Valerian/Intro
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CURRENT NIGHTS
This towering, hulking Tzimisce drifted to the City of Prospect after the destruction of his former pack, guided by the voices on the wind and the visions of his daytime dreams. In the socalled City of Hope, he stood apart from the two founded covens until offered the position of priest in the Hard Cunts pack. Since then, the numbers of the Sabbat have begun to swell in the city and the priest does his best trying to provide unity in a tumultuous time.
STYGIAN TITANS PACK
The pack known as The Stygian Titans originated on the mainland of Greece in the wake of the First World War, when the Tzimisce known as Anton Papodokis became the last surviving member of an earlier pack. Anton decided to discard the traditions of his old pack and forge a new Zudruga with him in the center.
The pack slowly grew and, to fit the name of the pack, it became a tradition for each member to be reshaped into a hulking giant through the pack's vicissitude skills. The Stygian Titans steadily obtained more and more renown until a series of setbacks forced Anton Papodokis and his childer to migrate across the Atlantic Ocean a handful of years before the Second World War or face their doom.
The United States greeted them violently, and the pack spent the better deal of the 20th century locked in one skirmish or another. Their numbers swelled and dwindled as Anton used his childer as pawns and knocked arrows againts his enemies both within the Sabbat and outside of the sect. During the Sabbat's offensive on the east coast in the late 1990s, Anton officiated several mass embraces in his attempt carve himself out a piece of New York City. One of these mass embracees was Valerian Ljagovitch.
1981-1999 VALERIAN'S LIFE
I was born the 17th of September 1981 in St. Petersburg to parents Anna and Gregor, both of which were immigrants from Czechoslovakia. I was the youngest of three children, having an elder sister and brother, and the only one to be born in Russia. The Sovjet Union had imported my father who had been an engineer back in Czechoslovakia.
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, my family defected and immgrated to the United States of America. I don't remember there being much difference between my childhood in Russia and the Americas. Both were somewhat grey, but good. My parents were hardworking and honest people. In Russia they had had respectable jobs, but in the Americas my father became a cook in a restaurant and my mother a house cleaner.
I grew up in the New York City neighbourhood best colloquially called Hell's Kitchen and life, though not always easy, was good. My sister kept watch over my brother and I while our parents were away. She did not do too good a job, though, or maybe it was just me that was a bit unruly at times. I started getting into trouble at school and with the authorities at about the age of twelve - I prefered hanging out with a group of friends, a mottle gang composed of several european ethnicities.
To get me off the streets as much as possible, my father got me a job busting tables at the resturant where he worked. It felt good contributing to the family, even at such a young age and I even started doing better at school - although better, in this case, just meant coasting by without too much regard for homework and the like.
1999 THE EMBRACE
I graduated from high school in 1999. I remember the summer fondly up until the moment of my embrace. By then I worked as a cook alongside my father in the restaurant. We had often talked about perhaps opening our own place some day. My brother and sister could take care of front of house while we took care of the kitchen. Dreams that would never come true.
It was my night off, I was hanging out with my friends in a parking lot smoking and drinking and trying to impress the girls. That was when all hell broke out. The street lamps began to flicker, suddenly there was sound of gunshots and soon after the screech of twisting metal and broken glass. I found myself caught in the middle of a war zone alone, most of my friends had had the presence of mind to flee the scene while I had been left standing there like a deer mesmerized by the headlights of a car.
That night, on the parking lot, I saw the Sabbat and the Camarilla clash and when the dust settled it was the Sabbat who had been left standing. They found me crouched behind a car peeking wide-eyed over the hood at the walking monsters. I was summarily drained and embraced that July night by Anton Papodokis, ductus of The Stygian Titans pack.
1999-2012 SPEAKER OF OMENS
My unlife began violently. I remember awokened by the beast howling in rage and thirsty for blood. A part of me remembers being aware of being trapped in the back of a van just moments before it crashed through the front of a Manhatten establishment. I have memories glazed in red of clawing my way out of the wreck of the car only to rampage through a scene of carnage and blood.
I spent two months on the front line of numerous assaults, herded before the rest of the pack like canon fodder. My memories of that period are drowned out in blood and pain, much of which was caused by my own pack using their fleshcrafting abilities on me to reshape me into the namesake of the pack: an imposing titan. Eventually they deemed me worthy of my Creation Rite and allowed me to partake of the Vaulderie, confirming me as a Brother of the pack.
Ever since my embrace I had slumbered uneasily during the day. Strange dreams had haunted me and something felt as though it gnawed at my very spirit. I was thankful of the dreams, mostly, for without them I would not have survived that brutal time after my rebirth. I had kept those visions a secret until that moment, but after my creation rite they had begun to intensify and he felt himself slipping into madness.
It eventually got bad and the pack would have destroyed me outright had it not been because of the Vinculi, and because at that point I was spewing omens and foretellings left and right while thrashing on the ground, begging the spirits of our homeland to relent, to give me peace. Anton did not want to loose something that could prove to be a valuable asset, a childe with oracular abilities, and so the pack chained me up while looking for a way to cure whatever ailed me. In the end they had to turn to one of the Bishop's councillors for assistance.
God I hope that old hoary bastard died when New York City fell to the Camarilla or else I probably still owe him a debt of gratitude and a favour to boot for figuring out what it was that was wrong with me and providing the pack with the bleak earth of the lands under the shadow of the Carpathians. It seems that the omens I hear whispered by the spirits also ties me to the soil of eastern europe.
It took only a few nights after the crates of black earth had arrived for me to regain my composure and I began seeking my place in the pack. Soon I was jostling for station and attention from Anton, along with the others and spending much time seconding our pack priest, Kosta Damakis.
In the end, my time with the pack was finite. Anton was not pleased when I told him of the inevitable doom that lurked in every shadow of the City. He had high aspirations within the city and he did not relish me telling him how they were all about to come crashing down. And come crashing down they did, though, as the city fell to the Camarilla. Yet even so, he was unwilling to abandon the fight or his burning dreams. I never understood why it was so difficult for him to give it up. Perhaps it was simply too much to cope with having to take flight for a second time when his plans had been so close to fruition. Whatever it was, the pack stayed behind in New York City to continue the Jyhad.
Anton met final death in 2001 in the turmoil surrounding the collapse of the World Trade Center. Our pack had already dwindled from attrition and now faced complete annihilation it turned upon itself from lack of leadership. Eventually, what few of us remained, took up a nomadic existence and hit the road turning out backs on New York City. We came south first, to Baltimore and Atlanta to revel with the rest of the sect, then swerved off to the north and west. We spent nine years on the road and our pack continued to dwindle, losing one member there to the sun. Another member to a pack of Lupines and a third in a dispute with another pack. In the end, I lost the last member of the pack in Chicago to some frenzying Brujah bastard.
Now I am headed westwards again. Where-to, I am not entirely certain, but I can feel the spirits drawing me west. Who knows what I will find? I just hope I don't encounter any more of those Lupines along the way. My only companions these last few months have been 'Gnasher' and 'Growler', two mastiffs I've adopted and ghouled to guard the van during the day.. I wonder what this next city, Prospect?, will hold for us..
