SHADE

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles.
- John Milton, L'Allegro

Race	Vampire
Splat	(Lhianhan) Caitiff
Title	Undead Witch, Bottom of the food chain

Physical Description
Shade dresses to please the loins rather than the mind, she is well aware of her own sexuality and is not afraid to use an over abundance of bare flesh to her advantage. Her well displayed body is covered in tattoo's of a spiritual nature, Celtic crosses and knot work, tribal swirls and pagan glyphs all done in black against the pallid white of her undead flesh. In life, Shade had been extremely athletic and lithe, lending her immortal corpse the build most often seen on Muscle beach in LA and this only serves to heighten her Trailer trash image.

Personality
The unaligned Vampire Shade has learnt to make use of her natural skills. Without the allies and backing of the Clans she cannot afford morals or decency and has managed to strip any hint of such weaknesses from her personality. Unfortunately she is dangerously inquisitive and lacks any self-control or patience. Her schemes are always reliant on immediate gratification and a quick escape without consideration for the consequences of her actions.


Story
The girl who would one day be known as Shade was born in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London circa 1647, orphaned young, she spent a few years with her crazy old Grandmother before she too died. This old Dame was a skilled Wise woman, and she tried to teach the girl how to make potions and amulets, hoping these skills would serve her when she grew up. When her Grandmother died of the Plague, Shade was cast out of their lodgings, she became a street urchin and blossomed into prostitution and puberty at about the same time. The city was in the grip of the plague and panic was rife, but rape and murder continued on at its usual pace. Fleeing a gang of drunken Nobles, the teenaged Shade sought refuge in the basement of an old house. Crouched in the darkness, shivering with fear she began to prey to the old Gods of her grandmother. Suddenly the drunks found her and burst in upon her with gleeful delight. Expecting the worse, Shade instead found salvation. The damp bricks of the floor burst open and a feral witch with ivory flesh fell upon her attackers, reducing them to a blood coloured rain in seconds before it turned to Shade.

"You should be careful which Gods you call upon little one" the woman snarled "Sometimes we are still listening!" without another word the vampire fell upon Shade and damned her the blood. Over the following nights, this Witch forced Shade to hunt for her, bringing home men for her to feed upon. For a couple of years the 'Goddess' schooled her Childe in the lore of the undead, a subject she wasn't fully qualified in herself, and the pair slaughtered countless men expecting a quick knee trembler in return for a few coins. The Vampire truly believed she was a Goddess, a child of the Morrigun, and she taught Shade the ways of her own youth, the religion of the Celts. The Vampiress possesed few treasures, but she did have the ability to mark undead flesh (Viccisitude?), and each lesson Shade underwent included a new Tattoo upon her body. She taught the disciplines of Protean, Ogham, and Fortitude as well as the basics of the nature of the damned but the two lacked the imagination to put their abilities to good use. Shade and her sire continued to live in the Squalor of London's suburbs and they ran whenever another vampire came close.

In September of 1666 London caught fire, you may have heard about it. Shade and the Blood Goddess fled to their haven and tried to rebury themselves beneath the earth as the house crumbled around them. As the timbers collapsed above them and the building fell into their cellar, Shade was buried by the rubble but her Sire was caught in the open by a falling beam. Whether she burnt to death in the flames, escaped or simply lay inert until the sun rose, Shade never discovered because the damage she sustained forced into Torpor for centuries.

Upon awakening Shade had to dig her way out of what was now a tube station terminus, before fleeing into the night. A few months on the streets of twentieth century London taught Shade all she needed to know and she started looking for someone who could help her get out of Ventrue dominated London. She fell in with a Ravnos girl who was transporting her Torporous 'husband' and after killing a couple for their tickets, the two boarded a ship bound for America to get away from the Ventrue. Shade has drifted around the East coast for a while, but something about Gotham seems to entice her and she has made the benighted city her base of operations for a long time. By cobbling together the Witchcraft of her Grandmother, the powers taught to her by her sire, and anything she could learn or bargain for on the streets of Gotham, Shade developed into an Occultist of low status. She recently followed a minor Demon to a mage boy called Panic and seeing how much he could teach her, the two became lovers.