir puts on a show of being a ruthless, emotionless bruiser; but, interestingly, despite being The Sheriff and thus the one most responsible for enforcing the brutal law of the Camarilla, he is the most sympathetic to the player character's horrible situation, and tends to act much more gently than he is required to. It's heavily implied that he's easily and deeply affected by the horrible goings-on that occur in vampiric society, but he's resigned himself to the brutality and sociopathy that is required for survival. Still — it's all but stated on multiple occasions that he goes above and beyond for you out of compassion, despite what he tries to have you believe otherwise.
- Lightning Bruiser: As a Toreador, Qadir has access to the Celerity discipline and moves faster than anyone else he encounters in the game. As a Sheriff, he's no slouch is combat.
- Noble Demon: One of the few Kindred of authority with any remaining morality but still enforces their brutal laws.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Unsurprisingly for a Toreador, he's always getting around in an elegant suit with a very expensive watch, and drives a Cadillac.
- The Sheriff: Literally New York's vampire community's sheriff. It is his job to enforce the Camarilla traditions.
Sophie Langley
A prominent member of the Camarilla, who adopts the player character as her charge. She promptly uses the player as something between a protege and a pawn, using them to build connections and make political connections to further her own scheming.
- Ambiguously Bi: Near the end of the game, she will express sexual desire towards Eric or Amanda. This is notably absent when playing as Lamar, who is a gay man. Torque also notes when you first meet him that Sophie's protégé(e)s tend to become her "playthings."
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Downplayed, but present. Throughout the game Sophie is distant and only becomes warm when trying to manipulate you, but at the end of the game when she thinks you've betrayed her she becomes so upset about it that she doesn't even hear when Arturo explains you're just a puppet.
- Big Good: Fancies herself as this, but would keep things almost exactly the same were she to become Prince.
- Charm Person: Her specialty. It's one of the signature powers of her clan, the Toreador, and she's clearly very skilled in its use: she uses it — both subtly and overtly — several times over the course of the game.
- The Chessmaster: Spends the game using you as a pawn to position other major players for her own ends.
- Killed Off for Real: She meets her final death in the finale of Coteries, regardless of your choices.
- Off with Her Head!: Meets a rather grisly final death by having her head snipped clean off with an oversized pair of secateurs.
- Socialite: Elegant, well-dressed, beautiful and charming, and only ever seems to leave her haven to attend fancy social events.
- Smoking Is Glamorous: Although it's something vampires shouldn't even be technically able to do (as it requires breathing), Sophie is often seen coolly smoking a cigarette, anyway. She explains to the fledgling that vampires are able to smoke with practice. The end result gives her an additional layer of allure and mystery on top of her Toreador presence. Smoking is so iconic for Sophie, in fact, that she is the only character in the game to have a different sprite (for when she has one lit between her fingers).
- Unwitting Pawn: She uses the fledgling as this, even more so than the other characters in the game. In turn, she is this to Arturo.
Prince Hellene Panhard
Leader of the Camarilla faction of vampires within New York.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Forms one of these with Boss Callahan. But both are just pawns of Thomas Arturo.
- Blue Blood: A member of Clan Ventrue and one of the previous Prince's childer.
- Hypocrite: Publicly declares that the traditions of the Camarilla must be strictly observed, to the point of murdering to enforce them, but freely bends or breaks them whenever she finds it expedient.
- Informed Flaw: The narration describes her as plain, but her in-game character model begs to differ.
- Puppet King: Is blood bound to Thomas Arturo.
- Smug Snake: Panhard maintains an air of sneering disapproval of everyone around her for the whole course of the game, but by the end she is not only out-outmaneuvered by Sophie, it's revealed that she's only ever been a figurehead ruler in the first place.
- Vampire Monarch: Is the Prince of New York City.
Thomas Arturo
A mysterious Kindred who hangs around Elysium.
- The Bad Guy Wins: His game goes off without a hitch and eliminates a powerful challenger to his pawns.
- Berserk Button: Don't give someone else credit for something he did, or you'll get slapped.
- Break the Haughty: In his backstory. Considers his Embrace an invocation of this trope, and didn't handle it well at all because of how helpless and out of control it made him feel. Or so he claims, considering it doesn't appear to have been permanent.
- The Chessmaster: It's him you see in the prologue, arranging for you to be Embraced. He did this knowing that Sophie was getting restless and needed a pawn, and that a Fledgling doing her bidding would be easy to track. It worked perfectly.
- Control Freak: Played with. He trusts the people in his plans to do their part, but doesn't ever want to be at someone else's mercy again, which is why he bound Prince Panhard to him and flushed out Sophie Langley and works so hard to control kindred conflict in New York.
- Depraved Bisexual: Downplayed, but a throwaway line in the prologue mentions he's been with both men and women. This would have been in the 70s, no less.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He's the guy in the shadows speaking at the start of the game.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Downplayed, but implied when he mentions his sire.
- Horrible Judge of Character: In the "Good" ending, he proceeds to misread Julia as caring more about her girlfriend than power.
- Insufferable Genius: Likes to pontificate about how brilliant he was. Supposedly he was even worse when he was alive.
- Karma Houdini: Is responsible for all of the player character's misery and gets away with it in the end.
- The Man Behind the Man: Has both Prince Panhard and Boss Callihan blood bound to him.
- Old Shame: In-Universe; he spent decades looking for the meaning of life and now feels silly about the entire search.
- Out-Gambitted: Despite initial appearances and being a canny and capable schemer, Julia can get one up over him in the "good" ending of Shadows of New York and force him to promote her into a position of power lest she undo all his work, at the cost of her own humanity.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Thinks this is why he was Embraced.Thomas Arturo: "I was hot shit."
- Walking Spoiler: It's difficult to talk about the fact he's behind everything.
Anarchs
Howard
A lowlife hoodlum of a vampire and the player's first introduction to the Anarchs.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Not that it helps.
- Bullying a Dragon: He doesn't realize the Neonate feeding on his turf is Sophie Langley's new ally.
- Killed Off for Real: Qadir lops off his head as an example for the Anarchs.
- Small Name, Big Ego: His trash-talk on meeting you indicates that he thinks he's a tough guy, but he gets his ass handed to him by a fledgling and a ghoul and it only gets worse from there.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Has a grand total of two scenes before Qadir lops his head off.
Torque
An Anarch baron and prominent face of the movement, Torque hates Boss Callihan, but can't make a move against Callihan on his own.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: After the events of the first game, he goes from a firebrand revolutionary to an appeasing moderate. Because he's been turned into Callihan's replacement as a Puppet King.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Probably one of the most personable kindred you meet, whose motivations seem entirely understandable and on the level. Doesn't stop him from ripping off heads and limbs with his bare hands if you attack him, though.
- Enemy Mine: Forms one with Sophie against Callihan and Panhard. It doesn't work.
- Lightning Bruiser: Punches hard enough to take a human's head off, and moves fast enough to become a blur, as befits an experienced Brujah boss.
- Puppet King: What he becomes after the death of Callihan as the Camarilla wastes no time turning him into their new catspaw.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Amongst the Anarchs, especially compared to Boss Callihan, Torque is polite, rational, and only ever messes with those who mess with him first. His popularity has earned him the ire of Callihan, who is waiting for an opportunity to isolate and remove him.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: the Camarilla versus Anarch conflict, as expressed with him versus Sophie. Torque is a messy gangster who works out of a pool hall while she's a upper class socialite.
Callihan
Baron of the Anarchs in New York. Callihan is every bit as ruthless, cruel, dictatorial and set-in-his-ways as a Camarilla prince, a fact that has several of the local Anarchs quite upset with him.
- Asshole Victim: He's Killed Off for Real in Shadows; solving his murder is the main plot.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: In approach and outlook from a Camarilla prince; something which is noted within the story, and has Anarchs, like Torque, chafing. He used to be a Tammany Hall Democrat and champion for Kindred rights but now he's just a tyrant Baron like any Camarilla Prince.
- Blackmail Backfire: Attempts to do this to the Camarilla elders in the city. They kill him for it.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Is this with Prince Panhard. Except he's just a pawn along with her to Thomas Arturo.
- Hidden Depths: Shadows gives him a bit more depth, showing him to have been a philosophical man who, despite his prejudices, kept to his word and was happy to work with the "spic," Agathon. In one ending, Julia has great contempt for his murderers and is disgusted that they were allowed to profit from his death.
- High-Class Glass: Wears a monocle as part of his old-timey gentleman getup.
- Jerkass: Rude, violent, bigoted and full of himself, Boss Callihan shows absolutely no redeeming qualities over the course of the game.
- Pet the Dog: Downplayed, but Shadows reveals that he had enough respect for Agathon (who's Hispanic and therefore one of the many, many people Callihan hates on principle) to at least overcome his own prejudices and work together.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Whichever clan you choose your player character to be, he finds a way to discriminate against them: the Brujah for being Asian, the Ventrue for being a woman, and the Toreador for being black.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He has become so hated among Anarchs and attempting to blackmail key figures in the Camarilla that the other Kindred in power decide to dispose of him and replace him with Torque.
- Zero Approval Rating: Rumors of him turning the Second Inquisition on his fellow Barons has destroyed any credibility he has.
Other Vampires
Katherine Weise
Known once upon a time as Ecaterina the Wise, Brujah Promethean, and Agitator of Prague; then as Catherine Weiss, Sabbat bishop, Katherine returns in Shadows of New York as a major character and loose mentor to the protagonist, Julia, whose ruthless and hands-off sire is mostly absent. Although her true goals are anyone's guess, she is the Keeper of Elysium and considered a Wild Card by both the city's sects.
- Aerith and Bob: Deliberately averted on her part. Ecaterina took to using a more modern variation of her root name somewhere along the line.
- Affably Evil: Downplayed in both senses. She's very polite, but quite aloof, and for all her kindness to Julia it's clear that she's not in the business of taking on fledglings as confidants. As for the evil part, she's a former Sabbat bishop and keeps this chapter of her life under wraps. Muddied supremely after The Reveal.
- Becoming the Mask: She's not the real Ecaterina, but after extensive brainwashing and possible blood magic and fleshcrafting, she thinks she may as well be.
- Cool Mask: You can ask what's underneath it, but she'd rather you just cook up your own theory and thus contribute to muddying the actual truth.
- Death of Personality: Forced upon her by the real Ecaterina. She was roughed up by the Brujah elder's servants and, through a combination of brainwashing, blood magic, and possible fleshcrafting, made to assume the real's place publicly. For all that, she is still at least dimly aware of who she used to be, and her portrait name changes to Hana in her final conversation with Julia.
- Facial Horror: The reason she wears that scarf; she'd be a walking Masquerade violation without it.
- Good Samaritan: She's one of the first vampires Julia meets, and one of the most supportive. Qadir suspects that Katherine has a soft spot for licks of humble beginnings.
- Meaningful Echo: One spanning about twenty real life years. She tells Julia to look to the guidance of St. Jude when her cause looks lost, with the rather strong implication that Christof Romuald was the man who once told this to her.
- The Mentor: To Julia, somewhat, whose actual sire left a lot to be desired in terms of guidance. Especially prevalent in the bad ending.
- Noodle Incident: The circumstances behind her feud with Aisling are only giving passing references, although you might have a good idea if you're familiar with the sourcebooks. Even more so, the circumstances behind the real Ecaterina abducting and converting her are open-ended: we know only that Christof caught her but showed her some kindness, instilled in her the same reverence for St. Jude that he has, and "Hana" came to accept her role as "Katherine".
- Not Me This Time: If you're familiar with her backstory, she's the obvious suspect in a murder that could undermine both the Camarilla and the Anarchs, but it turns out she's pretty much the only innocent party.
- The Reveal: She's not really Ecaterina the Wise, Agitator of Prague, Brujah elder and former Promethean. As Julia rifles through Kaiser's files, she discovers that this imposter's real name is Hana Urbanova. She was caught by Christof, Ecaterina's childe, and forced by the true Ecaterina to assume the public mantle of "Katherine Weise" so that the real one could continue to play her own game. Julia compares the relationship between the real and the fake to Batman and Bruce Wayne.
Humans
Gregory
Sophie's loyal driver, servant and ghoul.
- Battle Butler: Comes with being a ghoul. He can even take down vampires.
- Empowered Badass Normal: As a ghoul he is granted some very slight supernatural power, none of them would have helped him much in this instance; despite this, he makes pretty short work of Howard towards the beginning of the game, even staking him bare-handed.
- Nice Guy: He doesn't speak or do much, but his every appearance and line in the game is delivered courteously and usually with a smile.
- Secret-Keeper: Discussed as the player character is first learning about the Masquerade. Since Sophie is positive of his loyalty, she is not afraid to let him know about the existence of vampires.
