Step 1:  Character Name/Clan/Covenant
Vo, Nosferatu (Rakshasa), Circle of the Crone

Step 2: Who you were.
Born Thomas (Tommy) Xuân Vo in 1966 to parents Hùng and Quy Vo, little Tommy was the first generation born on American soil. Fleeing the devastation wrought on their homeland by civil war and, later, foreign invasion, the Vos found security in being smack dab in the middle of a giant country that had not experienced foreign aggression since its founding. Detroit was a prosperous city then, and home to a booming Vietnamese population in the southwest. The Vos opened a specialty grocery store, importing goods from Asian distributors for retail in Detroit. Business was fine. Hùng and Quy were able to afford the storefront rent and put food on their own table. Little Tommy Xuân went to school, where his finger paintings drew great praise from his teachers. It was 1971. Tommy was five years old.

Vo's mortal childhood passed without great incident. He helped out in the store after school, stocking shelves and handling basic register transactions while his father Hùng handled the accounting and Quy arranged the purchasing and import of retail stock. His after-school job kept him out of trouble, but it also hindered Tommy from developing the kind of formative friendships important in early socialization. He was quiet, withdrawn, and level-headed. These qualities were encouraged (enforced) by his domineering mother. As a young teenager, with male peers discovering their sexuality and adjusting attitudes towards women, Tommy Xuân Vo still knew better than to think women weak and pliable to his whims. Respect (and a healthy dose of fear) kept him in line.

It was no great transition, then, when his parents introduced him to the faith.

The Vos had, since before their exodus to America, been in service to the Circle of the Crone. Unbeknownst to Tommy, the store had supplied the covenant in Detroit with livestock and a steady blood supply for both ritual and sustenance. They had even assisted in the relocation of elders also fleeing the napalm and aerial strikes against their age-old feeding grounds. Both Quy and Hùng had been loyal vassals for all of Tommy's life, and now they introduced their one and only son to the undead benefactors that had made their life in Detroit possible. Vo climbed the ranks from blood bag to ghoul servant: running trivial errands for his masters, performing light clerical and janitorial duties, eventually training in martial arts to defend them while they slept. He kept quiet, kept a level head about these things. His family had trained him well.

Step 3: Why they took you.
It was not Vo's competence that earned him his Embrace. He was a tool well-suited to the tasks they asked of him. And he showed no ambition, no spark to suggest that he was worthy of more.

Until the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

The Circle's adoption of the holiday was simple, neat. It coincided with the more widely celebrated autumnal equinox and its themes allowed for similar motifs, familiar symbols, all while preserving the cultural heritage of immigrant sorcerers. It was a time to thank and honor the Mother, forgive the dead that had transgressed against the covenant, and exact bloody revenge against those whose time had come. Vo was called to assist in the performance of the sacrifices, standing in the place of his ailing father. To this night, Vo does not know if he himself called forth the miracle. A neonate that had attempted to diablerize a ranking member of the cult was brought forth for sacrifice. As the dancing reached its peak, the blood was drawn out the victim in a crimson mist, in which Vo bathed and then absorbed in a trance-like state of apparent possession.

It was an omen. The ghoul had the gift of Crúac. But no, it was not possible. Some evil spirit had possessed him. No, it was a spirit of justice. He was commanded by the Goddess to take his soul. The interpretations were many. Some called for his death that night. The priestess intervened: Nhung Dao, a demon sorceress that cleaved to the court of Ha'ng. She took him under her protection, but not before drawing her blade across his throat over the altar. He too was sacrificed that night, his lifeblood drained and replaced with her own. He lived again, wracked with agony as his body twisted into the demon-skin he wears now.

Step 4:  How you survived.
Nhung Dao's protection was not enough. Vo had been a competent servant, a capable soldier, but he was not yet worthy of his Blood. To that end, Vo voraciously plumbed the accumulated lore and wisdom of the Detroit Circle, and in shockingly short order cultivated his talents with the blood magic. A conclave of sorcerers agreed, in the end: the Goddess would not impart her gifts to the unworthy. He was a boon to his sire's coterie. He had earned his place in the all-night society of Detroit.

Step 5:  Who you are now.
Vo is a warrior-poet. He has achieved in his brief unlife more than he ever did when alive. The Embrace was a gift. It brought him closer to the Mother, closer to the pure truths of existence. He weaves fate with his blood and his body. He changes shape with all the ease of the wind. In short, Vo is happy. Other Kindred can't believe it, wouldn't trust him because of it. But Vo's existence, for all its challenges and travails, is more fulfilling than ever before. He seeks to create lasting bonds between those covenants that choose to tolerate the Circle of the Crone in Detroit, and pursue a lasting peace to allow him to focus on his studies and grow his talents in the sorcerous arts.

Step 6:  What you will become.
A defender of the faith. Adversity has been no stranger to Vo in his past. He does not expect that to change. He has already met Kindred who don't approve of his heritage, either mortal or vampiric, and he expects some fanatics to crawl out of the woodwork eventually to slander his religion as well. They are unwittingly the Mother's own tools in teaching Her children the true meaning of faith. He feels great sympathy for his clanmates, whether they share his bloodline or not. While he is humble enough to know his shortcomings, Vo could see a future in speaking for them as well.

Aspirations:
[*]Short-Term: Uncover a Strix host
[*]Short-Term: Understand the nature of the Mother of Shadows
[*]Long Term: Defend the faith

Step 7: Personal descriptions.

The Embrace is a momentous occasion for all. Some view it as a curse, others as a gift. For the Nosferatu, they are forever and irreversibly altered by the Blood, twisted in form and presence--especially so in the case of Vo. The Rakshasa are infamous for the hideous transformations undergone by those inducted into the bloodline. Vo's skin was dyed a permanent obsidian black, drawn tight against his flesh until every striation and every joint was visible with awful clarity. His face is set into a rictus grin, nose squashed wide and flat, fangs and tusks arcing outside his mouth like some obscure breed of boar walking in a human shape. His fingers are long and thin, frequently tipped with the claws that are his unholy birthright. His forehead is unnaturally high, hair emerging from just behind the crown of his head and out to the back and sides as if he'd shaved his pate before death. Judging by its silky black sheen, he was not an old man when Embraced.

Vo likes long raincoats when forced to interact with others in plain sight, scarves and gloves and sashes hiding his form from view. Several wide knuckle rings and strings of wooden and bone beads adorn him. He seems to like jade. He frequently wears a mask in public; either one of the ornate carved and painted masks in the vein of Balinese demons or Japanese oni, or a simple thick woolen ski mask--whatever the situation calls for. In recent nights, Vo's taken to wearing an armored motocross jacket apparently stolen from one of Olkowski's ill-fated biker brood, covering a milspec carrier vest beneath.