Salt

Epitaph: Church of Set Fixer
Quote: “I didn’t know wearing a suit like that gave you the right to front on my friend here. Let me tell you all about this jag-off.”
Donning dark hoodies and cardigans, headphones, and a backpack, Salt could be any college student on any campus in Chicago. Her favorite sweater is a long black one with two large white X’s screen-printed up the side.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Mask

Salt usually goes by Benjamin or Stephanie Cooper. She knows her name is common and can pass casual scrutiny. Salt plays up the college student vibe around the city and can easily pass through many of the academic hot spots with fake university IDs around downtown (Mask 2).

Mental characteristics

Personal history

MORTAL DAYS: RUNNING FROM PROBLEMS

When Steph Cooper was 12 years old, she woke one night to her parents fighting with her older brother Benjamin. They were screaming about how they “did not raise a queer son” and “his choices would lead him to an eternity in hellfire”. Steph tried to stop the fight, but her brother ran out, grabbing nothing but a school bag. Steph chased after him, but her father grabbed her before she could leave the house. She never forgave him for stopping her.
The tension of the situation drove Steph to dive into her school work. She joined clubs about science and chess, desperate to just be invisible to the world and her parents. She wanted to find her brother, but being a young teenager made this goal impossible. Terrified she would be driven out of her home, Steph began smoking weed with some of the older girls at school. The haze of numbness provided Steph with an oasis from the fear and suffering growing in her heart.
Even with everything going on in her life, Steph eventually enrolled in the prestigious Jones College Prep high school. She was a good student but kept to herself until she realized her razor-sharp wit could make people laugh and boys look her way. Steph used her new-found powers to try to make friends, especially in her school’s STEM and hacking program. Still attempting to stay away from home as much as she could, she would work late hours into the night with her new friends. She most excelled at network programming and disseminating mu133 sic and movies illegally to her pals. Her program was even given a grant from a Mr. Calhoun, a big shot philanthropist and non-profit organization builder. Mr. Calhoun was a snappy dresser when he showed up to late night school events. Steph was sick and tired of being afraid of going home. She often expressed this to her friends over social media and even a few times to Mr. Calhoun, who acted as a mentor to the young woman when he visited the school lab.
After dodging another parental conflict, Steph grabbed the nearest bus to the Golden Nugget, a latenight diner she knew about up on the North Side. While going through her homework routine over a cup of coffee and texting her friends, Steph glimpsed Mr. Calhoun walk down the street towards the Redline. Desperate for some guidance, she ran into the night and right into an unfamiliar world.

KINDRED NIGHTS: WILD, WILD UNLIFE

After the Embrace, Steph’s body slowly fell into itself, looking as if mummified or preserved by salt, a manifestation of the emotions she bottled up. Calhoun explained a young woman so bright needed a way out and he needed someone of her capabilities as an agent. He offered her employment despite her young age, explaining her technological knowhow would make her valuable to any number of Kindred and their sects. Specifically, he wanted someone — ideally an outsider like her — to infiltrate a fringe group and report back to him on their activities. Seeing a way out of her life, Salt accepted. After providing months of training and a political rundown of the city, Calhoun explained his childe would be working as an agent within the Church of Set. She would not succumb to their temptations, and would accumulate intelligence on the clan’s activities for the Nosferatu and Camarilla. He dropped Salt off outside a set of storefront churches on the city’s South Side, and she entered to meet a dark and intense woman known as Reverend Twosret, or Sarah, to her mortal associates.
Salt explained to Twosret her story of mortal abandonment without mentioning Cedrick Calhoun’s tutelage. Twosret asked candidly whether she was prepared for a hard but spiritually fulfilling existence, and acting reluctant, Salt explained her nervousness. Sympathetically, Twosret took her under her wing and offered guidance in the faith of Set. Discovering Salt was also adept at defending the Church of Set on the digital front was an added bonus.
Salt now ostensibly serves the Church of Set while feeding information on the Setites and what they know of the Ministry’s activities to the Nosferatu Primogen. As she spends time in Twosret’s company, however, Salt feels worryingly comfortable with the Serpents’ dogma.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

PLOTS AND SCHEMES

• Bogey Man: Salt remembers clearly the face of her brother leaving home forever. She never wants anyone to ever go through the pain of not being able to be themselves ever again. She actively searches out homophobes in her spare time and feeds off them after putting them through some sort of psychological ordeal. She intends to do the same to her parents when she feels ready. 
• Party Girl: Free to be herself, Salt routinely hits up the Rack for blood infused with late-night revelry. She wants the area to become her domain eventually and uses the space to gather mortal members for the Church of Set.
• Fuck the Ministry: Knowing only what the Church of Set has told her, she fully intends on destroying Marcel and any of his followers with blackmail or worse. They have turned their backs on the freedom the clan used to represent. They must pay for their transgressions as anyone who exerts bondage via faith.

WHISPERS

• Wheels within Wheels: Salt is Masquerading as both Calhoun and Khalid, using the power of both masks to bring down Marcel for the Church of Set. 
• Addict: Salt is quickly becoming addicted to the lifestyle the Church of Set has provided her. She is starting to slip up and it’s only a matter of time until she gets her ass staked and destroyed. 
• Brothers: Salt knows exactly what she is doing. She plays around the Kindred and even puts on a show for Twosret and Cedrick, just like she did with Ben when they were young and desperate to get out of their house. A master manipulator, she knows her new “parents” are just using her as a pawn. So, she’s using the technology they gave her to find out about their dirty secrets, as well as trying to track down her missing brother.

Social

Contacts & Relations

DOMAIN AND HAVEN

• Maryland Pig Iron of Illinois (Haven 2, Herd 1) Using the combined resources of both Cedrick and Twosret, Salt has procured a forgotten basement in a smelting factory on the East Side. The 24-hour schedule of the plant provides workers for feeding, and she maintains a small bank of servers and computer’s in her underground haven, dedicated to mining the remains of SchreckNET.

THRALLS AND TOOLS

• Jones Academy STEM Club (Allies 2) Still in contact with her mortal friends, Salt has made up a lie about how she tested out of high school and is now enrolled at Columbia College Chicago within their video game department on a full ride. She only speaks with her pals online, since the grotesque change in her appearance.
• Marissa Cooper (Retainer 1) During one of her parents’ many arguments, Salt quickly poured some of her vitae into her mother’s liquor. She doesn’t really understand how ghouls work, but she’s trying to help her mother get some help for her drinking. 

KINDRED RELATIONSHIPS

• Cedrick Calhoun (Doting Sire) Cedrick truly cares about Salt but still needs her to get the job done. Gathering the intel of the Church of Set’s activities is her primary purpose. Therefore, Salt is tasked with this mission as a caveat for her accounting.
• Reverend Twosret (Apprehensive Mawla) Salt is beginning to get results for the church as she uses information acquired online to further Twosret’s schemes. She recently received some information on some of the holdings of the Lasombra contingent, a useful bargaining chip for the cult. If she continues to deliver, Twosret is considering initiating Salt into the mysteries of the Followers of Set

Chicago By Night    Kindred, Kine & Others    The Camarilla      Salt

Character Prototype

Sire: Cedrick Calhoun
Embraced: 2017 (Born 1991)
Ambition: Impress my sire and Mawla
Convictions: Freedom for all people, regardless of beliefs
Touchstones: Benjamin Cooper — lost brother
Humanity: 7
Generation: 9th
Blood Potency: 1
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2; Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 2; Intelligence 4, Wits 2, Resolve 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 5

Skills

Athletics 2, Drive 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 2; Etiquette 4, Insight 2, Persuasion 1, Streetwise (The Rack) 3, Subterfuge 2; Academics 2, Awareness 2, Investigation 3, Politics 1, Science (Engineering) 3, Technology (Hacking) 4

Disciplines

Animalism 1, Obfuscate 4