Asmundarson
Get off my land.
The Norvegi often remain close to their living families and make many of them their Ghouls and childer; on occasion, these families are changed forevermore. The Asmundarsons are an example of this kind of process. Originally Icelandic in extraction, they moved farther afield, only to fall into poverty and degradation when the work dried up. They had nowhere to go and the family secret grew too demanding, too hungry.
Maybe they live in several apartments in an inner city tower block, or in a decrepit rural mining village where the mines have long since gone. Perhaps they scrape subsistence on some sick-earth farmland, dwelling in a dilapidated farmhouse.
They are clichés of the poor: they’re close-knit, ill-educated, abusive towards their children and siblings, and unwilling to ever forgive a member of the family who somehow escapes.
And, living in each of the three or four dwellings that the Asmundarson brothers call home is one of the great family secrets, a Dark Uncle or Aunt who buys their loyalty with sweet-tasting blood.
Maybe they live in several apartments in an inner city tower block, or in a decrepit rural mining village where the mines have long since gone. Perhaps they scrape subsistence on some sick-earth farmland, dwelling in a dilapidated farmhouse.
They are clichés of the poor: they’re close-knit, ill-educated, abusive towards their children and siblings, and unwilling to ever forgive a member of the family who somehow escapes.
And, living in each of the three or four dwellings that the Asmundarson brothers call home is one of the great family secrets, a Dark Uncle or Aunt who buys their loyalty with sweet-tasting blood.
Culture
Common Dress code
Appearance: The Asmundarsons are the people in the small-town bar or the village pub who go silent when strangers walk in. They’re the ones who, eyes narrowed, stand at the gates of their land clutching shotguns, waiting for you to drive past and leave them alone. The kids stand in a row at the fence, dirty-faced, and they all look identical. They’re the children in the tenement block in the hooded tracksuits and grubby training shoes. They look at you like they know something, like they want something, like they’ll eat you alive.
Major organizations
Clans and Covenants: The owners of the Asmundarsons are Mekhet, and no other vampire has ever laid claim on a member of this family. If the vampires of the Covenants even know about them, they rarely care. They don’t consider the Norvegi to be a threat, and what is it to the Prince if the Norvegi keep to themselves? They’re barely even vampires.
Organization: The families are abusive, in-bred and living in poverty, and embody every expectation and stereotype of the rural (or urban) poor. Although the brothers who are more or less family patriarchs make most of the decisions for their branches of the family, it’s really the Dark Aunt or Uncle who lives in the attic, or the cellar, or the coat cupboard who has final say in the Asmundarsons’ movements. The lives of the Asmundarsons are truly miserable for the children, as every hope of escape is thwarted, every dream of the outside world crushed. Sometimes, the family lets one of the younger members of the line start up a relationship with an outsider, hoping that a child will result. A teenaged Asmundarson elopes with a new husband; the Asmundarsons let them go, and then, just as the girl thinks she’s escaped, and her life is starting anew in the new town, her Dark Uncle comes for her with the rest of the family. The vampire makes the new husband drink his blood three times, and takes the couple home. They’re now part of the family. Young Asmundarson men sometimes go out on the town, hoping to get laid, solely in order that they can impregnate women and bring them into the family.
Because they’re literal family to the vampires who often make their havens in their homes, their Mekhet owners are even more possessive than usual. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that a vampire from another clan could make a ghoul of an Asmundarson, but the Norvegi who own him will find out and will do their best to either steal the ghoul back, or destroy the Regnant. Preferably both.
Organization: The families are abusive, in-bred and living in poverty, and embody every expectation and stereotype of the rural (or urban) poor. Although the brothers who are more or less family patriarchs make most of the decisions for their branches of the family, it’s really the Dark Aunt or Uncle who lives in the attic, or the cellar, or the coat cupboard who has final say in the Asmundarsons’ movements. The lives of the Asmundarsons are truly miserable for the children, as every hope of escape is thwarted, every dream of the outside world crushed. Sometimes, the family lets one of the younger members of the line start up a relationship with an outsider, hoping that a child will result. A teenaged Asmundarson elopes with a new husband; the Asmundarsons let them go, and then, just as the girl thinks she’s escaped, and her life is starting anew in the new town, her Dark Uncle comes for her with the rest of the family. The vampire makes the new husband drink his blood three times, and takes the couple home. They’re now part of the family. Young Asmundarson men sometimes go out on the town, hoping to get laid, solely in order that they can impregnate women and bring them into the family.
Because they’re literal family to the vampires who often make their havens in their homes, their Mekhet owners are even more possessive than usual. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that a vampire from another clan could make a ghoul of an Asmundarson, but the Norvegi who own him will find out and will do their best to either steal the ghoul back, or destroy the Regnant. Preferably both.
Nickname: To the Norvegi, the Kin. To other vampires, nothing at all.
Strengths: The Asmundarsons survive. They experience desperate poverty, but they don’t ever seem to get ill, and they never really suffer the ill-effects they should from bad diets and poor hygiene. Every Asmundarson takes one extra dot of Stamina at character creation.
Weaknesses: The Asmundarsons are so bound to their Dark Aunts and Uncles that they have a lesser form of the common Mekhet weakness to sunlight. In broad daylight, a member of the Asmundarson family suffers a -1 penalty to all dice pools involving Physical Attributes or Skills. Asmundarsons who receive the Embrace never develop fangs (taking the Flaw: No Fangs if they don’t join the bloodline).
Parent ethnicities
Weaknesses: The Asmundarsons are so bound to their Dark Aunts and Uncles that they have a lesser form of the common Mekhet weakness to sunlight. In broad daylight, a member of the Asmundarson family suffers a -1 penalty to all dice pools involving Physical Attributes or Skills. Asmundarsons who receive the Embrace never develop fangs (taking the Flaw: No Fangs if they don’t join the bloodline).