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Ghouls
The Player Character's Ghoul
Heather Poe
Voiced by: Courtenay Taylor
Anything for you.
A young woman found dying in an understaffed clinic. The only way to save her life is to feed her your blood— guaranteeing your own ghoul servant.
- All Just a Dream: A Malkavian can send her off by Dementing her into thinking that her time with you was all a dream. Doing so nets you both a masquerade redemption and a point of humanity.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: If the player wants her not to be in danger, they are forced to kick her out of the shelter, although this can be minimized if they promise to go find her later.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: What she eventually becomes under your influence. This is especially apparent if you play as a Malkavian.
- The Cutie: Causing her to stand out a mile in The World of Darkness.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the happily enslaved Voluntary Vampire Victim and The Renfield. Heather throws herself at the player character out of a mixture of loving admiration to the person who saved her life and the supernatural effects of vampire blood, but even if the player goes out of their way to try to be nice to her and treat her right, their relationship is simply based on too many troubling and fundamentally exploitative foundations to ever be healthy. Heather will, completely on her own initiative, start doing morally dubious and downright self-destructive things, ultimately coming to a tragic and sticky end if kept in the player character's orbit. The healthy, truly caring thing for someone in the player's position to do is to insist on giving Heather her freedom and cut her off from her addiction, rather than try to rationalize away the problematic elements of their relationship so they can enjoy the benefits of it.
- Destructive Romance: Her ghoul-based obsession with you drives her to give you all her money, drop out of school to spend more time with you, bring home people for you to murder and eat, and may end in her gruesome death.
- Happiness in Slavery: Pretty much her entire existence revolves around this once she becomes your ghoul.
- Honey Trap: Played with. She doesn't try to seduce McFly (he kept following her and wouldn't leave her alone), but the experience gave her the idea that she could lure people to the player's haven for them to feed on.
- Kill the Cutie: If you decide not to help her at the hospital or fail to send her away before the endgame. The Plus mod allows the player to avoid this by ordering her to stay indoors, though doing so causes them to miss out on the best armor in the game.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Gives you her college money then graduates to bringing you home victims to kill and disposing of their bodies (even if they're not dead).
- Love Martyr: If the player treats her cruelly. A low Humanity player can only be nasty to her (unless they release her), and she'll gladly accept the role of a physical or verbal punching bag as long as she gets to stay around them.
- Maybe Ever After: In one of the dialogue options, the player can make her leave to protect her, but with the promise to fetch her when this is over, as the game does not have a playable epilogue, it is ambiguous if the character kept her/his promise.
- Meaningful Name: It's hard not to hear that surname and associate her with Edgar Allan Poe, and it's probably not a coincidence that Poe's self-confessed favorite topic for his stories and poems was beautiful yet frail young women who die tragically young.
- Morality Pet: Heather is worth a Humanity Point for saving, and another one for letting her go later. Humanity gain is very easy in this game, but it's basically one (or two) points for doing practically nothing except caring enough to do the bare minimum.
- More than Mind Control: The Blood Bond is not to be ignored, but Heather also is grateful to you for saving her life.
- Ms. Fanservice: If you accept her as a Ghoul, she attempts to become this for you.
- Perky Goth: One of her clothing options.
- Rescue Romance: Reinforced by the Blood Bond, but Heather's life has been very lonely, and she seems at times genuinely enamored with you for saving her life.
- Sanity Slippage: She starts calling you 'master' unironically and brings someone back home for you to kill. More so if you're a Malkavian, in which case she'll eventually pick up a bit of your crazy, on top of her usual behavior.
- Satellite Character: Invoked. The Blood Bond makes her life revolve around you. This is not a good thing for her, though it also makes her not care.
- Single-Target Sexuality: After becoming the fledgling's ghoul, she's interested exclusively in them, regardless of whether they're male or female.
- Sex Slave: Has shades of this given her attire and her willingness to let you feed on her at any point.
- Stripperiffic: Invoked at the player character's discretion, if they order her to put on something more revealing.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: By real world standards some of her later actions are a little shady, though mostly not through her own fault. By Old World of Darkness standards, she's this trope and then some.
- Too Kinky to Torture: When she comes to the Fledgling after they saved her life, one of your dialogue options is to threaten her with spanking in an attempt to get her to leave. This backfires spectacularly, as she is so infatuated with you that she reacts eagerly to it.
- Trauma Conga Line: Orphaned as a teenager, near-fatally hit by a car... and that's before she meets the player. Having her mortal injuries healed by a vampire and then put under said vampire's protection might seem like a reprieve, but ultimately, the player has to choose between dismissing her from your service, breaking her heart and sending her to meet an unknown fate or keeping her close, only to have her killed by the Sabbat as a result.
- Video Game Caring Potential: How she's introduced. The PC also has the option to send her off to live a normal life, and a Malkavian can modify her memory so their time together seems like a pleasant dream. It is also possible to treat her well and show her genuine affection, up to and including telling her not to drop out of college when she tries to give you her tuition money.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: A lot of player characters are appalled by what they can do to Heather, and what Heather tries to do for them, after turning her into their ghoul.
- Voluntary Vampire Victim: Heather is one of the two Blood Dolls in the game to know the player is a vampire and is willing to be fed off of, the other being Romero. All other Blood Dolls have no idea that the player is drinking their blood.
Camarilla Ghouls
Mercurio
Voiced by: André Sogliuzzo
I can get anything anyone wants at any time. You could say it's my calling. 'Til the Astrolite, there wasn't anything I couldn't handle... well, back east, some shit went down, Big Apple, can't go back. I hate L.A., but whaddaya gonna do?
LaCroix's ghoul in Santa Monica, he prides himself on being able to find just about anything for anyone, from boats to military-grade firearms. Unlike his master, he's a nice guy.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Explicitly stated to be one of the two people you can put your trust in. However, if you decided to retrieve the Astrolite from the drug dealers without killing them, you'll later find out that they suffered the full penalty for crossing him: overdosing is a painful way to go. Especially if your kneecaps are on the floor next to you.
- Brooklyn Rage: He has this vibe at the beginning, given his accent and the violent revenge he'll enact against the drug dealers if you don't do it for him. He's also very much implied to have mob connections, and apparently has a shady past connected to New York.
- Chivalrous Pervert: When asking him about Jeanette, he will comment on how "she's got a body built for bedrooms" to a male character. When a female character asks him, however, he hesitates before saying "Call me old-fashioned, but I don't feel right talking about this in front of a lady."
- Cluster F-Bomb: Uses a lot of these when injured.
- Cool Old Guy: He may not look like it, but he's nearly sixty.note He's also one of the only few people you can put your complete trust in.
- The Fixer: You could say he has a talent for it. Need a weapon? Mercurio can get it for you, given some time.
- Friendly Shopkeeper: Mercurio is one of only two people in the game confirmed to be trustworthy. If you don't double-cross him, he's a friendly source of information and useful equipment throughout the game, even if you decide to turn against his own boss.
- Healing Factor: Thanks to being a ghoul, he heals from even serious injury very quickly. Even a savage beating involving broken ribs and joints only puts him down for a day of (admittedly painful) bed rest before he is on his feet again like nothing happened.
- In-Series Nickname: The Malkavian PC calls him "Mercury" and, in the same vein, "Fleet-Footed God". He seems okay with it.
- Meaningful Name: The nickname the Malkavian gives him is fitting considering Mercury is a god of trade and travel, and Mercurio is someone who serves the PC in that vein and has connections he has to travel to.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He knows his life is forfeit if LaCroix finds out about his screw-up with the Astrolite, so if the player tells him to his face that they're going to tell on him in spite of all his begging, Mercurio decides he'd rather kill them to save his own skin.
- Mr. Exposition: Mercurio can tell you about a variety of things, including what a ghoul is, what the Sabbat are, or about various locations and characters met during the game. Amusingly, the last conversation with him lets you ask about Troika Games, where he'll tell you about their work on a new project that has the Camarilla worried that They Know Too Much. Coincidentally, the studio closed down right after releasing the game...
- My Master, Right or Wrong: For all that he has to be a fully bound ghoul, he's remarkably clear-headed about his situation. Contrast with Knox and Heather.[on LaCroix] "Just so you understand, my loyalties are all but written in blood, so my opinion of the guy is moot."
- Nice Guy: Throughout the game he’s a refreshingly normal, polite, and down-to-earth character. Rosa tells you early in the game that the only two people you can trust for certain are "the man on the couch" and the "lone wolf". Mercurio's "the man on the couch," since that's where he is the first time you see him.
- Noodle Incident: Doesn't elaborate on whatever resulted in his exile from New York.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: If you didn't kill the drug dealers to get the Astrolite back, he states he paid them a visit himself and offed every last one of them single-handedly. Pretty impressive for a ghoul, and for one of a Ventrue, even more so.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Combined with Oh, Crap! When you first meet him as a Malkavian and he figures out what you are, he gets horrified of the thought of bleeding to death without knowing what his would-be rescuer is saying.
- What the Hell, Hero?: He delivers one at the end if the PC comes see him after siding with the Kuei-jin and tells that he'll still sell you guns this time but after you'll leave he doesn't want to have anything to do with you again. He'll remain nice if you sided with Strauss or the Anarchs, though he's still incredulous at your betrayal of the Camarilla in the latter ending.
- Worf Had the Flu: It's strongly implied the only reason Dennis and his goons even managed to beat him up so badly was because they caught him by surprise when he was expecting a peaceful trade. Should the Fledgling spare the thugs, he will easily take care of them himself once he has recovered.
- You Have Failed Me: Implied to suffer this if the fledgling tells LaCroix about his screw-up with the Astrolite. LaCroix says he'll "take care" of Mercurio and he's subsequently removed from the game.
Knox Harrington
Voiced by: Greg Ellis
It's awesome! Man after that first taste of vampire blood... it's like the best drug. Aw man, I'm tellin' ya, it's like... well it didn't mess me up, just made me feel like I was better at everything. I felt like a god, just suckin' on that nasty dude's wrist.
Bertram Tung's ghoul, Knox enjoys his status as a blood-bound slave a little too much for his own good, and seems to mainly function as a smokescreen for his master's more obvious plans.
- Keet: Knox is bouncing off the walls in just about every single scene you can meet him in. While he's not as dumb as he'd like you to believe, his enthusiasm does seem to be genuine.
- In-Series Nickname: The "Golden Ghoul" by the Malkavian PC.
- Meaningful Name: His nickname from the Malkavian PC fits in the sense that it refers to Fort Knox, and just like the fort, Knox is hiding secrets which can't normally be seen.
- Motor Mouth: Maybe ten minutes after you receive a lecture about hiding your vampirism from humanity, talking to Knox sees him realizing what you are and refusing to shut the hell up until you remind him it's supposed to be a secret.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: It turns out he actually used to be a Bounty Hunter for Arthur Kilpatrick, which is one of the reasons Bertram hired him in the first place, and he's quite clever and manipulative with the player if you don't have the points to see through his scheme.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He actually plays up his incompetence in order to get people to drop their guard. His surprising level of talent is why Bertram Tung chose him as a ghoul:Tung: Sharp kid, can track like a bloodhound.
- Sycophantic Servant: Worships the ground Tung walks on.
- Vampire Wannabe: He makes it very clear that he hopes Bertram will embrace him at some point, even suggesting at the end of his quest that he hopes that by the next time you work together, he'll also be a full-fledged vampire.
- Verbal Tic: "Oh man! Hey, man!"
Grout's Ghouls
Mewling wretches! Few could be called "enthusiastic" — Given the nature of the tests, I cannot expect the same fervor from all, but a modicum of cooperation would be appreciated — Animals.
— Grout
The aggressive mooks living inside Grout Mansion, it is strongly implied they are the "patients" of his little asylum. They are totally insane.
- Bald of Evil: The male ghouls are uniformly hairless and homicidal.
- Laughing Mad: The male ghouls chuckle endlessly, while the females do this or sob hysterically.
- Malevolent Masked Men: All of them are wearing muzzles to keep them from biting, after one of them once broke his restraints by chewing off an arm.
- Man on Fire: At the end of the Grout Mansion quest, when Grünfeld Bach lights the place on fire, several hostile flaming ghouls turn up. They attack you as readily as before, but now their attacks spread the flames.
- Psycho Knife Nut: The female version is armed with a knife and they're totally insane, violent inhabitants of a Bedlam House.
- Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": They are insane aggressive enemies armed with edged weapons and regularly Laughing Mad.
- Wolverine Claws: The male ghouls attack with long claws protruding from their fingers.
Anarch Ghouls
Vandal Cleaver
Voiced by: James Arnold Taylor
Here again? What's the matter? Can't bring yourself to tear into the neck of some quote-unquote "innocent?" All that blood out there and you have to buy the prepackaged stuff!
Therese Voerman's ghoul, Vandal runs the blood bank in the basement of the local clinic, using his position to secure choice blood packs for his demanding mistress. Unfortunately, as altruism appears to be running low these days, "donations" of blood come from the clubbers, vagrants, and Thin-Bloods that Vandal kidnaps.
- Asshole Victim: His situation as an enslaved sycophant would be horrible if he wasn't already an unstable, violence obsessed freak before being ghouled. Given his criminal record, he was likely planning on doing something horrible to Therese before she revealed what she really was to him.
- Ax-Crazy: Apart from the techniques he uses to supply his mistress with blood, he also lets slip that he was planning to kill his coworker Phil before Lily tore his throat out.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: A really dark version. Also a hint to Therese's true status as a Malkavian. Even he lampshades that he doesn't know what he's saying half the time.
- Deadpan Snarker: Mocks everything he can think of, including his own miserable situation if you use Dementation him.
- Evil Redhead: A borderline-serial killer with a cult-like obsession with violent vampires, and certainly the evilest of the ghouls in the game.
- Karma Houdini: One of the evilest NPCs in the game, and you not only can't lay a finger on him, but will likely end up forking over a good amount of your cash to. Although, he is still blood bound to Therese.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: If the player character has enough intimidation points to threaten him, Vandal agrees to sell them blood without any conditions, and even gives one as a courtesy. Intimidation is the only social skill that works in this case.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: A barbarian tribe and a great big knife. Sounds about right.
- Nightmare Fetishist: In the event that you manage to help one of his captives escape, one of the options for getting him to sell you blood again is to tell him a story of ultra-violence from your Multiple-Choice Past — resulting in a very excited Vandal.
- Noodle Incident: Reading Therese's emails reveals he did something to piss off Jeanette, and is currently making himself scarce from her.
- Noodle Implements: Hannah's logbook notes that she requires pliers and a blowtorch when "servicing" him.
- No-Sell: You can't presuade him to give you access to the Staff Only section. Blood Bond, you see.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: If the fledgling tries to seduce him, however high their Seduction stat is, he coldly rebuffs them with "Grow a pulse, you corpse" or "I don't do dead chicks".
- Obviously Evil: He's a rude asshole the first time you meet him, and if his name doesn't tip you off, he makes his Ax-Crazy tendencies clear very fast.
- Psycho for Hire: Therese keeps him on a very tight leash, of which he is openly contemptuous about.
- Psycho Knife Nut:"Guns make people cocky; they never appreciate what a skilled hand married to a knife can do. All you have to do is get close enough to cut off the trigger finger... or their face."
- Serial Killer: The blood he sells has to come from somewhere, after all. Arthur Kilpatrick's computer reveals that he was caught trying to catch an unsuspecting female victim prior to the events of the game.
- Servile Snarker: He hates Therese, but cannot disobey her.
- The Social Darwinist: He has great respect for vampires who embrace the Beast and "feed upon the weak."
- The Sociopath: He claims that he's been torturing animals since he was a child. He also traps Lily (and potentially another person) in a blood-draining machine.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Played with. His voice is very high and soft, and he rarely yells, but most of his dialogue seethes with barely-constrained rage.
- Sycophantic Servant: Unlike most, however, he's bitter, cynical, and very much aware that he's a slave. As a result, he hates Therese with a passion, calling her by the derogatory nickname "the Queen Bitch". Also, though he's too cowed to dare attack a vampire, he's very dangerous to humans.
- Villain of Another Story: He is a horrible person who kept a kidnapped girl to cultivate her blood, but never becomes a direct antagonist.
Paul Anderson
Hi, Paul? It's Hannah. Just callin' to see how you are. I hope I didn't give you what I've got. Ugh, I feel like crap. Actually, I need to ask you a favor. Could you pick me up some cold medicine at the store? I hate to bother you, but... I can't seem to get out of bed. The code on my door is 1203. Hey, listen, I, uh... had a really good time the other night. Maybe we could do it again sometime? Sorry... I'm rambling. Okay, bye.
— Hannah
An Anarch Ghoul living in Skylines Apartments. In the "Fun with Pestilence" side-quest, Damsel asks the Fledgling to go ask him for information about the mysterious plague. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive, he has already died from the plague, having fallen sick somehow.
- Nice Guy: According to Hannah, he apparently was the first guy to be nice to her.
- Posthumous Character: Already dead from the plague by the time you reach his apartment.
- Too Dumb to Live: He might have actually survived the sickness if he had followed the Anarch's advice and gone to the hospital to burn off his infected blood, but didn't take the sickness seriously enough to actually treat it. Somewhat mitigated by the fact that he didn't know it could be transferred sexually and believed he could only catch it from being bitten by a plaguebearer.
- We Hardly Knew You: You don't even get to interact with him before he dies; all you get about him is informations from other NPCs
Patty
Voiced by: Debi Mae West
I knew you'd talk to me. I swear you are all like, totally drawn to me. I'm surprised I don't know you. I usually meet all the LA vampires out on the scene. Not a lot of you out tonight, which is weird, cuz I don't know of any parties going on.
A ghoul whose vampire master (a Toreador named Kent Alan Ryan) has recently died, leaving her essentially reduced to a vitae-addict loudmouth who can't seem to grab he is gone and blatantly disregard the Masquerade. Skelter asks the Fledgling to deal with her before she attracts unwanted attention from vampire hunters.
- Addled Addict: Downplayed, but her behavior and desperation is a result of prolonged vampire blood withdrawal.
- Attention Whore: Apparently only cares about this and vampire blood, which is the reason she is becoming dangerous. Her quest even is named after the trope.
- Backhanded Compliment: If you're playing as female, she'll "thank" you for your help finding Kent by saying you're proof you don't need to be pretty or well-dressed to be cool. Thanks?
- Cute, but Cacophonic: She's easy on the eyes, but has a very grating voice and tends to draw out her sentences.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Skelter wants you to do this to her. Whether this actually ends up happening is up to you.
- Selective Obliviousness: Skelter mentions that upon being told that Kent is dead, she merely asked again louder.
- Shoot the Dog: You are forced to do a more or less extreme version of this trope to her in order to complete her quest; at worse, you end up killing her or sending her to Pisha or Vandal. At best, you can convince her to leave the town by pretending you saw her master in a different city, thus sending her on a wild goose chase.
- Small Name, Big Ego: According to Skelter, Patty had a inflated ego and acted like she knew everybody important even before Kent disappeared.
- Tricked to Death: If you know about Pisha's lair in the abandoned hospital, you can dispose of Patty by convincing her Kent Alan Ryan is planning a rave in the hospital basement. Pisha thanks you for the snack later.
- Valley Girl: She's, like, so totally it.
- Video Game Caring Potential: If you have enough persuasion, it's possible to complete her quest without killing her by convincing her Kent Alan Ryan left the city.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Conversely, it's possible to complete the quest by tricking her into going to the abandoned hospital to be killed and eaten by Pisha, rather than killing her yourself.
Romero
Voiced by: Brian Mitsoda
Far as I know, I'm the only person around Hollywood who considers marksmanship an art.
Isaac's ghoul in Hollywood, he guards the local graveyard, preventing any of the residents from leaving. You can learn a few tips about using firearms if you help him (by finding him a prostitute or by fighting the zombies back for 5 minutes).
- Amazon Chaser: He is really interested in a female PC who can fight off hoards of undead, provided she lightly flirted with him beforehand.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While he does comment on a female PC's attractiveness regardless first time, he'll only continue to do so if she shows an interest back. If she doesn't, he'll speak to her the same way he'd speak to the male PC and keeps things relatively professional from then on.
- Deadpan Snarker: He keeps up his good humor despite his morbid situation.
- Distracted by the Sexy: He'll trail off in the middle of explaining his situation to the (non-Nosferatu) female Fledgling to comment on how hot she is.
- Expy: He's essentially Francesco Dellamorte, being a caretaker of a cemetery who has to put down zombies to keep them from getting out, and has a slight perverted streak. They even look a bit alike.
- Favors for the Sexy: Normally, after completion of his quest, you can choose between marksmanship lessons or his gun to keep as a reward. note But if a female PC flirted with him lightly and still does the graveyard quest like normal instead of getting him a sex-worker or sleeping with him, his attraction to her is even stronger after successfully defending the graveyard. As a result, he'll give both the gun and the lessons as a reward... following it up with another offer to sleep with him. You can choose to indulge him or not, either way you'll still get both rewards.
- Friendly Sniper: Takes pride in his ability to shoot down anyone, and is a hospitable host for the player.
- The Gunslinger: He loves killing zombies, even though he admits that he wishes he could do something else with his nights sometimes.
- Hold the Line: Spends his nights making sure no zombies get past the cemetery gates. Defending them for him is probably the hardest mission of the whole game bar none: characters without Celerity, a powerful gun and a lot of practice, or Protean need not apply.
- I Call It "Vera": Jaime Sue, his rifle that he'll give you if you help him out.
- Need a Hand, or a Handjob?: Literally. You can help him defending the graveyard from the zombies or you can bring him a prostitute. A non-Nosferatu female character can skip the "finding a prostitute" part and just perform the, ahem, service herself. It's actually the quickest and easiest way to complete the mission, too.
- Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: He apparently guards the Hollywood graveyard every night and has successfully kept the zombies from escaping entirely by himself before the player comes along. Considering he's a ghoul (which means minimal vampiric powers) and the quest is notoriously difficult for the full-fledged vampire PC, that feat is nothing short of impressive.
- One-Man Army: Implied. The quest where you fill in for him on his zombie-killing duties is one of the most infamously difficult in the entire game, but his dialogue suggests that he doesn't find it especially taxing, and even somewhat entertaining. This is even more impressive considering he's only a ghoul who, while stronger than a normal human being, doesn't have access to nearly as much supernatural power as a full vampire.
- Optional Sexual Encounter: See Need a Hand, or a Handjob? above. The offer surprises him, though whether it's because of the attention or because you're undead is up in the air."Just don't bite it, alright? —What? I mean my neck..."
- Shout-Out: His name and interest in zombie outbreaks homage George A. Romero, while the job of keeping the zombies from leaving the cemetery mirrors the plot of of Cemetery Man.
- Will They or Won't They?: You can play your relationship this way, albeit in a non-romantic, more Friends with Benefits sort of way. Flirting with him without actually deciding to sleep with him will lead to his dialogue getting slightly altered with added suggestive comments, which you can choose to respond to or not. Doing so while successfully defending the graveyard is actually more rewarding for the player, as it leads to him offering both of his rewards instead of you choosing just one.
- Voluntary Vampire Victim: If seduced, he can be used as a Blood Doll for the rest of the game. He already knows you're a vampire, making subterfuge unnecessary.
Sabbat Ghouls
Sabbat Ghouls
Lowlife human goons who proved to be of use to the Sabbat's shovelhead packs. They make up the weaker enemies in the Hallowbrook Hotel.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: These guys are still mortal, yet their voice clips are the same as the other humanoid monsters encountered in the game, up to the gurgling hisses when the player feeds off of them. Only Grout's ghouls share this trait.
- The Goomba: The weakest Sabbat mooks in the game, and they can serve as a convenient source of blood for the player to boot.
- Helpful Mook: The player can drain their blood, which is very useful when accompanying vampires that the player cannot feed on. They're an especially valuable blood source in the Hallowbrook Hotel, where you're otherwise locked in with a bunch of vampires.
- In the Hood: All of them share the same "hooded thug" model encountered in the game.
