Characters / Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines Camarilla

Index | The Player Character | The Camarilla | The Anarchs | The Sabbat | Kuei-jin | Independents | Ghouls | Neutral and Friendly Humans | Human Antagonists | Others | Mod Characters

---

The Camarilla

Prince & Sheriff

Prince Sebastian LaCroix

Voiced by: Andy Milder

The folly of leadership is knowing that no matter what you do, behind your back, there's hundreds certain that their own solution is the sounder one and that your decision was the by-product of a whimsical dart toss. I pronounce the blast sentence, and I soak the critical fallout. I make the decisions no-one else will. Leadership... I wear the albatross and a bullseye.

The Ventrue Prince of Los Angeles' Camarilla Kindred, and therefore the leader of the "new kids in town". LaCroix is a classic Ventrue: A domineering, manipulative politician with entitlement issues and a taste for Realpolitik. It soon becomes obvious that he is on very sandy ground concerning both the Anarch and his own Camarilla "underlings", with nobody really respecting him at all. After condemning the main character's sire to death in the opening cutscene for breaking the second tradition, he is forced to leave the PC alive when it's obvious he's got a PR nightmare on his hands.

---

• 0% Approval Rating: The Sheriff is pretty much the only person to be unquestionably loyal to him; any other vampire in Los Angeles hates him (the Anarchs), treats him like a joke (Gary, Jack), questions his motives (Strauss) or just plain doesn't care about him. He knows it, and he hates it. Even LaCroix's ghoul indicates in a roundabout way that he doesn't like him either, but notes his loyalty is enforced by the blood bond.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After he fails to Dominate you into handing him the key to the sarcophagus, he gets on his knees and downright pleads with you to hand it over.
• Ambiguous Innocence: He never actually admits to arranging Grout's death, even if you can get him to confide his alliance with the Kuei-Jin in you. His accuser, who by this point in the story has been proven a lying backstabber herself, is no more trustworthy than he is. Granted, Grout's recordings corroborate that he was paranoid about a particular Camarilla vampire with grand ambitions he'd been clued in on through his Malkavian insight, just as Ming Xiao says. LaCroix is really the only Camarilla vampire met in the game who fits into that narrative, so while the recordings don't name him specifically, his guilt is heavily implied and the game doesn't really present anyone else as a possible alternative.
• Ambiguous Situation: Jack offers two theories on why you're the vampire LaCroix has running all of his errands: one, that he considers your existence an affront to his authority as prince and is more resentful than he lets on about having pandered to Nines in that courtroom, so he's sending you on missions you're expected to perish on and thus rid himself of a walking reminder of having been undermined; two, that he's made you his favored agent because he plans to hold you and your grand accomplishments up as a victorious example of what the Camarilla can do even for those who awakened into the night as lowly dredges. Of course, the two theories aren't mutually exclusive.
• Arch-Enemy: He's Grünfeld's, after having killed the vampire hunter's father and grandfather. It isn't particularly reciprocated; LaCroix views the current Grünfeld as a minor annoyance at most, although he does take great pleasure in his death.
• Assassin Outclassin': From Africa to London, he was pursued by father and son vampire hunters, both of whom he got the better of in their turn. The grandson is hot on his trail in LA.
• Bad Boss: Not quite as horrible as Ming Xiao, but still, he keeps sending you on progressively worse suicide missions in the hope you will die even if you prove useful, and has no scruple against using one of his own men as a suicide bomb during your assault on Venture Tower.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Subverted, even in the ending where you join his side and help him to win. Jack pulls a fast one on him, and you and LaCroix perish in flames together.
• Bait the Dog: At first, he comes off as a stern but Reasonable Authority Figure, and even rewards you with cash and a nice apartment if you're polite enough. This doesn't last very long.
  • He gets a few moments where he seems to sincerely mentor a Ventrue fledgling in etiquette and politics. He'll also pay them slightly more and leave Blue Blood packs in their havens instead of the standard type. Not that any of this stops him from siccing a werewolf on you when you prove to be a liability.
• Beauty Is Bad: He's a Pretty Boy, but absolutely rotten to you no matter how nice or loyal you are to him. And if you push through and side with him despite all the attempts he's made on your life and all the ways he's screwed you over, your reward is death because he's too selfish and single-minded to heed all the warnings not to open the Sarcophagus.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With Ming Xiao, until they stab each other in the back.
• Big Bad Wannabe: More so in the grand scheme of things than in the game itself. Throughout the story, LaCroix remains a legitimate threat to the PC and the other major characters. With that said, he's still a long way off from being the all-powerful vampire overlord he strives to be. Furthermore, LaCroix is doomed to perish regardless of which ending the player achieves.
• Big "NO!": In the ending where you side with him, the last thing he says upon opening the Sarcophagus and seeing all the C4 in it, is a loud, skyward "NOOOOO!"
• Blue Blood: Was almost certainly of noble birth, since he was sired by a Belgian noble, and Ventrue tend to sire people from aristocratic backgrounds.
• Broken Pedestal: He can wind up being this to a loyal Fledgling, especially if they're Ventrue.
• Bullying a Dragon: If you get him to confess to his alliance with the Kuei-jin, and then attempt to blackmail him over it, he'll declare that an assassination attempt has just been made and instruct the Sheriff to respond accordingly.
• The Chains of Commanding: As per his quote, he very much believes in this.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several endings have him stabbed by the Fledgling with the letter opener that had been laying on his desk the entire game.
• Consummate Liar: Even the voice in the Malkavian's head will call LaCroix a liar, though the Malk will have no option to act on it.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Oh so very much. To try to consolidate his position, he backstabs the Camarilla, the Anarchs, the Kuei-Jin, and the fledgling, even when it could be much more advantageous for him not to. Most obvious after the fledgling singlehandedly routs the Los Angeles Sabbat on his orders: rather than take the credit for removing the Camarilla's and Anarchs' mutual enemy, he immediately tries to get the fledgling killed again.
• Crippling Overspecialization: He has Dominate and has no qualms using it on a rebellious fledgling to get his way. It may be a sign that he over-relies on the discipline to the point he's ignored other ones he has, like the other Ventrue Clan Disciplines Presence and Fortitude. Case in point? You easily gut him with the letter opener on his desk!
• Cutscene Boss: Once you get rid of his sheriff, his only defense is an unsuccessful attempt at Dominating you.
• Deadpan Snarker: Can be surprisingly caustic at times, especially in regards to the Anarchs or a Malkavian PC.
• Despair Event Horizon: In the Kuei-Jin ending, he stops talking after realizing that Ming Xiao has won, and gains a Thousand-Yard Stare for the last two minutes of his unlife even while she gloats at him.
• Dirty Coward: He has either you or the Sheriff do all his dirty work for him. He doesn't even attempt to fight you at the end and pitifully begs for you to just give him what he wants if you side against him. The only time he displays any sort of prowess or courage is when the Sabbat attack Venture Tower, and even then it was just a couple of shovelheads who actually had to make it all the way through to the penthouse floor before he did anything about it.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He can react this way to certain Kindred who come after him in the end. Rather hypocritically, given the strong evidence that he's the one who set you up for a fall.
  LaCroix: You... you betrayed me! I gave you guidance, responsibility, opportunity, power. And now, you enter my building, cripple my organization, kill my most loyal associates. You Judas, you devil!
• Even Evil Has Standards: Jack will concede to the PC that LaCroix wouldn't work with the Sabbat. Sure, he might drop your name on the street to get them on your trail, but he wouldn't work with them. Subverted with the Kuei-Jin, with whom he forged an alliance despite denying all evidence of having done so and trying to sell them as pure evil. Thus, it's at least up for debate whether or not Jack gave him too much credit.
• Evil Is Petty: A sireless fledgling should by all accounts be completely beneath his notice, but LaCroix still sees fit to push you around and try to get you killed for no other reason than because his pride can't take being forced to forego executing you along with your sire.
• Evil Plan: He never actually uses the D-word in regards to himself, but his master plan is to diablerize whoever is slumbering within the sarcophagus and use this massive power boost to set himself up as head of an empire even the Camarilla won't be able to match. Funnily enough, this isn't really apparent unless you join his side in the ending; he keeps his motives to himself if you're his enemy, and it's his alliance with the Kuei-Jin that outs him as a traitor and marks him for death in the Camarilla ending.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: He resides in the top-floor penthouse of Venture Tower, which looms over Downtown L.A. and is visible from various distant locations in the game.
• Expy:
  • Very clearly based on both Jan Pieterzoon and Hardestadt the Younger, two of the tabletop game's most frequently recurring Ventrue characters. His appearance closely resembles the former, while his ruthless scheming and absolutely horrific intentions behind closed doors directly mirror the latter.
  • He's also quite a bit like Lord Bullingdon from Barry Lyndon, appearing as a young, short-haired, blonde aristocrat with a British accent who's a Dirty Coward with entitlement issues who arrogantly believes himself to be a major player in the plot but mostly just comes across as petty and pathetic compared to the much more capable protagonist whom he despises.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Not matter what you do or who you ally with — including the man himself — LaCroix will always end up dead or deposed by the end.
• Fantastic Racism: He says he doesn't discriminate when asked about his clan, but he will actually give a bit more money to a Ventrue player.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride, and plenty of it. From everything he says about any clan other than his own, to how he thinks he's the smartest schemer in the game for L.A.. He could have possibly kept the Fledgling on his side if he simply stopped trying to get them killed, but he viewed them as a living symbol of how ineffectual his power is, so he logically feels compelled to quash that.
• Faux Affably Evil: While he can be quite polite and charming if he wants to, it all goes out the window the moment it looks like he isn't going to get what he wants.
• Foil:
  • He and Nines couldn't be more exact opposites if they tried. Not only do they embody the Noble Male, Roguish Male dichotomy near perfectly on a visual level, but their personalities clash exactly. LaCroix is superficially polite, but is secretly a slimy schemer with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. Nines is outwardly gruff, but pretty consistently presented as genuine, helpful, and an all around stand-up guy who never really manipulates the player. LaCroix is generally hated or disrespected by everyone, even his own Primogen, while Nines is seen as a hero to his peers and even manages to be viewed as a valuable ally to people diametrically opposed to his values (Tung, Strauss, etc). Suffice to say, Nines makes LaCroix look bad in more ways than just his inability to retake control of L.A. from the Anarchs.
  • Ironically, him and the player. He is essentially treating you the way the Camarilla have treated him; he throws you into impossible suicide missions without proper support, just like how he was assigned to take over a city the Camarilla haven't controlled in 60 years without the proper support he'd need to overtake the Anarchs. Similarly, he seeks to lash out at the Camarilla for the treatment, just like you are likely to do to him. The big difference? You got your hands dirty and carved out a name for yourself, forcing everyone around you to respect you. LaCroix only ever pawns off the work he'd need to do to gain the true respect from the Camarilla, and puts all his faith into being able to gain omnipotent power from the Sarcophagus, and that ends up being his downfall.
• French Jerk: LaCroix may have lost the accent, but the stereotype still fits.
• Genghis Gambit: With maxed out persuasion, the player return to him in the endgame and call him out for using you as a fall guy. He'll admit to it, saying he needed the Camarilla and the Anarchs united against the Kuei-Jin.
• Hate Sink: Both in and out of universe. He's superficially polite, but all around so unpleasant and petulant it's utterly cathartic to watch the player character slash his throat at the end.
• He Knows Too Much: When you tell him you know about his secret alliance with Ming Xiao and he tries again to get rid of you once and for all by having you cross paths with a werewolf and then declaring a Blood Hunt on you. It doesn't work.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Prince LaCroix publicly runs the "LaCroix Foundation".
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Any number of ways, in every possible ending. His secret alliance with Ming Xiao to remove their mutual enemies convinces the Camarilla and Anarchs that he needs to go; his obsession with the Ankaran Sarcophagus leads him to unwittingly stow an explosive-rigged Macguffin in his own office; and the player character, the one powerful newcomer in town who could be persuaded to ally with him, is almost certain to have a Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal after LaCroix's repeated attempts to have them killed — or, if your relationship is good enough, hand him over to Strauss for some fatal Camarilla justice.
• Humiliation Conga: The game's story becomes one very long one for him. Very few if any of his plans go off without a huge hitch of some kind, he utterly fails to get rid of Nines twice, his shady alliance comes back to bite him in a major way, and his own troublesome agent whose very existence mocks his authority absolutely refuses to die no matter what suicide missions he sends them on. Even his ending is a Downer Ending, should you decide to side with him in the end, and no matter what, the sarcophagus was empty all along. If you don't side with him, then you can choose from one of several equally humiliating endgames for him:
  • You have an independent Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal and single-handedly fight your way through what meager loyal followers he still has, then hand off the key to him, letting him destroy himself in a fiery explosion.
  • You can run off to the Kuei-jin—an alliance that likely wouldn't have happened if he hadn't turned both your Camarilla and Anarch allies against you. Then you fight your way up his tower, leading Xiao into his Haven where she proceeds to kill him. The Kuei-jin then take over L.A., and the sarcophagus LaCroix gambled everything on goes to the bottom of the ocean, unopened.
  • You can go to Strauss, who is basically LaCroix's own The Starscream, and rat LaCroix out to the Camarilla for his numerous betrayals and shady ambitions. You then fight your way through LaCroix's followers at Strauss' behest, culminating in Strauss having LaCroix arrested by the Camarilla. Execution is implied to follow soon, and the sarcophagus gets locked away, unopened, in a warehouse somewhere. Strauss then takes LaCroix's place as the Prince of L.A., with you at his side as Sheriff.
  • You can go to the Anarchs and find out that Nines survived Griffith Park, if barely, and has cleared your name among your Anarch allies. At his instruction, you cut or shoot your way through Venture Tower, take down the Sheriff, and confront LaCroix in his office. There, you hand him his key and take off, which leaves LaCroix to open the sarcophagus to an explosive surprise. The Anarchs then take back L.A., with you as a new figurehead for the cause.
• Hypocrite:
  • Derides the Sabbat as diablerists, and informs the fledgling that the act itself is a heinous crime punishable by death. Guess what his master plan for whatever's sleeping in the sarcophagus is?
  • He'll tell you you can't trust anything the Kuei-jin say because they tried to kill you, when the very first thing he does in the game is try to kill you.
• I Am Very British: A strange case, as he's French by birth, but now speaks with a (very likely fabricated) English accent, which gives him an Evil Brit veneer.
• Immortal Immaturity: LaCroix is, if anything, far more immature and petulant than Nines could ever hope to be and is over twice his age. Possibly explainable due to being Ventrue.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • The Malkavian PC has a thing for calling LaCroix "The Jester-Prince" or "The Jester", but never to his face.
  • The non-Malkavian PC calls him "Captain Dramatic" during the dialogue about Grout's death.
  • Gorgeous Gary, The Nosferatu Primogen, refers to him as "Prince Priss" during his introductory dialogue, and later calls him "Little Lord Flauntlacroix."
  • Grünfeld constantly calls him the "Archfiend LaCroix". The inquisitor probably intends it to be a Dehumanizing Insult against a particularly despicable undead monster, but the epithet is quite fearsome.
• Ironic Name: LaCroix means "the cross" or "the crucifix". Considering his condition, it's deeply ironic.
• Irony: As he prepares to open the sarcophagus in his own ending, he spends the last few moments of his existence pondering exactly which legendary vampire he's about to diablerize, at the last name-dropping Caine himself. It's rather strongly suggested that Caine himself was in on the plot to do LaCroix in.
• Jerkass: He's snide, petty, vindictive, and childish, even when compared to the other vampires in this game. He also vastly overestimates his own capabilities when playing the game of Kindred politics. He's a decent enough schemer, but his own Primogen are running rings around him and his leadership leaves something to be desired even for the Kindred who are obligated to support him, as Strauss points out.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In the Kuei-Jin ending, he tells the PC that the Kuei-Jin won't let him/her live after destroying the Camarilla in L.A.. Which is more or less what happens, except the PC isn't technically killed.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After calling the blood hunt on Nines for Grout's murder, he has a brief speech lamenting The Chains of Commanding. Coming from anyone else, his words might ring sympathetic, but he layers the speech with obvious sympathy-baiting that the player can directly call out. And as it turns out, what little relevance his speech has is completely undercut by the "difficult decision" he described being entirely fabricated by himself, as he directly planned for Nines to be framed.
• Just Between You and Me: Defied constantly — LaCroix will die on his lies unless you pull the truth out of him. Most notably, with a lock on his ending and a whopping 10 Persuasion, you can demand that he stop bullshitting you about the setup at Griffith Park and only then will he cop to arranging it.
• Just Eat Gilligan: Although it's clear that the guy is bad news, the PC literally can't disobey his orders. If you do antagonise him or tell him where to shove his missions, he'll simply Dominate you into doing his bidding anyway; completing his tasks is also the only way to progress the main story. This changes during the finale, though. The PC is powerful enough by this point to shrug off LaCroix's attempts to Dominate them.
• Karmic Death: In the Anarch, Independent and his own ending, he finally gets the key to his vaunted sarcophagus, only to get blown to smithereens by the bomb hidden inside.
• Laughing Mad: In most endings, when he realizes that he's gambled everything on a Macguffin that's actually an armed bomb.
• The Mentor: Averted. After calling a Blood Hunt on you he claims to have been this to the ungrateful Fledgling throughout the game, but he's clearly lying to play up his public image. To be fair, he does have a few moments with a Ventrue player, as he's the one to educate you on your clan's history and the etiquette expected of those born to rule.
• Meaningful Name: The Malkavian refers to him as "The Jester-Prince", which refers to the fact that his power barely means anything, he lives on the Anarchs' sufferance and the might of his Sheriff, and even his own Primogen don't respect him, especially Golden Gary and Strauss. This even extends outside of LA; see Reassigned to Antarctica on how his reign is essentially a cruel joke by Camarilla standards.
• Mirthless Laughter: LaCroix starts laughing when the sarcophagus he opens is full of dynamite instead of the Antediluvian he intended to diablize, and sees a mocking note from Smiling Jack and a timer reaching 0:00; crosses over with Laughing Mad.
• Mistaken for Gay: Chunk's mind seems to wander here when he mulls on LaCroix's nocturnal lifestyle, but he realises it's none of his business and drops his line of thought.
• Moving the Goalposts: LaCroix keeps sending the PC out on Suicide Missions, each time under the excuse that it is about repaying him for sparing their life. It is possible to walk out on him at some point, but the game's plot will not progress until the player goes back, apologizes, and keeps doing his bidding.
• Nice to the Waiter: His receptionist Chunk, at least, apparently considers him a pretty Nice Guy.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Though mostly because he dislikes getting his hands dirty. While you never get to see him in action, it's implied he actually is skilled in a fight if he really has to; he did kill Bach's grandfather and father on his own when they were hunting him, and when the Sabbat assaults his Tower, he actually kills two of them with his own hands before letting the Sheriff deal with the others.
  • There's another, less obvious, subversion: the time when he possesses a suicide-bomb soldier. After talking, the soldier attacks you normally, but with the blue aura to indicate that he is still being possessed. It's still the Prince in there. You might assume that possessing a soldier would give him that soldier's skills, but reading the original rulebooks indicates that that's not actually how that particular Dominate power works. He really is fighting like a soldier. Which he was, in his backstory. So, he never completely lost his training.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: He never fights on-screen, but killed a few Sabbat when they raided his tower and had previously wiped out two generations of an infamous vampire hunter family.
• People Puppets: Midway through your assault on Venture Tower, Sebastian possesses one of his Elite Mooks using Dominate to taunt you and prime an astrolite suicide bomb. While possessed, the guard's appearance morphs to resemble LaCroix, and speaks using his voice.
• Pet the Dog: If the Fledgling is loyal enough and doesn't lip off to him every chance they get, he'll reward them with a better haven downtown that has no windows, unlike the Santa Monica haven, which is practically designed to make sure they get caught in the sun. Of course, it's downplayed, because he constantly sends the Fledgling on suicide missions and calls a Blood Hunt on them in the end.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Despite clearly disapproving of Nines' opinion, he advises the Fledgling to listen to what he has to say rather than just ignore his argument- because the more you know about your opponent, the better you can face them.
  • As evil as he is, he will tell a low-humanity PC to not kill innocent people during missions, most notably the museum. This is more likely to avoid trouble and keeping up the maquerade than on moral grounds.
• Pretty Boy: As a Ventrue, he maintains an extremely prim appearance. Emphasis on the "boy" part, as he's described as a "baby face" more than once.
• Really 700 Years Old: Was apparently an officer in Napoleon's army, making him at least 200+ years old. Interestingly, this makes him quite young for the position he holds.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: This one requires a bit of knowledge of the setting, but basically he has been sent to retake control of a section of the US the Camarilla hasn't controlled since 1944, without the necessary backing to actually gain any control: His "princehood" is a hollow title that exists purely on the Anarchs' sufferance, as he simply cannot afford a full-scale conflict with them, meaning he has to make constant concessions and compromises with them. His own Primogen all know it, and his foothold lives on the fact the Sheriff is so powerful that none of the Primogen dare get on his bad side. By Camarilla elders' standards, someone is playing a very cruel joke on him, and he's already seen the punch-line. No wonder he's so bitter, and really, really wants to diablerize an Antediluvian vampire.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Dude loves to hear himself talk.
• Sissy Villain: Downplayed, but still present. For a man driven by ambition and greed, he sure hates getting his hands dirty.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Very much believes himself to be in this position. The Anarchs hate him, the Camarilla Primogens treat him like a joke, his position hangs by a thread, and the only person he can actually throw his weight against is, well, you. So he does.
• Smug Snake: Even in the ending where he wins, he loses, and he only gets that far because the Player chose to help him.
• The Starscream: If you get his ending, he makes a comment that not even the Camarilla will have the power to oppose the two of you now, implying that he's been entertaining these sorts of ambitions for a while now.
• Ungrateful Bastard: While he does give the player a few useful bits of aid, and can be convinced to provide regular paychecks for successful missions, he also keeps trying to kill them over a matter of pride long after they've proven themselves useful. He even keeps trying this after the Fledgling has wiped out the L.A. Sabbat for him.
• Unwitting Pawn: LaCroix may think he's playing a shrewd political game, but the truth is, he's just dancing to Jack's tune and he doesn't even realize it. The Ankaran Sarcophagus he covets is nothing more than an Apple of Discord made to disrupt the tenuous balance of power in Los Angeles and blow up whoever opens it. All the Prince's efforts to acquire it only further diminish his hold on the city and lead him closer to his death.
• Uriah Gambit: It becomes eventually obvious that LaCroix is just trying to have the player character die by sending you on increasingly more difficult suicide missions, after being forced to spare your life at the Camarilla meeting. If you die (or fail, giving him an excuse to have you executed), he gets what he wanted in the first place; if you survive, he gets whatever he wanted out of the mission you completed. Though he seems to eventually come around to seeing you as useful enough to be worth keeping around.
• Vampires Are Rich: Lives in a penthouse at the top of a skyscraper in downtown L.A., decorated with quite a lot of gilt. He's certainly not poor. Justified since his sire was a Belgian noble, so he was more than likely an aristocrat in life.
• Villainous Breakdown: Suffers one of these because of the player character's refusal to die. It comes to a head if he opens the sarcophagus: he sees the bombs and simply laughs madly until he's incinerated. He also have a pretty epic once if the player character tell him they have the key, and he discovers that he can't dominate them into handing it over. Earlier, when the Sabbat attack his building, you can tell from his frenzied ranting just how much it feels like he has lost control.
• Villain by Default: No matter how useful, how polite and understanding the player is to LaCroix, he never stops trying to get them killed.
• Villain Has a Point: Player-dependent. As stated above, he will always backstab you after his alliance with the Kuei-Jin comes out. However, as early as your second meeting with the man, it's possible to throw his patronage back in his face and tell him to go fuck himself. Suicidally stupid — fledglings mouthing off to the Camarilla prince usually suffer far steeper penalties than he'll give you — but you always have the option. In such a case, he's rather more justified in getting rid of an unquestionably competent, but terribly disloyal and insubordinate fledgling who's made no secret of how much they despise him.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He runs the vampire underworld by night but puts up a legitimate business front by day. Averted among his peers; many despise him, and few respect him.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: He constantly hangs the fact that he did not kill you for the crime of being embraced against your will without his permission as reason enough for why you should be eternally grateful to him and do every suicidal task he orders of you without question.
• We Can Rule Together: Offers the fledgling a variation of this if they side with him in the ending, though by that point they have every reason not to take him at his word.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Up for debate, but this is one of several reasons a PC can offer the taxi driver while determining their ending as to why they're remaining loyal to LaCroix.
• Why Won't You Die?: His reason for everything he involves you with.
• Young and in Charge: While decidedly less effective than Gary in actually earning himself some respect in this regard, he fits this trope. While 200+ is hardly young, he just barely qualifies for Elder status within Kindred society, which is quite rare for a Camarilla Prince. Jack theorizes that his relative youth is part of the reason he's as desperate and impatient to consolidate his power as he is.

The Sheriff

Oh, the Sheriff, yeah. I love how everyone's talkin' about that big mystery. It's like someone Embraced a doped-up gorilla!

— Jack

A huge, mute Kindred who follows LaCroix everywhere as his bodyguard. Wields a gargantuan sword and apparently comes from Africa. He was the one who beheaded your Sire.

---

• Achilles' Heel: In his bat form, he's vulnerable to bright lights - especially the spotlights on the roof of Venture Tower.
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a longcoat that appears to be made of elephant skin, if you need another reason to be intimidated by him. Although he discards it in the endgame.
• The Beastmaster: Can use Animalism, used in-game to summon two wraithwolves and a swarm of bugs to slaughter some Sabbat Mooks during the tutorial. In his boss fight, he summons bats to drain the fledgling's blood pool.
• BFS: The Sheriff seems to wield Cloud's Buster Sword.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: He only uses his Animalism powers once, in a tutorial cutscene, to one-shot three Sabbat vampires. If the PC fights him, he sticks to melee, though he occasionally uses level 4 of Animalism, Bloodsuckers's communion, to steal your blood reserve.
• The Dragon: His only role in the game is as LaCroix's enforcer.
• Dreadlock Warrior: A hulking, terrifying killing machine with dreadlocks, no less.
• Establishing Character Moment: Did you think Jack's Curb-Stomp Battle of a duo of Sabbat was impressive? The Sheriff barely even moves in taking out three of them even faster.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's about one and a half times the size of anyone else in the game.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": "Sheriff" is his title, but nobody even seems to know any other name he might go by.
• Foreign Bodyguard: To LaCroix. Like with most other examples of the trope, being a foreigner and having no political skin in the game he's unquestionably loyal to his employer.
• Flat Character: The Sheriff appears to have no character whatsoever and nobody knows anything about him: He's never seen out of sight of LaCroix and never interacts with anyone in a non-killing-them setting. He makes the other L.A. Kindred a bit nervous as a result.
• Flunky Boss: In the stage that he turns into a bat, other vampires appear that are not necessary to kill, but can pose a threat if the player focuses only on the Sheriff.
• Gonk: Just look at that mug. It's probably a good thing he never leaves LaCroix's side, because that face would probably be a Masquerade violation all on its own.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: As the Chiropteran Behemoth, he can toss people at you.
• Made of Iron: Takes a lot of punishment to bring down, in both his forms.
• One-Winged Angel: He becomes a massive bat-creature when the fight against the PC starts to go against him.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Sheriff doesn't fit any of the clans in the Camarilla, and no one seems to have any clue what the hell he actually is - though he is most likely a Nagloper, an obscure Tzimisce bloodline originating from Africa.
• Riddle for the Ages: What kind of vampire is the Sheriff exactly? And how exactly did a fop like LaCroix earn his seemingly undying loyalty? When it comes to the Sheriff, questions are many but answers are in short supply?
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Monochromatic, no less, and one of the most dangerous opponents in the game.
• Scary Black Man: Though his Undeathly Pallor, red eyes and inhuman size mean he doesn't look much like any actual ethnicity.
• Smarter Than You Look: Given his massive size, you'd think that he would just attack people, and eventually you head-on, but no. He uses the Animalism Discipline on some Sabbat mooks when he could just as well chop them down and displays Combat Pragmatism in his boss fight, like teleporting behind you before attacking.
• The Stoic: His expression never changes, whether he's acting as intimidating muscle for LaCroix, acting as the Camarilla's executioner, or going toe-to-toe with the PC in a boss fight.
• Teleport Spam: Likes to reappear behind the PC after being hit. Think fast.
• The Voiceless: Unless you count his bestial shrieks of rage and pain in his bat form.
• You Killed My Father: He kills the PC's sire at the beginning of the game. Although there's never a conversation with him to say it outright, the PC can express anger at this fact to other characters in the game.

Primogen

Maximillian Strauss

Voiced by: Jim Ward

True power lies not in wealth, but in the things it affords you.

The Tremere Primogen and Regent, Strauss is a mysterious, unfailingly polite sorcerer often found in the Tremere chantry Downtown. Unlike many of the other Elders, he actually shows some respect to the Fledgling.

---

• Affably Evil: While certainly rather amoral, Strauss's villainy is mostly offscreen and in his backstory rather than front and center. And he is quite genuinely polite, well-mannered, and even reasonable in his dealings with his fellow vampires even when they don't work out, in stark contrast to many of his fellow vampires. This is chiefly due to the fact he's among the oldest vamps in Los Angeles. He's lived through the Camarilla getting kicked out of L.A., and still has the respect of the other Primogen.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a red leather long coat.
• Bald Mystic: His baldness is part of his striking "modern wizard" look.
• Benevolent Boss: He frequently helps a PC out with useful items and rewards when they deal with his quests. He will go extra-miles with a Tremere PC by offering them a place in the Clan's pyramid and a new haven in his Chantry after the Gargoyle quest. Finally, he is, along with the Anarchs, one of the few people you can side with in the endgame who will not betray you.
• Bizarrchitecture: The hallways of his house are... unusual, and difficult to navigate. If you go left you will invariably reach his room, and can only get anywhere else by going right.
• Cold Ham: He hardly ever raise his voice, but is nevertheless dramatic with his delivery, not to mention his body language.
• Cool Shades: A pair of orange-tinted teashades.
• The Dreaded: Unnerves all of the other clans, but that's to be expected since no one trusts the Tremere (with good reason).
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Resoundingly subverted. Strauss seems aware there's nothing to be gained by being rude to the PC and offers fair pay for hard work. This goes double if the player is a Tremere and complete all of his quests without ratting him out to Isaac: he'll actually let you join the clan's Pyramid by becoming his apprentice, when most sireless Tremere would simply be put to death. He's also one of few NPCs who refers to the player as "Neonate" instead of "Fledgling", which means he already acknowledges you as a functioning part of vampiric society, despite your age. ^note "Neonate" is the stage after "Fledgling", when the vampire is no longer considered a childe tagging along with its sire.
• Expy: His appearance seems based on Morpheus.
• Fantastic Racism: Has a few feelings along this line, although they're more patronizing than hateful.
  • His attitudes towards gargoyles are rather dismissive of their intelligence and somewhat reminiscent of old-school arguments for enslaving Africans, though he still seems rather regretful about how his relationship with it ended.
  • There's also a bit of Fantastic Classism in there too; he doesn't hate the Anarchs or disregard their abilities, but he does feel they are too "childish" and impulsive to be relied upon to maintain the Masquerade. He also initially believes they're to blame for the plague, but will acknowledge he was wrong when you tell him it was an unrelated cult.
• In-Series Nickname: A very telling one from the Malkavian PC — "Wizard King." When they refer to LaCroix as a "Jester-Prince", Max remains stoic but it's easy to see he's trying to refrain from laughing.
• Insistent Terminology: He calls the player "Neonate", which is a step above "Fledgling" in Kindred society.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While his views of the Anarchs as a bunch of unruly kids is patronizing, it makes a lot more sense when you consider that he's at least five hundred years old, and all of the Anarchs you meet in the game aside from Jack haven't even hit their first century yet—their defacto leader and "elder", Nines, included.
• Kick the Dog: His reaction if the Fledgling expresses sorrow about Heather's death. It's akin to an adult being annoyed at a child who's just lost their most beloved toy.
• The Leader: A mix of the mastermind and levelheaded sort. The fact that he has this vibe much more than LaCroix is a hint toward his eventual ascension as Prince in the Camarilla ending.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: He serves in the game as an alternative for players who dislike LaCroix but still want to support the Camarilla itself. He might be a Mad Scientist Noble Bigot wizard, but he also is genuinely respectful to you, rewards you properly if you complete his quests, and knows better than to open the Sarcophagus. This overall makes him no saint, but still a better person that the petty, power-hungry and manipulative Prince.
• Mad Scientist: An irresponsible sorcerer, at least. As a younger vampire, he created the Gargoyle that the PC has to deal with in Hollywood.
• The Man Behind the Man:
  • The Malkavian run more or less says that Strauss is the real "King of the City", noting when he makes hints at ambition, his "iron crown begins to sparkle." Maximillian will be amused and a little proud, but warns them to be careful about their insight.
  • Also, there's someone higher on the Tremere pyramid that he takes orders from. You can see him briefly speaking with them telepathically in his ending.
• Meaningful Name: The Malkavian refers to him as "Wizard King", which implies that Strauss has the true power compared to the "Jester Prince" LaCroix and refers to how he's part of the sorcerous clan Tremere. In the Camarilla ending, he even becomes the new Prince of L.A. after LaCroix is ousted.
  • Subverted, too — Strauss means "ostrich", but rather than bury his head in the sand, he simply watches and waits for the right opportunity to get rid of LaCroix.
• Manipulative Bastard: Downplayed. While he gets you to do his dirty work on a few separate occasions, he has a legitimate excuse both times: he can't go to Hollywood to deal with his gargoyle himself because, as a Camarilla elder, he could easily touch off a war, and he doesn't kill LaCroix himself because Klingon Promotion is generally bad form. Unlike LaCroix, he also rather generously rewards you for most of these services. In fact, regardless of which ending you choose, LaCroix gets killed, whether by being blown up or being executed by Strauss.
• The Mentor: Downplayed in that he offers useful advice and rewards to the fledgling, particularly if they're a Tremere. If a Tremere fledgling impresses him enough, he'll speak about getting them fully accepted into the Clan, implying a more formal mentorship to come.
• Money Is Not Power: He gives this quote when the PC chooses the Bloodstar occult item over money as a reward for completing the plaguebearer quest.
  Strauss: "True power lies not in wealth, but the things it can afford you."
• Nice Guy: For a vampire, he's ridiculously polite, even refraining from blasting LaCroix's leadership of the Camarilla too harshly despite having good reason to do so. To boot, you need to persuade him to say even that much... and he quickly realizes he's said too much and clams up.
• Noble Bigot: While quite classist and prejudiced against other clans and factions, Strauss is more patronizing than hate-mongering in his prejudices, and is never unwilling to admit that he might have misjudged a situation because of them.
• The Older Immortal: Older than LaCroix and a Tremere elder. His age is probably counted in centuries, and could be anything up to around 900.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He's willing to adopt the Tremere PC into the Pyramid in exchange for some admittedly pretty weighty favors. That's a show of exceptional generosity for a Tremere, who are huge on organizational security. It also avoids the potentially fatal difficulties that would otherwise lie in wait for a rogue Tremere PC (as befell your sire).
  • A downplayed version for the Malkavian PC. By the time you get to him, you've probably heard a dozen-odd variations on "oh god, not a Malkavian", and multiple people will have told you how annoying and/or creepy your clan (and by extension, you) is within about two seconds of meeting you. Strauss, however, is extremely polite to you, takes you seriously, and offers you gentle guidance.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Why he wants to put an end to the plague raging through the city: dead mortals bring uncomfortable questions.
  • He doesn't want anything to do with the Ankaran Sarcophagus, deciding that, whether or not it holds a slumbering Antediluvian, it's more trouble than it's worth. In the Camarilla ending, he has it hidden away unopened rather than take a chance on it.
  • Doesn't approve of keeping ghouls around — not because it involves stripping the free will and personality away from a human being and leaving them a blood-addicted Empty Shell with no care but to serve their masters (around said master, anyways), but because they tend to end up a liability.
  • He's the most accessible Primogen in the game, and the only one you can visit whenever you want from relatively early on, the only one to reach out to you at all, and does so pretty much as soon as you set foot in Santa Monica. Where most highly ranked vampires treat the Fledgling as little more than a Butt-Monkey to sneer at, Strauss treats you with respect before you even meet him by sending you a polite card.
    • Why? Because you're LaCroix's errand boy/girl, and by the time you meet him face to face, you've already shown more compentence than anyone expected from you. As the vampire in the best position to usurp LaCroix, it's in his best interests to be your ally, lest it play to his advantage. And in one ending, it pays off.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • To the point that he doesn't double-cross you or otherwise lead you to your downfall in his ending. In fact, his ending has you extremely well off as he names you his second in command of LA's Camarilla.
  • Unlike most characters, he knows that the Malkavian PC isn't talking nonsense. Even he can't fully interpret their meaning, but he implores the PC to pay heed and warns them to beware of a Prophecy Twist.
  • Maximillian also desires Nines Rodriguez as an ally, despite their diametrically opposed political allegiances, partly because Nines kept the Kuei-Jin in check.
  • When LaCroix stabs you in the back by declaring a Blood Hunt, instead of mindlessly following orders, Strauss realizes immediately it's a betrayal and that you're not the villain you're painted to be, and supports you unconditionally even though that doing so would put him and possibly the L.A. Tremere Chantry in the firing line if you fail; however, it's possible that he doesn't care, knowing that ultimately, it's a hunt backed by LaCroix and the Kuei-jin, and the Anarchs are barely motivated.
• Secret-Keeper: The PC can become this regarding the fact Strauss created the Gargoyle. He admits this pretty readily though it could potentially get him killed by his superiors, and at best would greatly humiliate himself and the Camarilla if it got out.
• Simple, yet Opulent: Unlike LaCroix, whose haven exudes wealth, Strauss prefers a subtler, but still comfortable lifestyle.
• So Proud of You: In the Camarilla ending, Strauss will show the most emotion in the game, with the slightest hint of a gloat towards a Fledgling of any clan, "Well done, neonate!"
• The Starscream: Implied to be this with LaCroix. There's some in-universe text implying he's letting him take all the heat until things get better sorted out and he can step up to take LaCroix's place. Regardless of what happens, it comes to pass. Only the Camarilla ending has Strauss getting involved, and only to order LaCroix's execution.
• The Stoic: Even when the PC is being very aggressive and unreasonable, Strauss will rarely change the tone of his voice from a cool, soothing murmur, even when ordering LaCroix's execution.
  • His introduction during the first cutscene has him shrug off Velvet's blown kiss, though it's more of a "Not here!" gesture.
  • Also subverted. Most characters fitting this trope are stiff in their body language, but Strauss constantly moves — tilting his head, moving his hands and shoulders, blinking owlishly at you and, at one point, trying not to smile. Very uncharacteristic of this trope, but his words and tone of voice fit it to a T.
• Undeathly Pallor: All the Kindred in the game are ashy and pale to reflect that they're clinically dead and have no blood running through their veins, but he's a notable example; the dude looks downright blue at times.
• Vampires Are Rich: Downplayed, but still obvious from the lavishness of his Chantry. The Tremere haven comes with a plush double bed, artwork and vases along the walls and even a fully stocked bar.
• Vampire Vords: It's more subtle, but he slips into a very classic dracula-esque accent sometimes.

Alistair Grout

Voiced by: J. Grant Albrecht

I am confident no cure for my condition or that of my beloved wife lies within our figurative minds, waiting to be unlocked by the correct combination of memories recovered from our childhoods. And I am most certain it has nothing to do with the relationship between myself, my parents and my... genitals. Sorry, Sigmund, but I choose to stay my course. In time, too, may your star fade and disappear...

The Malkavian Primogen, a former psychiatrist obsessed with finding a cure for his wife's Malkavian catatonia. Little is known of him until you're asked to inspect his mansion.

---

• Apocalyptic Log: His audiotapes.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite being a vampire, he views himself as the Only Sane Man among his kin that he sees as a superstitious, backstabbing lot. This being the World of Darkness, the superstitious are actually right. For extra irony, he is a Malkavian, so his stubborn attachment to Enlightenment thinking might just have been reinforced by his derangement.
• Asshole Victim: Considering he seems to have driven tens (if not hundreds) of humans absolutely batshit insane to the point that one of them gnawed his own arm off, and laments the loss of notoriously abusive insane asylums in the 21st century, is it really a bad thing he's dead?
• Bedlam House: His home, full of mad ghouls in straight jackets and muzzles and loaded with creepy secret passages and the trappings of the very worst of the 20th century's mental treatments.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Judging by his approach to security and the many audiotapes around his house, he still adheres to his era's ideas of how to treat the mentally ill along with many other extinct forms of medicine, such as phrenology.
• Cold Ham: He starts out like this in his audio recordings, before gradually going nuttier and becoming a Large Ham instead.
• Einstein Hair: His portrait, though it might be an artistic exaggeration.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: One reason for all the insane ghouls wandering the house is that he is using them to find a cure for his wife's condition.
• Evil Brit: A cold-blooded older gentleman with an educated English accent. His command of language was actually part of why he was recruited as Primogen in the first place, as his articulate manner is refreshingly at odds with the typical sufferer of the Malkavian condition.

• Faking the Dead: Possibly, since he's been a vampire for around fifty years, and a vampire of that age should have turned entirely to ash upon death, and not left behind a skeleton.
• Got Me Doing It: In one of his logs, he notes with dismissal how some Kindred are prone to flowery, gothic speech patterns... only to catch himself monologuing the same way himself, to his own annoyance.
• Haunted House: Averted, his house is definitely scary and crawling with insane ghouls, but it is not haunted.
• Hearing Voices: The audiotapes report that his Malkavian madness eventually appeared in the form of voices echoing from other vampires during conversation, providing him with secret details of their lives; Grout kept his composure until the voices started to speak outside of conversation, warning him about a powerful vampire implied to be LaCroix and "his blackest crimes, both past and future."
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Grout voices frustration that he never had the chance to question his sire (or "my infector" as he calls her). Apparently an asylum inmate, she attacked and successfully Embraced him, only to be set upon by orderlies and locked in the roaming pen; by the time Grout regained consciousness, the sunrise had killed her. In the same entry he mentions this, he bitterly notes that she'd probably be just like the "mewling wretches" that make up his current crop of test subjects.
• Irony: Grout, a professional psychologist, ended up being Embraced into the vampire clan cursed with insanity.
• Lack of Empathy: Illustrated beautifully when one of his test subjects gnaws off one of his own arms and escapes into the floorboards; Grout's sole concern is for the atrocious mess the subject must be making in there. In fact, the only resident of his house that seems to draw the slightest bit of sympathy from him is his wife.
• Mad Scientist: Though quite restrained in his insanity. That is, if you don't count his casual disregard for the life of his "patients", his fetishism for cruel, old school psychiatric treatments, and the weird architecture of his mansion.
• Mask of Sanity: He seems to be high-functioning at first glance, with his professional outlook and quote-on-quote 'scientific' (at least for the time period he's from) approach to his condition, but it becomes evident very quickly this guy is nuts. Like a lot of other Malkavians, he's deluded himself into thinking he's really an Only Sane Man, as well.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Despite his high position in the Camarilla as the Malkavian Primogen, he admits in an audio log that he doesn't really care about vampire politics and accepted the position chiefly because it allowed him a good vantage point from which to really understand the vampiric condition.
• Only Sane by Comparison: For the Malkavians. He was made Primogen since he was very eloquent and coherent compared to the typical raving lunatics the clan produces. As you go through his house, he quickly turns out to be far from actual sanity.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Has very little patience for what he views as a bunch of mystical gobbledegook, and is dismissive of many of the more occult traditions of vampire society.
• Posthumous Character: His murder gets pinned on a couple of different people, but Ming Xiao is eventually revealed to be the culprit.
• Properly Paranoid: Well, he's Malkavian, he's powerful, and this is the World of Darkness. Someone's gonna be out to get him.
• Psycho Psychologist: Despite his rather calm demeanor, Grout is not someone you want treating you.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Grout may be a loonie, and yearn for a return to now discredited practices like phrenology, but he is absolutely right when he claims that ignoring the physiological components of psychopathology is something one does at one's own risk and that Freudian psychology is so much bunk.
• Sanity Slippage: As with all Malkavians, he's insane; however, Grout has a very slow-acting version of the Malkavian madness, going from a cold-hearted psychopath to a reclusive paranoid schizophrenic over the course of several decades.
  • Also a case of Shown Their Work: in the tabletop rules for Masquerade, a vampire losing Humanity could gain a Derangement, so all vampires could be insane, Malkavians are just guaranteed to be. Grout likely started with only the one Derangement as part of the Malkavian Clan weakness (likely delusions that nothing supernatural could possibly exist), and gained more as he pursued his increasingly-unethical experiments to try and cure himself and his wife, piling on the Derangements as he botched his Degeneration rolls.
  • In addition, not all dementia from Malkavians are giggling idiots. Some manifest their insanity as extremely inhuman detachment to the point of terminal sociopathy.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Notes that vampires do it, theorizes as to why, then realizes he's doing it too over the course of one diary recording.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula". The audiotapes he leaves around are similar to the ones used by Dr. Seward and he also operates an asylum of sorts. Furthermore, his basic motivations...
  • His relationship with his wife is reminiscent of Mr. Freeze.
• Soap Opera Disease: His wife suffers from a mysterious illness, and he's been spending the better part of the twentieth century using his powers to keep her in suspended animation and looking for a cure. Since he's a Malkavian, it's entirely possible that he's delusional and that the disease in question was just aging, or even death.
• The Spock: By Malkavian standards, to the point that the Ventrue diplomats that persuaded him to become Primogen hand-tailored their arguments to his "obvious infatuation with reason."
• Uncertain Doom: The character who offers the most commentary on his death is not trustworthy in the slightest, and her story is not corroborated by her co-conspirator, who will never confirm that he arranged Grout's death with her, even if your standing with him is high enough for him to confide his alliance with the Kuei-jin in you. Also, as mentioned above, Grout's manner of dying is inconsistent with established lore, in a game that's otherwise very meticulous and true to its source material. One conspicuous detail of Grout's fate — a "Faustian bargain" he felt compelled to strike for his own protection — is brought up in his final audio log and never mentioned again.
• The Voice: The player never actually meets Grout himself and only hears the various audio logs he leaves in his mansion. By the time you get to his room, he's already dead.

Gary Golden

Voiced by: Neil Ross

By the clack-smack cracking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. I don't remember seeing you on the guest list for the dinner party; we're having a wrap party for the Misfits about forty years late. Cast and crew only, boss.

The Nosferatu Primogen and former Hollywood star, now the sarcastic king of Hollywood's underworld. One of the most secretive members of the local Camarilla.

---

• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Gorgeous" Gary Golden.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: He rewarded Mitnick for discovering a Nosferatu database by turning him and having him joins the clan. Mitnick doesn't seem to mind.
• At Least I Admit It: His stance towards uppity Toreador PCs; in various lines of dialogue, he rails at them for trying to deny their inherent monstrosity with "Paris Fashions and Pomp."
• Beauty to Beast: The classic Nosferatu Cleopatra archetype: a former handsome, vain Hollywood star turned into a grotesque undead monster having to survive in complete clandestinity. He in turn did the same to Imalia.
• The Barnum: Loves playing visitors and customers like puppets, especially in playing both sides of the fence in the search for the Ankaran Sarcophagus. Clan lore suggests that this is actually the preferred position to take when dealing with distasteful non-Nosferatu clients, vis-a-vis providing false information. Thankfully, he seems to like the PC - especially if you're a Nosferatu.
• Berserk Button: Like most Nosferatu, he loathes Toreador, especially those who play to the clan stereotype. That said, you can still kind of befriend him as a Toreador all the same.
• Big Man on Campus: Mitnick describes him as this verbatim. Even next to former pin-up girl Imalia, Gary Golden was a Hollywood darling and household name, and his presence and showmanship are undiminished as a horrifying vampire.
• Break the Haughty: As he was once a movie star renowned for his looks and charm, he endured this following his embrace. However, he's had the the time to adjust and eventually reinvent himself.
• Body Horror: As typical of the Nosferatu. However, he's downright handsome for the standard. His head is normally shaped and he has no boils or lesions. The only hint of his clan is that he has long pointy ears, sharp teeth and a grey pallor.
• But Thou Must!: A Toreador PC will always say "You are the most offensive and obscene thing I've ever seen!" when Gary reveals himself, no matter what.
• Cool Old Guy: While rather creepy, Gary is still the sort of Primogen who looks after his own, and he never goes back on his word with you. He actually seems to gain something resembling respect for you once you save his agent, even if you're a Toreador. He's only old in human terms however; he skews quite young by vampiric definition (See Young and in Charge below).
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: He'll describe in creative detail about all the ways he'd like to destroy the Toreador PC's beauty. How serious he's being is up for debate, but he'll never follow through on the colourful threats.
  Gary: I want to stick your lovely face in a piranha tank; I want to apply an acid glaze to your sculptured body; I want to throw your pocket mirror under a thresher and watch you fetch it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Competes with Beckett for the title of snarkiest NPC in the game.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's monstrous-looking, plays house with corpses and is the mastermind of the L.A. Nosferatu's Sinister Surveillance network. But he's also strictly neutral in the power struggle between the vampire factions (except for selling the occasional intel to the highest bidder), protective toward his clan, and relatively straightforward with the player.
• Evil Phone: Not exactly evil, but certainly startling if you forgot about Gary's promise to call you on a payphone.
• Fantastic Racism: Probably the most extreme example, as he will threaten and insult a Toreador player particularly badly just for being a Toreador. Cleaning out his sewers of Andrei's creations and even retrieving some masquerade-threatening research for him won't change this either. He does, to his credit, treat you much better after saving Barabus regardless of your clan.
• Foil: Towards Isaac. They both were associated with Hollywood's film history, but Gary was supposedly taken out of it Cleopatra style whereas Isaac still has his hands all over the place. Gary is Camarilla and Nosferatu whereas Isaac is Anarch and Toreador. Isaac respects the Nosferatu but abhors their way of living, while Gary outwardly loathes Toreadors but is quite heavily implied to be envious of them as well.
• Glory Days: Zigzagged. Gary never completely got over his Hollywood past, making regular references to it in his introduction and sending the player on a fetch quest to bring back an old tape of one of his movies. But he's still a very effective Primogen and seems to enjoy the perks of his position.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Implied almost to the point of stated. His speech when a Toreador, a vampire defined by beauty and culture, enters his lair is dripping with venom. He's specifically disdainful towards the Toreador clan's closeness to humanity and tendency to hide their monstrous nature, but when you consider that those are two things completely inaccessible to his own clan and his own implied status as a "Cleopatra" ^note While not exclusively, Nosferatu have a habit of targeting beautiful and vain individuals for the embrace. Nosferatu who were turned for that reason are usually referred to as "Cleopatras". Imalia is one, and while never directly stated, Gary is very strongly implied to be one as well, given his past as a famously handsome leading man in Hollywood, the reason behind his particularly vitriolic brand of hatred is pretty clear. If you study his lair, you'll find that it's full of old derelict mementos from his Glory Days, and he still dresses like a Sharp-Dressed Man despite that he Looks Like Orlok. It's very likely that Gary, despite what he said about how a vampire should act and be, never overcame the anger he felt at his transformation and still wishes he became a Toreador instead.
  • He'll also be somewhat venomous toward Ventrue, giving them the same speech about wanting to destroy their pretty faces and bodies, but it's definitely not nearly as personal. The Ventrue lack the humanity element that Gary detests the most in Toreador, thus he spares them the second half of the speech where he decries the way Toreador "pretend they never died", in his own words.
• Hearing Voices: Introducing himself while Obfuscated, he pretends that he's actually a voice in your head. And when the Malkavian PC remarks that he doesn't sound like the usual voice, Gary counters with "Maybe I killed the voice in your head, boss."
• Informed Deformity: When you first meet him, both Gary himself and a Toreador protagonist behave like he's the most hideous thing on two legs, yet while he is a Nosferatu, and therefore Looks Like Orlok, he lacks any warts, lesions or skin deformities that other Nosferatu have, and compared to Bertram Tung, Brother Kanker, or a Nosferatu PC (not to mention the utterly alien-looking Tzimisce, Andrei), Gary practically lives up to his 'Gorgeous' nickname. While Gary's opinion of himself can be justified, since he's implied to be a classic Cleopatra-type who never fully got over his embrace and transformation, a Toreador PC will have already met both Bertram and Andrei at this point, not to mention having waded through a sewer full of Andrei's "Creations" to reach Gary, so they have no excuse for their horrified reaction to him. If anything, they could have at least reacted to Bertram or Andrei's hideous appearance.
• In-Series Nickname: Based on their first interaction, the Malkavian refers to him as "the Voice".
• Ironic Nickname: "Gorgeous" Gary Golden. Though he apparently earned it while he was alive.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While this is far more apparent if the player is a Nosferatu, the game subtly implies that Mr. Golden is a much better person than he comes off as. For starters, he uses you just as much as everyone else in the game, but he is far more candid about it, he keeps his word when he makes a deal with you, he appreciates it if you are straightforward with him (if Mitnick is to be believed), and, if the player is a Nosferatu, he supplies you with your second haven when with every other clan (except the Tremere) it is LaCroix who does so. And his favor is to help out a member of his clan in trouble rather than him personally.
• Knowledge Broker: As Nosferatu Primogen, this is guaranteed, particularly when the L.A. Nosferatu decide they don't like LaCroix any more.
• Large Ham: Gary purposefully overplays his own monstrosity, complete with evil chuckles and theatrics in terms of word choice and voice pitch.
• Lean and Mean: His body is very emaciated, though the "mean" part depends on the PC's interactions with him.
• Looks Like Orlok: Though he still looks better than most Nosferatu in-game (including the player if they're Nosferatu), since he doesn't have any real skin diseases.
• The Man Behind the Man: Gary sees himself as this for the entire Camarilla, and he's not entirely wrong, since the Nosferatu are all Knowledge Brokers and have a special power within the system, knowing every single nook and cranny. As Tung and others note, you do not fuck with the Nosferatu.
• The Movie Buff: Peppers his dialogue with references to classical films, including some created after he became a vampire.
• Mummies at the Dinner Table: When you finally reach him, he's apparently been busy preparing a "dinner party" in his lair for a reunion of the cast and crew of The Misfits. Said reunion includes rats for main course, and the various "guests" have been dead for quite a time.
• Nothing Is Scarier: He never directly attacks anyone, and can be genuinely friendly to the player character. If anything, this makes him more terrifying.
• Obfuscating Insanity: Gary's actions and dialogue are very kooky, no doubt about it. He's also one of the most clever and competent characters in the game, being miles ahead of everyone else at any given moment. If he actually is insane, it's not going to hinder him at all.
• Odd Friendship: Even a Toreador PC can develop something resembling this with him after saving Barabas and doing his email quests.
• Punished with Ugly: On the receiving end of a common Nosferatu embracing tendency. Gary would later continue the cycle with Imalia.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a crisp white shirt, black vest and bow-tie.
• Stealth Expert: Doesn't matter how good your stats are. Gary will get the drop on you.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: He jokes about being a voice in the player's head, leading the Malkavian PC to note that he doesn't sound like the usual ones.
• The Spymaster: As befits his clan.
• Troll: Gary loves fucking with the Neonate, to the point at which even the Malkavian PC will get annoyed enough to ask normally, "Where? Are? You?"
• Verbal Tic: He ends just about every sentence with "Boss." It even shows up in his writing, as seen in the emails he sends to the Fledgling.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Played with. He didn't lose his career to age, but to vampirism, and he still looks better than most Nosferatu.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Gary was embraced during the early sixties. Despite this he's way more cynical and politically savvy than many L.A. vampires several times his age. Then again, he was a major producer in Los Angeles, and dealing with Hollywood during the turbulence of the end of the studio system made him suited to vampire politics.
• Young and in Charge: Gary has been a vampire for about four decades. Normally, this is the point where a vampire's sire begins to contemplate granting them independence, the vampire version of turning eighteen. Gary, on the other hand, has told that to go hang and made himself the leader of clan Nosferatu in Los Angeles instead.

Nosferatu

Bertram Tung

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

News travels down the Kindred grapevine like wildfire, and that courtroom spat between LaCroix and Nines Rodriguez is a juicy little morsel. And you in the middle... how interesting.

A Nosferatu agent of the Camarilla in Santa Monica. Living out of an abandoned fuel tank, he can show you the way to the Sabbat storehouse, but you must first persuade Therese Voerman to call off her feud with him. He also has a ghoul running errands for him in town.

---

• Body Horror: It looks like his head is full of huge zits, about to explode. One's bigger than his eyes. He's probably the ugliest Nosferatu you'll meet.
• The Chessmaster: A minor one, but he has a gambit in place to fool you into killing a local Kuei-Jin spy for him. This also serves as an introduction to the convoluted politics of Jyhad, as Tung himself notes.
  "Don't take it too hard, fledgling. I won't be the last Elder to milk you for a favor."
• Cultural Posturing: Loyal to his clan above all else and quite boastful of its accomplishments and capabilities. Not that he's wrong concerning its value to the Camarilla.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not afraid to take the piss out of the miserable world he lives in and the various people in it. Including you (unless you're Nosferatu), by the way. His interactions with the player if they ask about their own clan are particularly snarky if they hold to their clan stereotypes; he'll mock a Brujah PC for losing their temper, a Gangrel for defending the lone wolf lifestyle, and a Toreador for getting judgemental about his living situation. He even mocks a Ventrue PC for assuming he's trying to kiss up to them because he speaks highly of the clan, snidely pointing out that the fledgling PC hardly has any status for him to be trying to impress in the first place.
• Declining Promotion: He rejects the option of competing for the control of Santa Monica, and holds no special position within the Nosferatu clan despite being possibly older than his own Primogen; as he points out himself, ruling over Santa Monica is of little value anyway, seeing how there are barely more than four vampires^note Thin-Blood vagrants don't really count. in the whole area.
• Fantastic Racism: He definitely likes some clans less than others. He's pretty disdainful of the Brujah and Gangrel, and really doesn't like interacting with the Malkavians, even though he admits to finding them amusing and occasionally insightful. He especially doesn't care for or trust the Tremere - if you are playing as one and were able to see through Knox's facade earlier, he'll angrily assume you must have used blood magic. He's also dismissive of Toreadors in true Nosferatu fashion, but he's surprisingly far less disdainful toward them than he is for the other clans he doesn't like, even showing a small bit of respect for their ability to manipulate. He's certainly much less hateful toward them than Gary is.
  • Also notably averted concerning the Ventrue. He's one of the very few characters to give positive commentary on the clan of kings.
• Fearless Undead: Openly mocking a Brujah to their face takes some amount of bravery, given that Brujahs are known for their short tempers and prowess in a fight, but he'll do exactly that to a Brujah PC who gets uppity with him.
• Foreshadowing: Done very subtly. If asked about his opinions on the Camarilla, he'll comment that vampires without law and order leads to Caitiff frenzying in the streets, Thin-Bloods violating the Masquerade, and Hunters snooping around. If one plays through all the sidequests, they'll see that every one of those things is happening in Anarch-controlled LA. In particular, the Southland Slasher is a feral Caitiff out for revenge while unconcerned about the Masquerade, Julius the Thin-Blood is talking about Kindred politics with human screenwriters, and the Hollywood Toreador are being watched closely by hunters.
• Graceful Loser: If you manage to figure out that he's manipulating you, he reacts with grudging admiration; unless you're a Tremere, in which case he'll respond with utter disgust, dismissing your deduction as the use of blood magic. And if you play as a fellow Nosferatu, he just about gives you a round of applause.
• Grudging "Thank You": Betram gives the player one if they're playing a Tremere and figure out the attempted manipulation mentioned above, but take care of The Cathayan anyway.
• Hypocrite: He likes pissing on the Fledgling, but when a Malkavian calls him "Nasty Dude", he takes offense and tells you to be careful. Downplayed in that he's speaking from a position of power and can easily curb-stomp you. He also tones down his own contempt of Sebastian.
• In-Series Nickname: The Malkavian calls him "Nasty Dude", which they probably picked up from Knox (or "Your Nastiness" or "Your Dudeness").
• Knowledge Broker: As part of his clan's hat. He even suspects Therese and Jeanette being the same person with a split personality, as he admits that the Malkavian Fledgling's moniker for the two as the "Daughters of Janus" is pretty clever.
• Mr. Exposition: Will freely give (rather biased) information on the Clans and the important people in the city.
• My Sect, Right Or Wrong: Bertram isn't all that enthusiastic about LaCroix's leadership, but if you poke him about the Camarilla you'll find out he genuinely believes that the organization provides safety for Kindred as a whole and that the Anarchs are misguided for wanting more freedom.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realizes the PC is a Malkavian, he realizes he's in for some headache-inducing conversations.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: He'll have some with Toreador, Brujah, Gangrel, and Ventrue players if asked about the clans.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: They weren't married, but he apparently had an affair with Jeanette.
  "Quite an interesting specimen... but a pain in my dead ass, for sure."

Imalia

Voiced by: Margaret Tang

Bitch! I can't believe she got the cover of Glamorella this month!

One of Gary's most recent Childer, Imalia used to be a world-famous model; punished for her vanity by a Nosferatu Embrace, she still hasn't gotten over her lost beauty or the fact that her place in the spotlight has been usurped. In fact, she's willing to offer quite a bit of money in exchange for any dirt on her replacement...

---

• Alpha Bitch: Quite the prima donna in life, and becoming an undead monster hasn't broken her of it.
• Beauty to Beast: Gary Golden spread the Nosferatu curse to her, apparently for nothing but his own amusement. Imalia is still very much furious about the whole ordeal.
• Break the Haughty: As an obvious Cleopatra (a Nosferatu embraced into the clan for being beautiful and too prideful about it), this was intended to happen. Imalia hasn't quite gotten the message though.
• Driven by Envy: What she has ended up as, due to her removal from the modeling scene and new model Tawni Sessions taking her place.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Long before you ever actually have the opportunity to meet her, the player character can find a poster of her from back when she was still a model (and, you know, not a hideous undead horror) in Carson the bounty hunter's apartment. Her name is also the password for his computer, which you need to hack in order to advance in that particular sidequest, so her presence there is actually a clue.
• Foil: To Ash Rivers. They both were non-consensually embraced, had their lives scattered to the wind, and hate their new unlife and sires with a passion. They both would rather have their old lives back, but whereas Ash would rather die and doesn't care about endangering the Masquerade to do so, Imalia contends herself with screwing over those who've taken over her spotlight.
• Glasgow Grin: She seems to have one, with her cheeks stapled back together.
• In-Series Nickname: A Malkavian PC refers to her as "Cleopatra".
• Meaningful Name: The Malkavian calls them "Cleopatra", a telling name that refers to Nosferatu who were embraced because of their excessive beauty or vanity.
• Ominous Hair Loss: Her hair fell out as part of her curse.
• Punished with Ugly: Ending her modelling career in a hurry.
• Tear Off Your Face: If she becomes angry after talking to the Fledgling, she'll sometimes say that she needs to go peel off her own face with a nail file.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Her quest involves getting some dirt on her replacement, Tawni Sessions, to ruin her career. She's overjoyed when it goes so far that Tawni kills herself. It also serves as a learning experience for her, since she uses the clan's methods to do it.
• Unknown Rival: Has it out for Tawni Sessions, who not only doesn't know she's still technically alive, but became a model after Imalia faked her death
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Like Gary, more as a result of being undead than anything else.

Mitnick

Voiced by: Jay Gordon

Oh my god, are you kidding me? What are you using for security down there, a Trash-80? Guys, it's called "encryption." This is too easy; I'd let you off the hook, but stupidity always brings out the asshole in me...

A former master hacker, Mitnick's life actually seems to have improved as a result of his transformation into a Nosferatu, unlike Gary and Imalia. However, he still needs your help with setting up a few Schrecknet hubs around the city...

---

• Always a Bigger Fish: Which he found out when he tried to hack ShreckNet.
• The Cracker: Even before he learned from the best.
• Casual Kink: He apparently wears bondage gear as everyday attire.
• Cursed with Awesome: Mitnick fully acknowledges that his Embrace was the best thing that could have possibly happened to him.
  Mitnick: Are you kidding? Ha ha! I love this shit. I mean, yeah... I'm not gonna win any beauty contest, but I wasn't too good looking before anyway. Now I get all the new toys, plus I just happen to get to live forever. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
• Enraged by Idiocy: As per his quote.
• Playful Hacker: What else can you call a man who once emailed all of America's nuclear missile activation codes... to the President?
• Meaningful Name: His is a Shout-Out to the real-world hacker Kevin Mitnick. Malkavians refer to him as "Console Cowboy", "Grid Master" and "Console Jockey" as well.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Averted; like Beckett, Mitnick is one of the more personable characters in the game, despite his alarming red eyes.
• Sinister Surveillance: If you accept his quest offer, you're given the job of expanding said Sinister Surveillance for him.
• Troll: Which he plays to the hilt (as seen in his character quote above.) He's pretty nice when not Enraged by Idiocy though.

Barabus

Voiced by: Jay Gordon

I've got no excuse — a Nosferatu getting caught by a bunch of humans... this is a new low.

A Nosferatu agent in Chinatown, he ended up getting kidnapped by the Fu Syndicate and experimented on. In order to receive information on the whereabouts of the Ankaran Sarcophagus from Gary, you're going to have to rescue him.

---

• Badass Bookworm: He's a great hacker, but this doesn't stop him from firing up Potence and hurling guards across rooms in his escape.
• Badass in Distress: He's an adept brawler with Super-Strength on his side, but needs to be rescued from experimentation after letting his guard down around Fu Syndicate goons.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: He joyfully tears the guards apart after being freed.
• Genius Bruiser: He's not only one of Gary's top hackers, but also a buff fellow who is extremely adept in close quarters combat.
• Guest-Star Party Member: One of the few points in an unmodded game where someone actually helps you fight.
• Meaningful Name: He shares the name of the Biblical Barabbas, who was imprisoned alongside Jesus. He was an insurrectionist against Rome, which mirrors the game's counterpart imprisoned by humans.
• My Greatest Failure: He really sees getting captured by mere mortals as humiliating, considering Nosferatu are supposed to be the stealth experts among vampires.

---