Dumptruck Ned
Overview
Not exactly a rising star, but a reliable ally when you need one, Dumptruck Ned (or just Dump, Truck or Ned for short) has only been Kindred for a handful of years, but he's already proved his worth to Chicago's Kindred, particularly those in the Carthian Movement.
Just as he was in his breathing days, Dump is a waste hauler. If you need to get rid of something, anything, you can call him and have it quietly hauled away, no questions asked.
Ned is a cleaner, but he doesn't handle situations, just the aftermath of situations. In his time among the Kindred, Dumptruck Ned has disposed of cars, ashes, drugs, bodies, identities, ashes and bodies. His big, blue garbage truck is one that the city "lost" a couple of years back. The truck still looks (and smells) authentic enough that it doesn't get much attention from anyone who sees it going down alleys at night. In addition to some friends at the local landfills, Ned has a couple of ghouls on the night shift at a rendering plant south of the city, and they deal with human remains the same way they do with those of dogs, horses, cattle and leftovers from butcher shops: they throw them all in the same big walloping vats, and the bones all wind up in the same bone meal fertilizer.
Ned performs this service for allies and friends of the Carthian movement for "favors to be named later," with the size of the favor corresponding to the risk involved in the disposal. Everybody else pays cash. The riskier the cargo, the more it costs to get rid of. Hauling away the body of a notorious South Side gangsta runs about $500. Disposing of the corpse of a popular North Shore socialite runs the client around $10,000. Ned does not lack for money.
Ned was a hardcore union man before his Embrace, and he continues to be now. The labor faction of Chicago's Carthians all look to Ned as a kind of exemplar. The Invictus, on the other hand, see him as a dangerous Masquerade breach just waiting to happen. The Invictus also doesn't like the fact that he refuses to snitch on anybody he does a job for.
Ned is fully aware that his calling among the Kindred puts him in possession of some very sensitive information. To minimize the possibility of being compromised by an unwanted Vinculum, Ned deliberately established a Vinculum with the most apolitical vampire he knew: Lillian Vanderpool, the Carthian Myrmidon. She has yet to ask him to dispose of anything for her, and she has never contacted him outside of their quarterly Vinculum maintenance sessions, but there is nothing Ned wouldn't do for Vanderpool. While he doesn't know it, she feels much the same way about him.
Almost every Carthian and a handful of other Kindred owe Ned favors of one sort or another. He may not be as pretty, flashy or powerful as some other Kindred in town, but Ned is, almost inadvertently, cultivating a fair amount of political influence. If he ever steps away from his garbage truck long enough to get political, he could wind up on the road to being Prefect without much effort at all.
Born poor, Ned never quite got around to changing his financial circumstances before he died. Ned hated school, hated learning, hated books and hated his teachers. As soon as he was able to drop out of school, he did so.
And immediately noticed that those dreams of wealth that he'd been entertaining for so many years were farther away than ever without a college education.
So he started a waste hauling business. Not once did Ned refuse to haul something away for money. The mob loved Ned. The Kindred loved Ned, too, so much, in fact, that they made him a ghoul, and when he'd been a ghoul for long enough to "pay his dues," someone, a Carthian, finally got around to bringing him into the Requiem.
Ned wasn't a particularly handsome man to begin with, skinny as a scarecrow and oddly proportioned to boot, bit since his Embrace, he's only undergone one change: he continues to look much the same as he ever did except for the disturbingly intense expression that stays on his face at all times, like you're a bird and he's a cat. When others comment of it, he apologizes and tries to re-arrange his facial expression, but to no avail.
Ned gets most of his clothes from the houses he empties out and the bodies he gets rid of. It strikes him as the height of impracticality to throw away perfectly good clothing, especially when he spent most of his life hovering around the poverty threshold. That doesn't mean that he dresses sloppily, however. Ned had accrued enough clothes from emptying out houses and going through garbage bins that he can actually put together some decent outfits that wouldn't look out of place in any neighborhood in North America. The worst that can be said about his clothes is that they sometimes seem a little out of fashion.
Stats
Clan: Nosferatu
Covenant: Carthian Movement
Embrace: 1989
Apparent Age: 28
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 2, Resolve 3
Physical Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 4
Mental Skills: Computer 1, Crafts 1, Occult 1, Politics 1
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Drive 4, Firearms 1, Larceny 4, Stealth 4, Survival 1
Social Skills: Empathy 1, Intimidation 1, Streetwise 4, Subterfuge 3
Merits: Allies 3, Haven 4, Resources 3
Willpower: 7
Humanity: 7
Virtue: Temperance
Vice: Envy
Health: 9
Initiative: 7
Defense: 2
Speed: 11
Blood Potency: 1
Disciplines: Obfuscate 3, Vigor 1
Vitae/per Turn: 10/1
References
- VTR/WTF/MTAw/CofD: World of Darkness: Chicago, p. 136-137