Braden White

Mortal Days

Braden White is the scion of a wealthy family in the United Kingdom, groomed from his earliest days to succeed. Whatever advantages in life could be bought, his parents afforded him. Trips abroad, tutors in all manner of instruments, games, sciences, martial arts, athletics. All were made available to him. It seemed that Braden couldn’t fail in life. He attended the finest private academies that Europe had to offer. From his native Britain, to France, Switzerland, and, finally, Italy. It was there his inexorable march to the high-life came to an abrupt halt.

Marked out by several well-placed contacts of his sire in the elite boarding schools and Universities in Tuscany, Braden was invited to enjoy a skiing trip in the Dolomites with several hand chosen students. Being whisked away to a secluded mountain retreat was not particularly alien to these men of class and distinction, and so they went, full of their own self-importance, into the lair of a monster. What followed was officially described as a terrible accident when a mechanical failure on one of the lifts carrying groups up the mountains caused a carriage to drop. In truth, Braden was the only one his sire and her retainers left alive. At first, it was hailed as a miracle and his parents were elated to find their son as the only survivor of the ordeal, but they found him changed. His memory was seemingly erased by amnesia and he had become addicted to something the consultants and faith healers his parents hired couldn’t place.

His sire wanted him to crawl back to her, and she was immensely gratified when he did. Abandoning his family and faking his own suicide, he desperately sought more of the vitae he craved and the answers to the truth of his past. His sire instructed him that it didn’t matter who he was, what mattered was that he was to become Lasombra.

Kindred Nights

Stripped of much of his advantages, Braden faced life without the endless wealth and trappings it brought. He was given a new identity, a small stipend and assigned as a minor functionary in one of his sire’s business ventures in Florence. Braden cannot remember exactly what it was he did for her, or even her name. What he does remember is the hardening cruelty of her tutelage. She stripped away any memories she deemed weakening or soft. She stringently eradicated any compulsion toward behaviors not useful to her purposes. In Braden, she would cultivate the perfect childe to make her the envy of her peers. However, it was the envy of her peers that was to change Braden’s Kindred existence for the better.

He was her star pupil and her contemporaries in the area grew weary of her endless sermonizing about her plans for him. They ensured that not only would he forget her, but he would defect to her clan’s great enemy. Forever the pawn, Braden was finally free to be his own man. Under the conditioning his sire’s enemies set down, he resolved to join the Camarilla in America. Braden constantly felt something was missing in his existence, though he could only place it within flashes of memory. He began to keep a journal of his experiences and began his new life in Boston. It was a difficult existence, maintaining his standing with so many enemies arrayed against him, but Braden was equal to the task. He learned lessons from fellow outcasts such as the Giovanni, whose habit of keeping strong familial ties appealed to the perpetual loner. To that end, he brought Errol Blacksmith, one of the city’s leading financiers, into his service and proceeded to extend his tendrils throughout members of the extended family.

Under Braden’s influence, the Blacksmith family became an echo of the family he had lost. He molded each new generation to fulfil their great destiny and hoped that one day one of them would show enough merit to warrant the Embrace and become a new branch of loyal Camarilla Lasombra.

Braden’s move to Chicago was both a necessity and an opportunity. He has been aware for some time of his mysterious sire’s desire to have him destroyed. He hopes that hiding his operations behind the Blacksmith family is enough to throw her off the scent, but he remains paranoid of her reappearance. Learning through sources at court that his clan were sending a delegation to Chicago, Braden uproots, intending to be the first on the scene to make his mark with the new clan hierarchy. After all, he was here before them. They need him as much as he needs their protection. Or so he hopes.