Lodin, born Olaf Holte, was the Prince of Chicago and was one of the most influential Camarilla rulers in the United States until his "Final Death" in 1993.
Biography[]
Mortal Days[]
Originally a native of Norway, Olaf came to the new world with high hopes as part of a family of wealthy and influential landowners. His long existence has seen him through wars of both Kindred and kine. Indeed, both worlds could be said to believe him dead. Olaf came to America in 1830 and gained entry to the West Point Military Academy through the influence of his father. He distinguished himself in the Mexican War, particularly in the Battle of Veracruz, where his battalion seized the artillery positions overlooking the Bay of Campeche.
His overwhelming confidence and boldness drew the attention of the Toreador Prince of Veracruz, Eletria. His position, leadership qualities, education, and the influence of his family endeared him to her erstwhile lover, the Ventrue Datura. The Ventrue elder Embraced him at his lover's urging, and thus began the Cainite existence of one of the most revered and reviled vampires of his day.
Kindred Nights[]
As soon as he left his sire's side, he followed Eletria's advice and came to the growing city of Chicago, intending to make it his domain. He took a new name and started his life anew among the burgeoning city by the lake. His rise to praxis over Chicago was a monument of blood built on a foundation of ambition and deceit. There are those who believe it was his deposition of his predecessor, Maxwell, that brought about his rampant, all-consuming paranoia. The truth is, its seeds were sown from the very beginning of his undead existence. Truth is, as soon as he had entered the city, he began making plans to usurp the prince's position.
It is no secret that shortly after departing his sire, he took on the pseudonym by which he became famous, Lodin. The true secret is the safety of his true name, one he vowed never to speak, even to his closest childer.
Lodin's opportunity presented itself with the destruction caused during the fire on Devil's Night of 1871. He did not waste any time and attacked Maxwell's mansion in the mayhem that ensued, driving the prince away after a brief battle. Afterward, his reign was relatively stable, until Modius rose to challenge him from his princedom in Gary. In the following years, Lodin became more and more paranoid, fearing being usurped like he himself had usurped the princedom, and began creating a large brood to help him keep power. Lodin never realized that he had been nothing but a pawn in the Jyhad between the methuselahs Helena and Menele, until he allegedly "died" during the War of Chicago.
Scarred and deformed at the hands of Lupines, Anarchs, Sabbat, and his former allies in the Camarilla, Olaf is not even a shadow of what he once was. At first glance, even his own childer would now see nothing more than a broken-down transient: a homeless, half-mad drunkard who rants and raves in badly constructed prose to a rapt audience of dirt and asphalt. His fall left him without his left eye, his face burned and twisted. Olaf adjusted his palate to the outcast and the desperate of the city. He feeds from those injected with mind-numbing opiates that take him back to visions of his stately past. His influence, which once extended to national media and citywide police operations, has been reduced to a large network of street urchins and minor gangs who peddle and traffic the substances he desires to the targets of his feeding.
He elevates those ambitious youths who seek to move forward in the underworld above him. One moment, he beams like a proud father, referring to them by the names of his childer; the next, he cuts them down with jagged claws that sprout in bizarre angles from his mangled, broken fingers. Olaf remembers all too well the trappings of praxis and knows he is a chance Prince Jackson simply cannot take.
Appearence[]
Hideously mutilated during his betrayal and defeat, Olaf is either unable or unwilling to heal the damage done to him. His previously alabaster skin and sharp features are now lumpy and reddened. Black scars line his cheeks and body, surrounded by scorches and burns. His head is completely bald save for a few stray tufts of his once-fine blond locks, and his left eye is a terrifying, lidless gouge that stares blackly into the night. Only his right eye, a piercing blue, shows any sign of his former stature.
The One-Eyed King carries himself with a lowly, shambling gait, keeping his back doubled to appear as a weak and weary old man. However, when roused, he draws himself up to his full, impressive height. When angered sufficiently, he may use the Protean Discipline to sprout the claws so often associated with the Gangrel, though even those are mangled and twisted at the end of his broken and disjointed fingers.
Description[]
Before Lodin came to power, one thing was true: He was not the only Ventrue in the city, only the most ruthlessly ambitious, the one who seized opportunity when it presented itself and claimed a throne for himself.
After Lodin came to power, this was also true: He systematically eliminated any who might grow into a significant challenge to his claims of praxis, particularly the members of his own clan whom, rightly or wrongly, he considered primary threats instead of potential allies.
He ruled for decades, siring a series of lieutenants to enact his will and solidify his control over the domain he had claimed, permitting those lieutenants to sire broods of their own as they, and he, deemed necessary. Lodin is gone now, pulled down by treachery and inhuman savagery, but his legacy lives on in those that carry his bloodline — both of the childer he sired once he came to his throne and those he sired before the tides of conflict washed him up in Chicago.
Loresheet[]
Baby of the Family: You are the (current) youngest member of the lineage, Embraced within the last decade and still young enough to be treated with some degree of indulgence while you learn the ropes — and pretty much every Ventrue you encounter thinks they have something useful to teach you. With other members of your clan in Chicago, you always have a Mawla rating of one dot.- Responsible Middle Childe:You are a steadfast and proud member of Lodin’s wide bloodline, just coming into your own power and responsibilities. Due to your lineage and position, other Kindred of similar age and Generation to you look to you for leadership. With them, you always carry a minimum of Status (••).
- Black Sheep of the Family: You are a descendant of Lodin… and you don’t like it one little bit. You have split with the rest of the late Prince’s consanguinity in some dramatic way: running off to join the Anarchs, publicly siding with the (dis)loyal opposition in political matters affecting the stability of your bloodline’s rule, or turning into the world’s worst and least appeasable Herald. You have a little bit of dirt on every one of Lodin’s childer. The Storyteller will reveal a secret about any one of them you encounter, once per story.
- Like Sire, Like Childe: Like your ancestor, you are a virtually unkillable cockroach of a vampire, capable of taking anything that unlife throws at you and turning it, if not into gold, then at least a solid shot at survival. Add two dice to your dice pools when making tests to avoid physical or supernatural injury outside of direct physical conflict.
- Long-Lost Relative: Lodin had an unlife before he came to Chicago, and your existence is proof of that fact. You are the descendant of one of the childer he sired in the years between his departure from Veracruz and his arrival in Chicago, when he was a rootless and pragmatically unsupervised wanderer. Your arrival has sent a shockwave through the city, and now you are among the most sought-after of its residents, enjoying Status (••••) among Ventrue and court officials, the attention of every social gadfly in Chicago, and a definite seat at the Prince’s table.
Character Sheet[]
CbN 1st Edition[]
Note: Lodin has taken great care to teach his Get only those Disciplines he thinks they need. He has taken equal care to keep anyone from learning about his Animalism, Obfuscate, and Protean abilities: powers his earliest teachers taught him. His sixth level of Dominate allows him to make people rationalize the actions he forces them to take, thus making them believe that their actions were their own and were the proper ones.
Image: A gaunt tall man, he has very Nordic features: blue eyes, prominent cheekbones, and blond hair.
Roleplaying Hints: You will do anything to maintain your power, but the strain is beginning to tell. You have become snappish and have little patience with others' problems. Let a little bit of a Norwegian accent creep into your voice (it is very flat, very Midwestern, and the vowels drag out slightly: "Yas, we can do that. But what vill you do for me?").
Haven:A condo in the Metropolitan Life building, as well as an entire floor in the Sears Tower and several others.
Secrets: A -
Influence: Much of Lodin's power comes from his lieutenants. They control much of the city and have divided it up according to his orders. However, the Prince has taken great care to ensure that only he controls the police, which he views as the city's most powerful mortal force.
Indeed, the threat of police campaigns has proven one of the most effective ways of keeping recalcitrant Kindred in line. Lodin's control of the police does not extend to all ranks, nor does it give him absolute, precise control over their activities. If the characters are caught engaged in illegal activities, the police will attempt arrests no matter how much the characters may be in the Prince's good graces.
Normal police procedure is followed unless and until orders to the contrary filter down from Lodin. Characters who trade shots with the police may have to face a SWAT team, and so on. If the characters can somehow contact Lodin, he may be able to call the police off, but he can be difficult to reach.
Also, he must consider the Masquerade—pulling out a SWAT team in the middle of a firefight with armed and dangerous criminals could raise too many questions. Far better, then, that some incompetent fledglings are destroyed, for the greater good.
Gallery[]
References[]
- VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade Rulebook, p. 211, 214, 249-252
- VTM: Chicago by Night, p. 16, 23, 89, 120-122, et al.
- VTM: Chicago by Night Second Edition, p. 19, 26, 92, et al.
- VTM: Ashes to Ashes, p. 6-8, et al.
- VTM: The Succubus Club, p. 12, et al.
- VTM: Blood Bond
- VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade Second Edition, p. 241-242, 251, 261-262
- VTM/WTA: Under a Blood Red Moon
- VTM: Clanbook: Toreador, p. 8
- VTM: Prince's Primer, p. 52
- VTM: Vampire Storytellers Companion, p. 28
- VTM: Children of the Night, p. 70, 97
- VTM: Clanbook: Ventrue Revised, p. 30
- VTM: Clanbook: Gangrel Revised, p. 92
- VTM: Clanbook: Nosferatu Revised, p. 99
- VTM: Encyclopaedia Vampirica, p. 21, 46-47, 107
- VTM: Clan Novel Saga Volume 1: The Fall of Atlanta, p. 50-54
- VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 25
- ↑ VTM: Under a Blood Red Moon, p. 53