Current draft of the bio is presently up in my blog; I wanted to create this, here, to give some thoughts (outside of the bio) to address the obvious questions. Like, "It's a vampire. Why are we not killing it?" as well as what I want to acomplish, as a writer and gamer, with said character. Part of it is naturally, as you all probably know, my love of characters who blurr the line between what we think of as a villain and a hero. Also, I almost feel like we need a Token Evil Teammate for going with a bit of darker themes, likely doing my damndest to stay just inside of the Moral Event Horizon.
I also want to play a bit, with what's there before, with how we `draw the line` between evil and not-evil. Despite being horribly evil, she's still, like the vampire the Judge took out (hooray for rewatching old eps), got enough human emotions in her that the Judge would burn her to a cinder.
Is there anything to stop her from killing us all? - Yes. Enlightened Self-Interest. Jasmin isn't as rampaging a threat as others; part of thsi is age and the mortal personality the demon corrupts. Another part of it is being smart enough to see things, like a trail of dead bodies makes a slayer or other hunter stick a piece of wood in your chest. And Jasmin quite likes not being a pile of dust. Also, the tightrope I have her walking. More on that later.
So why are we not killing her? - Ultimately, that'd be up to each character to decide. But an overall thought is that, partly, I want her to be a present moral dilemma. She's going to be willing to use her resources to help people out, and provide information; at the same time, she's likely going to be using you as well to take out any of her rivals (to paraphrase Jack Sparrow, "You cheated!" "Vampire.")
Any intention of chipping her or giving her a soul? - At this time? Nooooo. Oh hell no. I'm willing to entertain it, as the demands of the story, and desires of the other characters progress; her paperweight is a bit of an in-joke. At the very least, if PCs considering doing something like that to her, I at least hope by then to make it an honest debate. Will neutering the vampire make her less effective for your purposes? Possibly.
Where do you see her fitting in? As said: a good moral debate. I see her ending up being a source of information. She has books, and more importantly, experience - almost seven decades of experience, making her the kind of person who can laugh at the throw-away line on a demon's weakness. "Oh, good, all we have to do is stab it in the heart." "Through the chitin shell, yes. Did your book leave that out? Yeah, the guy who wrote it probably didn't know, either." One side of the debate is that she's actually useful, and between that and her feeding habits, may actually save more lives than she takes.
On the other hand: vampire. She's not above coming to you all with "oh, look, this dangerous demon is around and causing trouble" - then casually omitting that said demon is only being mentioned now because it became a thorn in her side. The final flipside, of course, is the tightrope she's going to be walking.
Helping the characters puts her in Spike position. Other vampires and demons, when / if they learn that this vampire has been directing goodies to kill them, aren't going to take kindly to said fact. For that matter? Neither are well, any other hunters. But moving on....
What about these feeding habbits? My thoughts are she has three main sources: willing victims garnered from her club; muggers, rapists, and other criminals; and a deal with a butcher shop or two to pay them very well, under the table, to provide her with blood. The first are for the nights when she feels like a hunt, and are mainly hunted out of a sense of, "not only will nobody miss them, they aren't going to even bother reporting this." The others because they aren't seen as worth the time, and a trail of bodies gets attention. In other words, she eats in a less damning way out of the evilness of her heart.
Looking for anything? Aside from feedback and story ideas: I'd like to find a way to tie her to one or two other PCs on the way in, even if she's only the mysterious benefactor who slips them `anonymous` information (and gave them a way to prove she's the benefactor). Admitedly, this is partly to have at least one person able to speak up and say that, you know, maybe the evil bitch is worth leaving alone... for now.
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I want to state, for the
I want to state, for the record, that I, as a player, have no problem with this as long as you don't expect everyone to trust her. Having said that my character will have seriously real problems with her all the way around. But as a cop he understands that sometimes it is in his interest to let the little fish go in order to catch the big ones.
As long as no "real crimes" are committed, he'll grudgingly have to allow her to do her thing. But by real crimes he means unwilling or innocent humans (and that includes criminals who have not been convicted by the law) getting hurt. If he thinks that that line is being crossed then he will feel compelled to take action.
Feedback
Initially, my only concern was how you were going to explain her feeding habits, but I think it makes perfect sense. If you're smart enough, you dont want to feed randomly to get caught, so you target people who wont be missed.
For a tie in, you can have her know Balthazar. They could be allies, often swapping infos and favours. Through that, it's only a matter of time before Logan and her are introduced (Though I cannot guarantee he'll be overly positive with her).
Dave, I actually kind of
Dave, I actually kind of don't expect people to trust her - nor does she expect to be trusted. After all, vampire. She is evil and knows it. That's actually another of the themes that I look forward to exploring (my thought, Dave, with your character: Confidential Informants come to mind as an analog).
Basically, I'm going into this knowing that there can be some interesting things, and also knowing that one day, the characters may decide she's crossed the moral event horizon and has to be put down.
One additional
There is some other thing that occured to me to mention: ideally, I don't think that, unless it gets arranged with someone in advance, that Jasmin will be informing anyone of her undead status at the start - just out and out saying it, to her, not only isn't subtle, but is actually a good way to get herself killed.
Remembering, of course, that
Remembering, of course, that the undead have neither a pulse nor body-heat. They tend to be pale and avoid direct sunlight. They burn at the touch of crosses and holy water and tend to give normal folks the willies as a matter of course.
Being undead may be subtle but it does not mean that someone who knows the undead wouldn't be able to figure it out.
True enough, and do expect
True enough, and do expect people with experience to put it together. Which I think, raises (Before I ask a bit of advice) another interesting question - overall do we want to go into this with most of the characters knowing each other from before, or let ties develop in the course of the plot? I'm fine either way.
My bit of random advice to ask everyone for, on this slow day, is which pale goth chick to use as an avatar. Links included, all work safe:
(1) Amy Lee (2) Tarja Turunen (3) Helen Vogt (4) Liv Kristine (5) Olga Romanova
I'm leaning to 1, 3, or 5 at the moment... I think I hate this part more than deciding names.
Amy Lee and Olga Romanova are
Amy Lee and Olga Romanova are the only ones I recognise. If you have a place for her give some love to Zoetica Ebb, though. If I ever nees a goth character she's my go-to girl.
Debate was solved - they're
Debate was solved - they're all metal singers. Let's see.... Liv Kristine used to be with Theater of Tragedy, and is with Leave's Eyes now. Helen Vogt is with a group called Flowing Tears. And, of course, Tarja was with Nightwish for a long time, then went solo.
....yes, I know, I went from listening to Frank Sinatra to Symphonic and Gothic Metal. :)