Here follows a brief description of the people involved in the drama. Besides these, the player characters are likely to interact with a number of different individuals, from potential witnesses to grieving families.

Turned by greed and Blood a long time ago, Detective Webber nowadays works for Mme Stokes (below), simply because he thinks vampires are better suited than cops to take care of any “funny business”: his name for any case that shows traces of the supernatural. In this case there aren’t any such traces, but Webber nevertheless recognises the value of vampires staying hidden. As well as catching murderers, of course.

Madame Sam Stokes is the law among Kindred in these parts, and has been so for a long time. Once a fieldworker, nowadays a shotcaller behind the scenes, Sam’s foremost job is protecting the Masquerade. She is the one that has sent the coterie to meet with Detective Webber, and is available to contact if the coterie runs out of ideas or needs strings pulled. (She also makes an appearance in the flashback in Chapter Three.)

One night three decades ago, a heavily intoxicated Harry Lloyd did something that has come to plague him his entire life. He had long been obsessed with sci-fi movie mega starlet Eliza Burton, a young actress of considerable fan acclaim. A toxic fan, he took his fixation too far, frequently visiting Eliza’s house without her knowledge and tracing her every movement. This fateful night, after drinking a little too much, Harry broke into Eliza’s home, and when she told him to leave, he lashed out. He murdered her. Or that’s what the papers and the judge said. Harry maintained his innocence — of the murder, at least — and still does to this day.

He was released from prison a few months ago and was hopeful his crime would have been forgotten. The tabloids ensured this would not be the case, clickbait articles and thinkpiece vlogs creating an Eliza Burton renaissance while portraying Lloyd as a wretched obsessive fan.

He now lives a miserable existence in his house, ostracized by the community, from which he is often the subject of harassment and vandalism. He would have moved long ago if he had the means.

the coterie might encounter Harry already in chapter one, but he otherwise shows up in chapter two.

Marcus Lector is a vampire of means, and spends his time collecting victims with rare and delicate blood that sometimes even yields supernatural effects. He especially savors the blood of serial killers and other remorseless ne’er-do-wells, and is thus on a similar mission as the coterie.

Including Marcus in the scenario is optional, serving as foil and/or opportunity, depending on the coterie’s actions.

Ever since that fateful night thirty years ago poor Martha has been trying to piece together what happened to her younger sister. They say it was a serial killer, but some things don’t add up. There are details missing, things subdued. Piece by piece, she has reconstructed that night at the hotel and what followed, and a whole world of darkness and pain has been revealed to her. This has caused her mind to irrevocably snap, and out of pain and vengeance she is now looking to recreate the events of thirty years ago in her own, twisted way, before her health gives out.

See the appendix for descriptions of the player characters. As with the other descriptions in the book, there is little in the way of physical description here, leaving it to the players to imagine what their characters are like. Some parts of the character sheet relate to systems not in this quickstart - ignore those for now.