Brothers of Ypres
It isn’t the cough that carries you off. It’s the coffin they carry you off in.
We’ve spent the last century poisoning ourselves. A nuclear power plant melts down in the Ukraine. A chemical plant explodes in India. One of the largest cities of the world near-collapses under the weight of its polluted air. And in the first World War, we found ever more efficient ways to poison each other. Every side propelled countless shells, full of deadly gases — phosgene, chlorine, mustard gas — onto soldiers who could do nothing more than pray that their battered, sweaty masks would keep them alive.
And standing behind those in the trenches, the dead, who could not be poisoned, found ways to exploit these horrors. One dead man in particular, who bore the most mundane of names, learned how to internalize the poisons in the air, mud and water, and use them for his own ends.
The bearers of his legacy survive, a line of monsters who thrive on toxins, under whose pale skin lies the chemical pollutant that has done its part in the poisoning of a century.
And standing behind those in the trenches, the dead, who could not be poisoned, found ways to exploit these horrors. One dead man in particular, who bore the most mundane of names, learned how to internalize the poisons in the air, mud and water, and use them for his own ends.
The bearers of his legacy survive, a line of monsters who thrive on toxins, under whose pale skin lies the chemical pollutant that has done its part in the poisoning of a century.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
History and Culture: A rolling cycle of death and boredom ruled the trenches, punctuated by the terror of gas attacks. Pvt. Owen Thomas Jones, a 19-yearold soldier from Barry, was reported as one of the 90 men who died in the chlorine attack on Hill 60 at the Second Battle of Ypres. At least that’s what he tells his childer: he says he was Embraced when he was already dead from the gas. Whether true or not — and very few vampires believehim — it’s part of his personal mythology, something Jones had a talent for.
Jones may not have enjoyed being a private soldier, but he flourished as a vampire. Within a couple of months, Jones managed to maneuver his sire into the way of a five-nine and was on his way across Western Europe, hiding among the troops by night and dwelling in the vast networks of trenches that the Entente powers developed across France and Belgium. He wasn’t alone in the vampires’ makeshift trench-society, and he soon became well-known in the mud-soaked Elysiums of the trenches. He was particularly good at taking advantage of the chaos and bloodshed of the various battles of the war. His enemies didn’t fare so well, falling prey, according to Jones, to shells, machineguns, barbed wire and sunlight. If Jones’s blood became potent particularly quickly, no one had the time to object. And if Jones’s Mekhet childer noticed that his aura had turned partly black, what were they going to do about it?
Jones thrived in other ways as well. Gas attacks didn’t bother the undead in the trenches. They didn’t need to breathe. Dead eyes couldn’t be blinded. Dead skin had no living cells to mutate and burn. Jones found the gas attacks to be an excellent cover for assaults on men who were going to die soon anyway. Jones began to develop a taste for the gas, for the blood of choking, poisoned men. He found, one night, that he had internalized the gas without even realizing he had done so. He found his taste for poisoned blood had become a need, but that he could use the poison for his own ends.
It suited most of his childer to benefit, with his help, from the same transformation of the blood. It was easy enough in the chaos for them to move on. Jones was always a loner himself, and when the war ended, he cut the members of his new bloodline loose.
Jones had Embraced men just like him: chancers and dealers, and they in turn had taken as childer people on both sides of the war. When the battles ended, they spread quickly with a speed that reflected the dizzying change that overtook the 20th century. By the beginning of the current century, they had become more numerous than any bloodline with less than a century of history has any business being.
They followed the British to Mesopotamia in the 1920s, and profited from the widespread use of chlorine on Arab and Kurd resistance fighters. Meanwhile, another branch of the bloodline gained influence on the battlefields of the Russian Civil War. They strode through the middle of gas clouds in Ethiopia and Morocco.
In the Second World War, one or two Brothers of Ypres fed well from some of the most callous evils ever perpetrated by mortals against their fellow human beings. And after the war, some even got as far as Japan, where the new kinds of poisoning visited upon the people by the bomb gave them more food than they had ever seen before.
And so it went. The notorious London smogs of the 1950s that claimed so many lives were attractive to the Brothers, as was the disaster at Bhopal and the nuclear event at Chernobyl (in fact, power stations in general have been a desired place for Joneses to hunt). Lesser events, such as the poisoning of Camelford, the English village whose entire population suffered from aluminum contamination in the water supply back in the late 1980s, always seem to bring a Brother or two to hunt as soon as the news gets out.
The Brothers of Ypres themselves don’t seem cut out for working together. They cooperate happily with other vampires, but tend to see other members of the bloodline as competition for valuable food Resources. It’s only when a poisoning event is big enough to create a regular source of Vitae for more than a couple of Jones that they appear in numbers. When they Embrace, they do it for a purpose, and don’t generally tend to tell their childer much about the bloodline. A lot of second- and third-generation Joneses (there are no fourth generation Joneses so far) seem to come into the bloodline spontaneously when their blood thickens enough, without being told anything about the limitations or benefits of their heritage. It has always been unusual, although not unheard of, for a Trencher to bring an outsider into the bloodline. The Brothers don’t need the competition.
Jones may not have enjoyed being a private soldier, but he flourished as a vampire. Within a couple of months, Jones managed to maneuver his sire into the way of a five-nine and was on his way across Western Europe, hiding among the troops by night and dwelling in the vast networks of trenches that the Entente powers developed across France and Belgium. He wasn’t alone in the vampires’ makeshift trench-society, and he soon became well-known in the mud-soaked Elysiums of the trenches. He was particularly good at taking advantage of the chaos and bloodshed of the various battles of the war. His enemies didn’t fare so well, falling prey, according to Jones, to shells, machineguns, barbed wire and sunlight. If Jones’s blood became potent particularly quickly, no one had the time to object. And if Jones’s Mekhet childer noticed that his aura had turned partly black, what were they going to do about it?
Jones thrived in other ways as well. Gas attacks didn’t bother the undead in the trenches. They didn’t need to breathe. Dead eyes couldn’t be blinded. Dead skin had no living cells to mutate and burn. Jones found the gas attacks to be an excellent cover for assaults on men who were going to die soon anyway. Jones began to develop a taste for the gas, for the blood of choking, poisoned men. He found, one night, that he had internalized the gas without even realizing he had done so. He found his taste for poisoned blood had become a need, but that he could use the poison for his own ends.
It suited most of his childer to benefit, with his help, from the same transformation of the blood. It was easy enough in the chaos for them to move on. Jones was always a loner himself, and when the war ended, he cut the members of his new bloodline loose.
Jones had Embraced men just like him: chancers and dealers, and they in turn had taken as childer people on both sides of the war. When the battles ended, they spread quickly with a speed that reflected the dizzying change that overtook the 20th century. By the beginning of the current century, they had become more numerous than any bloodline with less than a century of history has any business being.
They followed the British to Mesopotamia in the 1920s, and profited from the widespread use of chlorine on Arab and Kurd resistance fighters. Meanwhile, another branch of the bloodline gained influence on the battlefields of the Russian Civil War. They strode through the middle of gas clouds in Ethiopia and Morocco.
In the Second World War, one or two Brothers of Ypres fed well from some of the most callous evils ever perpetrated by mortals against their fellow human beings. And after the war, some even got as far as Japan, where the new kinds of poisoning visited upon the people by the bomb gave them more food than they had ever seen before.
And so it went. The notorious London smogs of the 1950s that claimed so many lives were attractive to the Brothers, as was the disaster at Bhopal and the nuclear event at Chernobyl (in fact, power stations in general have been a desired place for Joneses to hunt). Lesser events, such as the poisoning of Camelford, the English village whose entire population suffered from aluminum contamination in the water supply back in the late 1980s, always seem to bring a Brother or two to hunt as soon as the news gets out.
The Brothers of Ypres themselves don’t seem cut out for working together. They cooperate happily with other vampires, but tend to see other members of the bloodline as competition for valuable food Resources. It’s only when a poisoning event is big enough to create a regular source of Vitae for more than a couple of Jones that they appear in numbers. When they Embrace, they do it for a purpose, and don’t generally tend to tell their childer much about the bloodline. A lot of second- and third-generation Joneses (there are no fourth generation Joneses so far) seem to come into the bloodline spontaneously when their blood thickens enough, without being told anything about the limitations or benefits of their heritage. It has always been unusual, although not unheard of, for a Trencher to bring an outsider into the bloodline. The Brothers don’t need the competition.
Major organizations
Reputation: The covenants and clans do not generally have a lot of time for the Joneses, and consider them more of a nuisance than anything else, not least because their power is so useless against the undead. They make the food supply taste vile sometimes, but the miseries they inflict upon the kine are not communicable. Yes, they’re not trustworthy — but who is?
The only thing that Owen Thomas Jones ever really passed down to his bloodline as a tradition is that the Joneses should only ever be seen to profit from toxins in their food — they shouldn’t be the cause of it.
And it’s important for the reputation of the line that no one knows that a high proportion of Joneses keep stocks of toxic substances, ranging from cans of rat poison right through to the vats of Iraqi nerve gas Owen Thomas Jones added to his personal collection only a few years ago.
The only thing that Owen Thomas Jones ever really passed down to his bloodline as a tradition is that the Joneses should only ever be seen to profit from toxins in their food — they shouldn’t be the cause of it.
And it’s important for the reputation of the line that no one knows that a high proportion of Joneses keep stocks of toxic substances, ranging from cans of rat poison right through to the vats of Iraqi nerve gas Owen Thomas Jones added to his personal collection only a few years ago.
Nickname: Jones, Trenchers
Bloodline Disciplines: Asphyx, Auspex, Celerity, Obfuscate
Weakness: Along with the usual Mekhet clan weakness (see p. 109 of Vampire: The Requiem), the Brothers’ poisoned blood limits them to drinking Vitae from those who suffer from some kind of poisoning. The Joneses’ supernatural anatomy responds to poisoning on a conceptual level, meaning that any kind of poisoning works, whether it’s bacterial (as in putrid food or befouled water), chemical, respiratory (poisoning from gas, smoke or from particles such as asbestos counts, as does emphysema) or from radiation.
Blood taken from a healthy subject tastes foul to a Jones, and has no benefit at all as Vitae. Concepts: Over-zealous toxicologist, pest exterminator, Black Widow, war crimes suspect, experimental test subject, Gulf War Syndrome sufferer, fired UN weapons inspector, shell-shocked veteran, “unlawful combatant,” urban cyclist
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: Along with the usual Mekhet clan weakness (see p. 109 of Vampire: The Requiem), the Brothers’ poisoned blood limits them to drinking Vitae from those who suffer from some kind of poisoning. The Joneses’ supernatural anatomy responds to poisoning on a conceptual level, meaning that any kind of poisoning works, whether it’s bacterial (as in putrid food or befouled water), chemical, respiratory (poisoning from gas, smoke or from particles such as asbestos counts, as does emphysema) or from radiation.
Blood taken from a healthy subject tastes foul to a Jones, and has no benefit at all as Vitae. Concepts: Over-zealous toxicologist, pest exterminator, Black Widow, war crimes suspect, experimental test subject, Gulf War Syndrome sufferer, fired UN weapons inspector, shell-shocked veteran, “unlawful combatant,” urban cyclist