Ward McGovern
- Player Characters -z- City Gangrel -z- Alex Camille -z- Montreal -z- Chicago -z- San Francisco -z- Quebec City -z- The Seven: A List of known Vampiric Temporal Doppelgängers
Sobriquet: Mr.McGovern or just plain Ward, he doesn't really like nicknames.
Appearance: Mr.McGovern stands just shy of 6 foot, 2 inches tall. He was originally quite heavy-set, but has thinned-out almost as if he were cursed by a gypsy from a Stephen King novel. Ward no longer has his long lost mortal mullet as it was hacked off by Sebastien who felt long hair didn't suit his pack's latest gimp. His hair was little more than stubble at the time of his Embrace, but has grown back with each of his frenzies, although now it covers most of his body in a thin layer, it is now gray with a black undercoat and striping in certain places. Ward uses a chemical hair-removal agent nightly and shaves his face, but still looks as though he has a full five O'clock shadow. While his face remains mostly human, his eyes have very wide pupils with a thin layer of dark brown iris surrounding a jaundiced looking sclera and he now has permanent fangs that he must work to hide. Unknown to even to his sire, he has grown a three foot long tail that he hides by wearing loose clothing and long-tailed coats. Unless dressing to impress, something he does less and less, he wears the latest in inexpensive street fashions in neutral colors like brown, gray and black. Despite his best efforts he smells faintly of animal musk. He never wears jewelry, though he may have a host of expensive gadgets on his person for a wide variety of circumstances: communications gear, surveillance equipment, counter-surveillance tech, non-lethal weapons, etc.
Behavior: Unknown even to Ward, he has started to take on the personality traits of his Beast, in this case the raccoon. After decades of living on the run or in hiding, Ward sticks to the shadows and moves almost too silently, sometimes scaring mortals and not-so-perceptive neonates. When trying to interact with mortal society, something he practices like a stage actor going through his lines, Ward has become a keen observer of human and vampire nature. As such, he uses his Obfuscate and performance skills to portray what others expect or want to see. When dealing with vampires, he uses cool professionalism as a mask for his true feelings and prefers not to discuss personal issues with his fellow undead. More and more, he lives for his job, as one of the League of the Night's preeminent spies, he is often called upon to enter Camarilla or Sabbat cities anonymously and collect useful data for his superiors within the league. These long-term reconnaissance missions have started to have negative effects on Ward, making him more insular and paranoid. On one of his last missions to study the Sabbat of Detroit, he frenzied during a battle with a particularly perceptive Sabbat scout and has since found himself mesmerized by shiny objects, an obvious derangement with a humorous element.
History: Ward is not a man to expound upon his past to anyone and he actively tries not to think about it, but he is an obsessive diarist, who writes down every detail to be reviewed later. He keeps a growing library of diaries in his San Francisco haven, wherein he details the night-to-night details of his short, but frenetic unlife.
Ward tries not to recall the handful of hellish nights that made up his hazing by the Sabbat before Sebastien, his grand-sire, forced Alex Camille to Embrace him. When he does, recall these events, he is filled with a bestial rage for his grand-sire's blood and were Sebastien Goulet in torpor or unconscious before him, he would without hesitations drink the older City Gangrel dry of both blood and soul. The details of his shovel party, and resurrection from the literal grave have left him with a particular loathing of the Sabbat. But he remembers well how he and his sire escaped Denver when the Camarilla found the temporary have of the Queens of Mercy pack.
Once beyond the Denver city limits, unlife became one of night-to-night survival, with the ever present fear that Sebastien and the Queens of Mercy were only hours or days behind them. Alex's first move was to teach Ward how to steal a car and I-76 took them all the way to the Nebraska state line. Once there they had to take shelter in a roadside motel, a terrifying experience for both "Coyotes". But somehow, they both survived that first 'day' on the run. By nightfall, Ward had stolen another vehicle and they took I-80 all the way to the state capital, Lincoln. Alex feared that with Sebastien on their trail staying in another motel was too risky and they slept together in a small local graveyard. Between the constant fear of pursuit and close quarters, especially Alex's ability to bring Ward into the soil with him, they quickly became intimate. The next night, they both rose with more than pursuit on their minds, but they left Lincoln shortly after Ward's first true feeding. Once again they switched vehicles, looking for a fast car, they hit I-80, passing through Omaha, Des Moines, Iowa City and Davenport before hitting the outer limits of Chicago a few hours before dawn.
That first day in Chicago they once again slept together entombed in the earth of the Elmhurst cemetery outside of Joliet, Illinois. When they rose that evening, they quickly fed at a local biker bar. This turned out to be both a mistake and stroke of good fortune for they quickly crossed claws with the Wolf Pack of Chicago. Despite this, Alex's gift for diplomacy ended the hostilities and gave Ward enough time to tell their story to the Gangrel biker archons. By working together, they convinced Anthius and thus, Tyrus to trust them enough to guarantee a safe escort into Chicago proper and a introduction to Inyanga, the ancient Gangrel primogen of the Chicago area. After a grueling interrogation by Inyanga, she pronounced them to be no threat to Chicago and released them to take up residency in the city. While this did give them a respite from their travels, it guaranteed the interest of the Kindred. After being used by several prominent power players in the city, Rosa Hernandez took pity on them and took them under her wing for several months. They finally settled on the south side of Chicago, in the neighborhood north of the University of Chicago and east of Washington park. The area was of no particular interest to the Kindred and they were quickly forgotten.
For a couple of years, they knew peace and despite Ward's obvious heterosexuality, they became lovers. Alex evolved into a true sire, showing Ward the ins and outs of being Cainites, ahhemm...Kindred. Ward supported Alex's desire to rejoin the human race and regularly encouraged him to try new human experiences. They made local acquaintances among the Kindred of Chicago and became fast friends with Rosa Hernandez and her circle of vampire associates. Even though they seemed to have escaped the Sabbat and reinvented themselves, they were still wary. But they couldn't have known that there was succubus in the Museum of Science and Industry or they would never have wandered there in the small hours of then night. They were enslaved by Gulfora before they knew what happened, but within a few nights Alex was somehow able to break her sexual hold on him and escape. When he finally returned, months later with a coterie of allies, all female, they had to forcibly subdue Ward to free him from the succubus' insidious influence. Several times in the following months, Ward tried to return to his one true love, it was years before he stopped pining for her and the dreams of her never stopped. But the fracas at the museum didn't go unnoticed and the following year the Sabbat came for them. They barely escaped Sebastien's trap, injured and hungry, they fled Chicago in early 2001.
They fled due south for several days, from Chicago to Indianapolis, then on to Lousiville, Nashville, Birmingham and finally New Orleans. They never stayed in one city for more than a few nights, usually on the outskirts and fed where they could. They lived on stolen cash and acquired new vehicles nightly. While Ward never could master Alex's gift of shared entombment, they once again rekindled their romance. They rested in New Orleans for a month, staying for Mardi Gras and then moving due west through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finally to California.
In Los Angeles, they once again reinvented themselves as anarchs, taking up residence in Santa Ana, as the allies of the Caitiff Baroness Amethyst. The city of Lost Angels was an entirely new experience for them both, allowing Alex to freely explore his human homosexual nature and providing Ward with a stable if violent setting in which to overcome his demonic obsessions and finally accept immortality. Together they explored Los Angeles many entertainments and formed friendships with a number of anarch vampires and a few choice mortals. For a decade or so, they became fixtures in L.A. and as such were unprepared for the next round of barony bush wars. As they owed Amethyst, they automatically backed her and when violence ensued, they shed their share of blood. When it was all said and done, many mortals and not a few Kindred were dead. Guilt ridden, Alex forever after chose the life of a pacifist, something that made staying in the Anarch Free State impossible. So in 2015 they packed up their belongings and moved north to San Francisco.
The new prince of San Francisco, Sara Anne Winder, demanded a blood oath in return for the right to domain in her city. Given their previous experiences, they talked it over between them and finally accepted her offer. She was never wiser to their seeming resistance to the effects of her blood, a leftover benefit of the Sabbat vinculum. They settled in the Castro, one of the first gay neighborhoods in America.
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