The Seven: A List of known Vampiric Temporal Doppelgängers
Mayday! Mayday!
The ship is slowly sinking
They think I'm crazy but they don't know the feeling
They're all around me,
Circling like vultures
They wanna break me and wash away my colors
Wash away my colors
Take me high and I'll sing
Oh you make everything okay (okay, okay)
We are one in the same
Oh you take all of the pain away (away, away)
Save me if I become
My demons
I cannot stop this sickness taking over
It takes control and drags me into nowhere
I need your help, I can't fight this forever
I know you're watching,
I can feel you out there
Take me high and I'll sing
Oh you make everything okay (okay, okay)
We are one in the same
Oh you take all of the pain away (away, away)
Save me if I become
My demons
Take me over the walls below
Fly forever
Don't let me go
I need a savior to heal my pain
When I become my worst enemy
The enemy
Take me high and I'll sing
Oh you make everything okay (okay, okay)
We are one in the same
Oh you take all of the pain away (away, away)
Save me if I become
My demons
Take me high and I'll sing
Oh you make everything okay (okay, okay)
We are one in the same
Oh you take all of the pain away (away, away)
Save me if I become
My demons
-- My Demons by Starset
The Seven Souls of a Man - The Seven Iterations of a Vampire
I as a player or as a storyteller have been playing Vampire the Masquerade for at least twenty years. As I sit here, writing this, that number and its sheer meaning hit me. Some people don't even live twenty years, let alone have a pastime that lasts that long. I have seen many marriages crumble in less time, mine included and careers come and go like the wind. Like the vampire characters I portray as a player or as a storyteller, I have become jaded and I accept that in the end, all things must pass, even me. But, there is a better than even chance that I will outlive most of the things I now consider permanent. Its a child's thought process after all, if you survive more than a few decades, you realize that the only constant in this universe is change. Whether you perceive that change as good or bad, is entirely a function of your point of view and despite what many people believe, one's point of view is entirely a facet of our lives that we can control.
As I look back, I see so many mistakes that I made in my real life as well as the fantasy that I have help to keep alive. I used to regret my mistakes, grieve for them, cry and rage over them. But tonight I just don't have that in me anymore or perhaps I have moved beyond that state of development. Where I am and what I have done is directly a result of my choices, with each step I have moved along to learn something new and with each challenge there have been different results. Its easy to look back and say: "I should have done this or that, said this or that, felt differently than I did"; but the truth is that was just where I was at that moment in time. Each step has made me who I am at this moment and with each passing action I make changes to the essence of me that could mean others will perceive me differently at a later time.
From my limited point of view, its hard to see what other people see; am I good or bad, am I cruel or caring, am I what they want their friend to be or have I become someone they cannot relate to. Only time will tell. Can I control this metamorphosis? The answer is yes, but with only a crude, limited control, because I unlike many people, I am still discovering who I am or what I really want. I know how that sounds and I'm sure that could be said for everyone from an existential point of view, which is true. But to borrow a concept from VTM, I am like a Lasombra, unable to see my reflection and thus uncertain how others perceive me or even entirely how I perceive myself. For me, Vampire the Masquerade has served as a metaphorical mirror by which I can investigate lives that I think I would have liked to live and that I can in a limited, but vicarious way live along with my characters. Am I ashamed of my character's actions? The truth is I used to be. Actually, in the beginning, while I was having fun and the point was to have fun, I was also using the game to vent repressed feelings of frustration and unhappiness. The victims of my character depredations were excellent substitutes for the atrocities that I wanted to carry out, because they weren't real people and thus their suffering or destruction was a victim-less crime. It was mental masturbation and it was fun.
Later, I entered a stage where I felt abashed or ashamed of certain particularly horrific actions, while another part of me reveled in the moral freedom to be anything - whatever my heart desired beyond the expectations and limitations placed upon me by friends, family and society as a whole. This stage lasted quite a long time and perhaps because the game was so diverting and the companionship so fulfilling, I never reached for more. But in time it passed. Traversing that passage was painful, but it led to change and new growth. That growth led to unexpected places in real life and then real life fed the game, providing continuous evolution. Every so often, we would update our characters for various reasons or like the sophisticated players that we had become we changed them to meet our new fantasy needs. But each iteration of the characters left a mark on my soul, perhaps it did on other players as well, I cannot know. What I do know is that each evolution unveiled something new, while allowing me to chart the degree of change. But I didn't realize that I was missing things, that I did certain things shamelessly ingame that never occurred to me to do in real life or equally failed to pursue certain things in the game that I thought I craved in real life. Like a blind-man or someone terribly near sighted I couldn't quite accept what I was seeing in my mirror and because I refused to accept those things, I couldn't change them or capitalize upon them.
And Then There Were Six
 Kurt Barlow -- A American Sabbat Tzimisce in Rio de Janeiro.
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100px Blake -- A American Lasombra antitribu prince of Leeds, England. |  Edwardo Putanesca -- A Putanesca professional chauffeur and bodyguard in Houston.
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 Czere Ubireg -- A American Tremere, recently spotted in Melbourne, Australia.
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 Seker Aamon -- A young American Follower of Set in Cairo, Egypt.
{Murdered -- December 22th, 2042} |
 Simon le Gris -- A young American Toreador currently living in Paris, France.
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 Ward McGovern -- A City Gangrel from San Francisco.
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Potential Doppelgängers
 Benesj Cherno -- An Old Clan Tzimisce of Bulgarian stock who was a resident of Gabrovo Grad until Autumn of 2012 (currently missing).
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 Blagoy Zhivkov -- A Doppelgänger of Benesj's, Zhivkov was slain by the Lasombra Bruce in 2013 in Gabrovo Grad, he is now a Wraith (deceased).
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