Darth Wiki / Fading Masquerade

Fading Masquerade is a Vampire: The Masquerade Pen and Paper Role Playing Group, playing in Leipzig, Germany and other surrounding areas in early 2016. While it was originally planned as a one-shot only, it became a fully grown Series of Adventures soon afterward due to its popularity with the players.

It is played by 5 Players and 1 Game Master since mid-December 2015. The story deals with Leipzig suffering an Invasion by the Sabbat, which tries to dominate the Camarilla-ruled City.

Player Characters

Elias Schmidt

• Bullying a Dragon: Challenged Sophia to a duel, knowing that she was several centuries older and much stronger then him.
• Dating Catwoman: Has a romance with Maja. A vampire. As a werewolf, he is supposed to kill vampires as they are believed to be servants of the Wyrm, one of the main enemies in Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
• The Informant: Every single bit of vampire knowledge he gains is reported straight back to his superior.
• Like an Old Married Couple: With Julia. Both know the flaws of each other and they roll their eyes about it, they insult each other with warm smiles on their faces... and with this behavior, they make the two child vampires we know sick. Thank god Maja doesn't know about that.
• Manly Men Can Hunt: He loves to brag about his hunting skills.
• Mayfly–December Romance: With Maja. She is an immortal vampire and, despite being a werewolf, he has an ordinary human lifespan. But this relationship turned out to last for only three short months.

• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Has strong tendencies toward this. No surprise, since werewolves are quite warlike anyway and he was born under full moon, which makes him even more of a fighter.
• Taking the Bullet: He saved Julia, Miss "He-did-not-say-that-did-he", from a deadly strike of an dancer (berserk werewolf, corrupted by darkness and dark magic). As thanks, she cooks for him until he's well again.

Konstantin 'Konny' Schön

• Friends with Benefits: You might think that a beast, ugly as the night, would never get a lady... well, here comes Konny. He can sleep with the two hottest girls in the whole city (both maxed out appearance), and he could even live with one of them if he wasn't so shy.
• Ironic Name: His insanity revolves around believing that he is very ugly (and he has the power to look ugly just because he thinks he is) and of all things his last name is Schön (nice, beautiful).
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Everyone simply calls him Konny, to the point where many people don't know his real name.
• Only Sane Man: He is the most straightforward thinking and grounded character.
• True Companions: With Maja and Julia. Friends are more important than anything, and are even enough for the shy and calm Konny to speak up to an angry Brujah Prince, loudly, while disobeying a direct order.
• Vegetarian Vampire: His main prey are rats and he asks humans if they are okay with it before he bites them.

Maja Zerkowitz

• Drama Queen: You would think it's the Torri of the group? No! It's the Gangrel girl. She refused to speak to Elias and Julia because they danced with each other. For her as a gypsy, dancing is as personal as sex, but no one knew and she didn't explain herself.
• Driven to Suicide: She killed her own brother, she did the worst things she could ever imagine, and she brought her friends into danger one time after another. The whole time she could feel the Beast crawling under her skin, getting closer with every night. It simply became too much to bear. So, after begging the Prince to take care of her friends, the only people she ever opened her heart up to, she went out to see her last sunrise...
• Evil Twin: Her twin brother Caleb looks very similar to her but that is where the similarities end. As opposed to her, he is an Ax-Crazy psychopath who is a member of the Sabbat.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: She's always picking on Julia for being an classic example of the beautiful, but not so smart Toreador beauty (even though she isn't) and calling her "Toast". The Gods have mercy upon them who dare to insult her in Maja's presence.
• Indifferent Beauty: She could be charming, beautiful and ladylike...but most of the time, her mood is too bad for that.

• Mayfly–December Romance: She is in love with Elias, a mortal werewolf, and knows that he will age and die someday and that they will never be able to have children together. She is ready to end their relationship when he wants to have children on his own. But this relationship only turned out to last for 3 short months.
• Not What It Looks Like: "Me? Screwing a werewolf...? Nooooo, I would never do that. Even if I live with him... and these bite marks aren't mine.."
• Outdoorsy Gal: Tangled hair, barefoot, living in a trailer in the middle of the woods...and still as beautiful as the new dawn.
• Shapeshifting: She can transform into a wolf or a raven at will. The only problem is that the wolf part is seen as heresy by Elias.
• Street Smart: Subverted. Maja is smart enough to explain Steven Hawking's black hole theory (if she was interested in astrophysics), but her brain books a nice short trip to the Caribbean as soon as she gets into trouble. That's kind of ironic, since she calls Julia "Toast Bread" for being stupid, while Julia is much more able to keep her head cool if it comes down to it.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: After a hellish trip to Mexico to get a magical artifact to help Julia she came back with this and trauma.

• True Companions: With Konny and Julia. Friends are more important than anything, and even enough for the berserk, Sabbat-hating Maja to pull herself together and act humble and polite...oh, and steal an artefact from the Sabbat. Out of Mexico. Earning some nasty mental diseases, all for Julia, all by her own, so Konny stays safe in Leipzig.

Julia Rose

• Badass Longcoat: Often met wearing a long, black coat, which hides her katana...yeah, she likes to look badass.
• Bearer of Bad News: Almost every time the group does something really stupid, finds something very dangerous or someone was sleeping with the enemy (sometimes even literally), someone has to tell the Prince. And who could do it better than the Toreador? Toreador do talk, don't they? Let her make herself useful! Examples: "Oh....and there might be Nosferatu sneaking around in your basement...who just broke in...We didn't know there was a Brujah elder living in this domain!", "My Prince, Maya's evil twin brother from the Sabbat just entered my domain, nearly killed two human girls and left...but it was in my gothic club, so the Masquerade was not broken heavily...yeah, we're coming at one to see you, as you command. Thank you, my Prince."

• Dark and Troubled Past: If she ever sets a foot into London again she will killed by the local vampires. She hinted at the fact that her childhood was everything but nice as well.
• The Ditz: Even while being of average intelligence, she is called this by Maja, who possesses a genius level intellect, if she is annoyed by Julia's behaviour. It became a nickname over time.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Ohhh, a glowing orb in the basement of the blood mage...I want to touch it. Even if it screws up time and space.
• Dramatic Drop: She's dropped three teacups, her bag twice, her katana once, and the player described her life saver and his blood falling in slow motion. She simply loves the drama, furthermore she's a Toreador. She's allowed to be melodramatic!
• Fiery Redhead: Red curly hair, Toreador, the only one who even THINKS about making a plan, but no one is ever listening... Yeah, she's kinda on edge.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Well, she's a vampire, so it's no real surprise that the man who Embraced her had a lot of influence towards her. Either way it's often her "Gute Erziehung" (good manners that her father taught her) which keeps her from getting really really nasty.
• Mad Artist: A light variant of this. She is a musician and draws pictures pretty well and shows clear tendencies towards mental illnesses. She recognises this and just started visiting a shrink.
• Odd Friendship: In Vampire, you are who you know. And Julia has the tendency to befriend everybody regardless of how they're seen in society. For example, The Tzimisce antitribu, her ghoul, the group Gangrel grumpycat, the Malkavian primogen, the Prince, the 'face' of the Nosferatu, her daughter, werewolves, a vampire hunter... The only people who don't like her that much are the members of her Clan...and some others.

• True Companions: With Maja and Konny. Friends are more important than anything. Even enough for the nice and elegant Julia to grab her sword and go into battle to kill (even though she vowed that she wouldn't if she didn't have to) and take the blame for breaking the holy traditions, even though her Clan and half the Camarilla despises her.

Erasmus von Kreuzenstein

• The Big Guy: With 2.05m and much strength to back it up, he definitely is this.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Thanks to a stake in his heart in 1861, he slept through the last 155 years undiscovered. Now he has to adjust to how strange the world has become.
• Impoverished Patrician: In the middle of the 19th century he belonged to a wealthy noble family. When he woke up in the present day, all his wealth and even his family's castle were gone and he was in a foreign time without any money, until Sophia von der Steineiche gave him a small flat a some money to start.
• Officer and a Gentleman: He was this back in the 19th century. While the officer part is gone now, he still is a perfect gentleman.

Second Cast

Dorothea Weisenstein

• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: You ask her a question about the weather and she keeps talking and talking and talking and somehow you get to military tactics used by the Sabbat...And no, she didn't stop for breath even once. She doesn't have to.

• Forgetful Jones: She's made to resemble "Dory" from Finding Nemo. She hasn't told you her name yet... has she?
• Genki Girl: No one is as energetic as Dori. Or as optimistic. Or babbles as much.

• Mad Oracle: Yes, she can see the future. No, she won't tell you. Yes, she is nuts. Yes, she talks in riddles all the time. And yes, one of them was a prophecy. Which one? Well, it would be boring if she told you, don't you think? She knows a lot of things. It wasn't the gardener. It also wasn't the butler. But your last guess was very near.

• Split Personality: She's a Malkavian, and her mental disorder is a split personality: The nice, babbling little "Dori", and the silent cynic Dorothea, a darling jewel of the Sabbat... you want it to be a "Dori" night.
• Split-Personality Makeover: Well, she's crazy all the time, but if you meet the girl with Alice band, your ears will bleed. If you meet her without it...run, or everything else will.
• Talkative Loon: If you ask Dori a question, even something like "what time is it?", you better have time to kill. She won't. shut. up. EVER.

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Non Player Characters

Sophia von der Steineiche

• Benevolent Boss: Sophia is a strict but fair boss, treating all those below her with at least some respect and usually listens to more than one side of the story before making a decision.
• The Big Guy: With her 1.68m in height she was this once when she was young, which was in the first half of the 13th century or earlier. Back then her size was huge for a woman, being 20 cm or more above average in size. In the early 21st century, on the other hand, she is more on the small side.
• The Chains of Commanding: She is burdened by them from time to time, being the ruler of the entire vampire community of Leipzig while being at war with the Sabbat.
• Cultured Badass: Being at least 770 years old, she owns wine from several centuries, the same goes for portraits of herself. Vincent van Gogh is her favourite. On the other hand, she is strong enough to punch through your entire chest with her bare fists and crash through walls.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She hints at this occasionally. After all her title "Schlächter" (Butcher) has to come from somewhere

• Good Feels Good: When she was a cold hearted, cruel monster, she did some good things just to regain some humanity and thus control over herself. Over the course of the centuries, she started to like being nice.
• Lightning Bruiser: If things go well for her, she can kill eight humans in a mere three seconds. With her bare fists.
• Not So Above It All: She is an 800 year old vampire who is easily able to play very long running Batman Gambits and has the blood of countless people on her hands... But then one day in 1963 she was switching on the TV during a stay in England and the very first episode of a new series called Doctor Who was broadcasted. She was a fan from the very first day and never misses a new episode. Not that long before the announcement of a new Doctor Who series she seriously considered bribing the BBC to get Doctor Who back. So she was probably successful...
• Old Retainer: Michael, her ghoul who has worked for her for centuries, is one for her. This may be due to the blood she feeds her, but even vampire blood can only take you so far. True love and loyalty can't be created artificially.
• Really 700 Years Old: Over 800 years to be exact.

• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Sophia took Leipzig in a fit of rage from the former Prince, as he was incompetent enough to not see the Sabbat who started silently invading Leipzig. Immediately after that, she started to straighten up the city's vampire community and has been very active trying to solve the Sabbat problem.
• Shoot the Messenger: Subverted. Most of the time, it's Julia who has to bring the bad news, but Sophia is wise enough not to get upset. Far from it! She kinda jokes about it: "I'll have to mark the night in my calendar you bring me good news."
• Tough Leader Façade: She really cares about people around her, but due to vampiric nature she can't show these emotions and thoughts as they would be a sign of weakness, which would cause her to lose her throne to another vampire who wouldn't be as nice as her.
• The Von Trope Family: Her name is close to this, but her name is just old enough to be from late or mid medieval times, when the concept of last names was new and people were named after specific things in the surrounding or their jobs, for example. But now, after several centuries, she basically is part of old vampire nobility.
• What's Up, King Dude?: The players have very free access to Sophia, the Prince of Leipzig, being able to talk to her basically whenever they like. Justified, as they helped her to remove the old Prince.

Kathrin Lokinnen

• Berserk Button: Even while she punishes Michaela quite severely on a regular basis, she does care for her and god help you if you ever hurt her.
• Creepy Good: Even though she's on the protagonists' side working against the Sabbat and is quite polite to her guests (she's Tzimisce after all), she's kinda...odd. Is it the sterile white underground clinic? Her past? Even if you ignore the fact that she likes to melt people open without any painkillers, just talking with her is sort of...unsettling.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Her favourite way of punishing people. She uses extremely cruel punishments for minor accidents. For example she fused Michaela, her servant/slave to a chair for a whole day, unable to move, just for tripping over her feet and dropping a few glasses with blood in them. But she never punishes people for no reason.
• Emotion Control: Kathrin feeds Michaela her blood regularly. In return, Michaela is immortal, has some vampire powers without the daylight problem, but is heavily addicted and forced to love Kathrin.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Melting a vampire open for fun? Let's do it. Fusing her loyal servant to a chair? She earned it. Liking Caleb? Hell no! Meeting her sire who turns children to furniture? LET ME KILL THAT FUCKING BASTARD!
• Heel–Face Turn: Defected from the Sabbat to the Camarilla a few years ago, making herself a walking target as the Sabbat doesn't take this lightly. In her eyes the Sabbat was too cruel, even though she regularly performs painful operations without giving patients painkillers.
• The Medic: She practices as a doctor who doesn't ask questions as medicine is both her hobby and her passion.
• Sacred Hospitality: As many Tzimisce, she highly values hospitality, granting any guest three days and nights of protection and comfort, even if it means fighting to protect them, or offering them her very own bedroom.
• Sadist: She enjoys the "melody of pain" people produce when she works on them. Because of this she usually operates on them without pain killers. On the other hand, she offers painkillers, although only when someone asks for them and for an extra fee. In her eyes, not giving them a chance to get painkillers would just be cruel.

Maté Kamarás

• The Dead Can Dance: It would be embarrassing if he couldn't. Again, he's a Torri.
• I Love You, Vampire Son: As Julia's father, he is a very kind and loving, but also strict dad. This separates him from other Toreador, who have tendencies to Embrace childer and leave them when they are not of interest anymore.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Shoulder-long blond hair. He's a Toreador. He's allowed to.
• Papa Wolf: Saving your daughter from a Blood Hunt while running through the burning remains of London without even being a member of a "fighter" Clan definitely qualifies you for this trope!
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He's an actor. He's a Toreador. Of course he looks simply divine!

Michalea Halts

• Berserk Button: She loves Katrin with everything she is, was and ever will be.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Don't you dare to hurt her Ms. Doctor. And DON'T you even think about taking her away from Michaela...she's awake when you're not.
• Friend to All Living Things: No matter if vampire, human or animal, as long as they treat her at least halfway decently, they are on her good side.
• Functional Addict: Her drug is vampire blood, which makes her immortal and gives her some vampire powers as long as Kathrin supplies her with it. But, in exchange the blood forces her to love Kathrin absolutely. This addiction is no problem as long as she is supplied with blood but if she is overdue with getting blood, the withdrawal is quite ugly.
• Mama Bear: She may dislike violence, but if you hurt someone she cares for, be it a friend or a patient, she will do everything to protect them.

Jana Halubri

• Berserk Button: Don't even think about harming a child if she is present, or she will make you want to die, as she is able to give you any mental disorder she wants to.
• Friend to All Children: As she is forever forced to live in a child's body and has, most of the time, a child's mind, she feels a very special connection to children and protects them.
• Good Parents: Has those and as a vampire she made sure she won't have to lose them by feeding her parents vampire blood. So their relationship is a pretty weird one now, as even while they are her slaves, they are the ones who tell her daughter how things run in "their household" and Jana, as she is "almost 8" after all, does as her parents say.

• One of the Kids: She is this quite literally, she does not only act like a child but looks like one as well. An immortal, blood drinking child who burns in sunlight.
• Slasher Smile: She shows this if she talks about playing one of her favourite 'games': Strangling somebody with her ribbon, which is in fact a garrote. Don't worry, her parents (yes, the same parents who are her slaves) forbid her to 'play' this 'game' with anybody but bad people.

• Undead Child: She was turned into a vampire (and one with a mental disorder on top of that) at the age of 7.

Fabian Kurz

• Badass Normal: Some years ago he was caught by a pack of Sabbat vampires, locked into a sewer system, and given a revolver to defend himself so that they could hunt him to death for fun. It did not turn out that good for them, as he was surprisingly capable in defending himself, resulting in three dead vampires that very night. Now after training and gathering information, he is a pretty good hunter, capable of overpowering young vampires in a duel and very good in holding his ground in general.
• Crazy-Prepared: If he is out hunting vampires he has a high tech sniper rifle, a revolver, an axe, a device to check people's body temperatures from a distance, stakes, crosses, holy water (just in case the last two really do work). and SWAT grade armour with him. But to be honest, as a human you usually need quite a lot preparation to take any vampire down.
• Enemy Mine: Even while he distrusts all vampires deeply, he will on rare occasions team up with more "trustworthy" vampires if he works against the Sabbat and is facing more of them then he himself can take alone. But he will never turn his back to his 'allies'.
• Hunter of Monsters: The vampire hunting variant, but he does not exclusively hunt vampires. In very rare cases he takes down others as well. He is usually smart enough to only hunt the vampires who really earn it in his eyes, and every member of the Sabbat of course. Other vampires can talk to him even while he will mistrust them.

Nadja Behrend

• Anti-Villain: She is a member of the Sabbat, a religious vampire organisation which sees humans as barely anything more then food and (sometimes) useful tools. She stands in an extreme contrast to the usual Sabbat member as she does honestly care for the children in her orphanage. On the other hand, towards other vampires she won't hide the fact that she still is a member of the Sabbat and has no intention on leaving it.
• Friend to All Children: She founded an orphanage to help children who lost their parents and the children love her back, ignoring the strange fact that she sleeps all day and they barely ever see her in summer.
• Mama Bear: Don't even think about harming one of the children under her protection or she will make you suffer in ways that you didn't even know existed.
• Orphanage of Love: Runs one of these, strangely enough, as you would expect a Sabbat Tzimisce to transform children into furniture. However, with help of her ghouls and employees, she does everything she can to provide the children with everything they need. From autumn to spring (because of the length of the nights) she participates in dinner with the children. And whatever the time or reason is, she always has time for her children. As she made a lot of money throughout the centuries, this orphanage will luckily never run out of cash.
• Really 700 Years Old: She is far over 300 years old and still looks like she's in her thirties.
• Sacred Hospitality: As an old Tzimisce, she holds hospitality in high regard, just like Kathrin. When invited, she will even treat enemies like friends. All of the children in her orphanage fall under that rule.

Caleb Zerkowitz

• Axe-Crazy: Once he skinned his sister's cat alive to make a hat for his sister out of the cat's fur. Another time he broke a girl's arm after having sex for fun. And all this happened before he was turned into a vampire. Now whatever morale was still inside him is gone completely.

• Evil Twin: Is this to Maja. He looks almost exactly the same but this is where the similarities end. He is a member of the the Sabbat and she one of the Camarilla.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: He's a handsome gentleman, gladly comes up with you for a coffee after a wonderful date he paid for... and when you're alone, he breaks your neck, drinks your blood and rips your limbs off... not necessarily in that order.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He is the "protector" (read: owner) of his sister. Every other person Maja spends even a little bit of time with...well, Cain killed his own brother out of envy. Caleb would kill everyone except his sister out of envy, so they can be together forever...
• If I Can't Have You…: In his eyes, his sister is his property even though she despises him and he wants to make anybody who is close to her suffer.

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Fading Masquerade provides examples of the following tropes:

• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: There are many good-looking female Characters who fulfill this trope. This is very much true for both female Player Characters Maja and Julia, who have been, after a pretty rough fight, good-looking enough to enter a High Society Place without raising questions about their looks.

• Fire-Forged Friends: A lunatic, a stray Gypsy, and a supermodel break into the residence of an elder Vampire and somehow manage to survive the whole incident unharmed. Of course, they become friends at the end.

• Lighter and Softer: Compared to the original Vampires setting. Things are a bit more friendly around here and some people are going as far as calling it "Cozy Vampires".

• Undeathly Pallor: With a few exceptions, all Vampires have greyish pale skin, showing that they are basically dead.

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Fridge Horror

• Janas parents: If you think about it, it's a bit TOO coincidental that both of her ghouls look like her and are called mother and father. If you assume that these mortals are her actual parents which she made immortal to be with forever, it's kind of sweet - until you remember that any ghoul that drinks more than five times from a Malkavian gets a 'small' mental disorder. Her parents were driven into madness by their own daughter. And it's not her first boyfriend.

• The Bloodbrothers: The whole group knew that you need Tzimisc *AND* Tremere to make blood brothers. The whole group knew, that there were Tremere. The whole group saw Sophia go rampage because of that...But not one of the players remembered, that every single Tremere antitribu ist DEAD. Our Gamemaster hit us with the big "PLOT"-club right in the face, but we didn't saw the betrayal of the bloodmages of the camarilla. Why? Well, because our Gamemaster is the kindest person in the world. We were not prepared.

Fridge Brilliance

• Nadja Behrendts Orphanage: Nadja Behrendt is a Tzimisce, who upholds the Values of Hospitality and basically all the Children who live in the Orphanage are her Guests until they are either adopted or old enough to leave. Because of this Nadja would never use the Children for experiments as Kathrin Lokinnens Sire did. She would fight and die for them if the need arrives and will always care for them in the best ways possible.

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• Nightmare Fuel: The Sofa belonging to Kathrins Sire. If you ever where believing that she is a monster, just take a look to him. He owns a sofa, wich starts to weep and cry when you sit on it and it is completely made out of the flesh and of Children, who are, as he will willingly tell you if you ask, still alive.

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