Ben Galura is a Thin-Blood residing in the Chicago area.
Biography[]
Mortal Days[]
way into the sympathetic hearts of old ladies with his big eyes and waif-like frame. At 14, he was taken in by Tia Gloria, a lady who ran a reasonably lucrative racket in fortune telling. She taught him how to spot an easy mark and how to probe customers for enough information to build a convincing — albeit false — narrative from “the beyond.”
A malaria epidemic sweeping through the steamy Manila slums left Ben bedridden for a week, visions skittering across the surface of his consciousness, strange voices whispering in his ears. Before this illness, Tia Gloria treated him like a scruffy-but-likeable mutt. Following his recovery, she gazed at him with an awestruck reverence. During his fever dreams his babbling had successfully predicted several newsworthy events.
Tia Gloria taught the recovered Ben palmistry, tarot and Lenormand, how to read stones and bones, fire, and crystal gazing. Ben took on Tia’s most loyal customers, and as word spread of his increasingly accurate readings and predictions, wealthier, more eccentric clients made their way to pay them a visit. The Fat Man — a customer who never used his real name but insisted upon seeing Ben at the stroke of midnight — was surrounded by visions and voices like nothing Ben had seen. He took Ben into his private employ, giving readings for his equally strange and nocturnal friends.
Two years into his employment, Ben had a blinding vision of the newly elected president, Ferdinand Marcos, and his wife luxuriating beside a swimming pool filled with bloated, dead bodies on chairs made of human bones. High gates surrounded their luxurious retreat patrolled by army generals in full dress uniforms. Outside, men, women, and children were forced into a giant machine that crushed them into a dark ichor, which flowed into the ink reserves of a massive printing press churning out billions upon billions of pesos. The Fat Man appeared wholly unconcerned by such an obvious and dire warning, but within a week he Embraced Ben, liquidated their considerable assets, and booked passage to the U.S.
Kindred Nights[]
Ben emerged from the wrenching throes of his first nights pleasantly surprised to learn his sire’s vitae had sharpened his prophetic sight. He would, he was told, develop a liberating lunacy, making his predictions more powerful and profound than he could possibly imagine. The latter proved to be quite true; the former, however, never manifested. Ben’s mind remained as lucid as it had ever been, much to the great agitation and dismay of his sire. Something in him told him to leave, to take nothing with him but Tia Gloria’s old cards and follow his visions wherever they might lead him.
As said visions flowed, a pattern of regularly occurring symbols developed: a pyramid crumbling to dust, a flock of red birds bursting forth from a cathedral, a Viking sitting on a throne beside an inland sea, beset by wolves. The Viking was the clearest and seemed to match the description of Lodin, the Prince of Chicago. The vision was clear. The Prince would fall and soon, unless Ben could be positioned to warn him. As it happened, Lodin was quite receptive to the young seer, welcoming him to Chicago’s Elysium and granting Ben a good deal of prestige and status. However, when the young man failed to prophesy anything other than a rising force of Anarchs spelling peril, doom, and destruction for Chicago’s Kindred, the Prince’s favor soured. Unwilling to believe or heed the ever-louder cries of downfall, Lodin publicly shunned him.
Even now that Lodin has supposedly met his final death and a new Prince reigns, Camarilla vampires continue to ridicule Ben. Chicago’s Anarchs, Duskborn, and Caitiff often visit him for word of the nights ahead, but the city’s Ivory Tower is content to belittle and underestimate the seer.
Character Sheet[]
Ben Galura
Sire: The Fat Man
Embraced: 1985 (Born 1957)
Ambition: Make Prince Jackson see my uses
Convictions: Always weather ridicule
Touchstones: Ching-He Ni — fortune teller and friend who operates Ben’s business during the day
Humanity: 7
Generation: 14th
Blood Potency: 0
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3; Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Composure 3; Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 1
Health: 6
Willpower: 4
Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 1, Drive 2; Etiquette 2, Insight (Mental Fragility) 5, Performance (Cartomancy, Palmistry) 5, Persuasion 3, Subterfuge (What They Want To Hear) 3; Academics 2, Awareness 3, Finance 1, Occult (Tarot) 3
Disciplines: Thin-Blood Alchemy 3
References[]
- VTM: Chicago by Night 5th Edition, p. 175-177
