Jaromír Černý

Jaromir Cerny is one of the younger Old Clan Tzimisce. Originally embraced to stave off dangers for his sire during the Velvet Revolution, he is now a very unpopular inhabitant of Prague, with several enemies around and a sire that comes to see him as more and more dismissable. Despite having now accesss to the flesh-shaping arts of his Clan, he appears ungendered, alien, and not even altogether organic. Like an ikon to a brutish and forgotten spirit — or demon — of the land, his features become coarse and  otherworldly, a creature forged for a more primitive time, implying ties to the Gargoyles used by the Tremere.

Biography
Born as the son of two popular dissendents in Czechoslovakia during the slow separation from the Soviet Union, Cerny was raised with the anticommunistic sentiments and was treated as a mascot by some of his parents friends, as a symbol of the generation that would overthrow the Soviets. Spending a great deal of time in theaters, young Cerny followed in his parents’ footsteps and appeared in plays across the city. At first most of his shows were comedic or simple fare that drew no attention beyond the theater crowd, but by his teens he had taken roles in plays that were not so easily overlooked by the government. When most of Dubček’s reforms were rolled back during the 1970s, his parents continued involvement in dissident expression and organizations led to their arrest after the final curtain call of one of their more inflammatory performances in the fall of 1976. They were escorted into a black sedan and, like so many others they knew, were never seen again. After that incident, young Cerny invested himself heavily into the underground opposition movement. He was among those who signed the Charter 77 and joined Havel and his compatriots in VONS, but escaped a prison term. Despite his best intentions, he found himself unable to resist the StB secret police interrogators who abducted him from his home in the middle of the night and questioned him about his involvement in the Committee. He did not later remember what happened that night, but for weeks afterward was haunted by nightmares dominated by a pair of piercing, inhuman eyes that seemed to bore into his very soul and leave a legacy of physical pain with the merest glance. Afterwards, he found himself shunned and ostracized by his compatriots for his perceived betrayal.

During the 1980s, Cerny was able to redeem some measure of his reputation as a devoted dissident, although he avoided the limeligt and begun to support those who were more adept at leading the movement. After 1989, Cerny prepared himself for the Revolution that would now surely come to his homeland. In a winter night, however, he was captured by a black Sedan, whose driver had the same eyes as those who still haunted his dreams. Cerny was compelled to take a seat in the car and the two drove to Kokorin Castle, a an impressive and recently restaured fortress rising high above the surrounding countryside on a nearly insurmountable outcropping of rock. Inside, Cerny was greeted by Janek Ritka, the Voivode of Kokorin. The ancient Tzimisce had seen the change within the mortal population and wanted to use the young revolutionary as a means to cement his hold over his domain once the communists had been deposed. Fearful of the alternative, Cerny complied and was made one of the Damned. After a brief introduction into the basics of unlife, he was sendt back to Prague, using the Blood Bond to ensnare his compatriots and keeping them under the sway of his master. He, however, made the mistake of headbutting with the local Kindred, earning him the emnity of various vampires within the city.

More than two decades later, Jaromir still serves his master’s whim in the Magic City. The idealism that he once believed defined him has been replaced by a far more pragmatic instinct that has grown out of his need to compete for control of the city’s most useful pawns and the power they possess. Prince Vasily was outraged at the fledgling Tzimisce’s intrusive campaign during the Velvet Revolution and scribed a grievance to Janek, requesting that it punish its rogue childe. Furthermore, the Prince forbade Jaromir from entering Prague, enumerating his violations of the Traditions and the pact between Janek Ritka and the Camarilla of Prague to justify this exile. Both sire and childe find these threats laughable, but as Cernys worth for his sire decreases more and more Kindred point out that it is unlikely that Ritka would defend his childe. Cerny himself, however, has immersed himself in computer science, hoping to stave off potential hunters and to flee into another domain if the situation should escalate that much. His activity on the Internet now outstrips his face-to-face interaction, and rarely does a night go by that he is not discovering secrets, distributing misinformation, increasing his wealth, or plundering someone’s fortune.