Lester Knife
Biography
Mortal Days
Born in 1940s on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in Montana, Lester’s family struggled with poverty on an already poor reservation. It was hard finding work and Lester’s generally reclusive, mildly misanthropic nature made things tougher and tougher for them. When the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 came into full power, Lester’s immediate family urged him to take the opportunity offered.
Lester decided that anywhere was better than life in the dirt in Rocky Boy so he left and went to Chicago. Work was promised for him there and so was a place to stay. When he arrived, he found there was neither and life on the streets of Chicago began immediately.
Rather than visit the American Indigenous Center of Chicago, his errant ways introduced him to Native gangbangers and street hustlers. He fell deep into that crowd and by the time he connected with the AIC he already had a reputation.
There was talk about moving the AIC out of the storefront they were in and into a new building, and an elder named Ernie was promising labor contracts to those who would help renovate an old Masonic temple as their new home. Ernie’s money put him in a space of control, and Lester couldn’t help but watch as the older man abused his power, molesting fellow members and siphoning off cash. When a young girl and her brother turned up dead, Lester called Ernie out as the monster that had raped and killed them both. Despite the evidence, a host of elders defended Ernie and banned Lester from the AIC, citing his previous crimes.
Lester warned Ernie that his time would come.
One night, half drunk at a bar called “Twisters” in Ravenswood, frequented by bikers, truckers, blacks, and Natives, Lester went on a tirade about how somebody needed to hunt Ernie down and gut him. An old biker came up to him and sat with him for a while, listening to his tirade. He got Lester dangerously drunk that night and offered to give him the power to take revenge for his friends. Lester jumped at the chance and the biker, a Gangrel by the name of Tyrus, Embraced Lester.
Kindred Nights
Lester rode with Tyrus and his crew for about a year before he came back to Chicago. The AIC had already moved into its new building and Ernie was an important member of the Board of Directors.
Lester watched Ernie for a while and, when the opportunity presented itself, he caught Ernie late one night after a board meeting. Ernie had stayed behind to do some paperwork. Paperwork was his euphemism for working a laundering deal in the basement with some local gangsters. Lester came in and attacked the whole miserable lot, though Ernie somehow escaped. To his surprise, he was not able to feed that night. The shadows of the building seemed to come to life and consume all the dead bodies. There was something else here. It was beneath the building and hungry for blood.
At first, he thought it was Kindred, but he wasn’t so sure. All that he knew was that it was convenient. So, he fed it the remains of his kills. It spoke to him in whispers and he began to kill more frequently for it.
He soon realized there was more than one entity in the building and they grew restless. He tried to stop feeding them, but then accidents started happening to the people in the building. The entities were active and hungry.
He turned to his Gangrel brothers, who investigated and confirmed Lester was right that something old and powerful was deep beneath the building. Its anxieties and urges bled out into the community and brought everyone into a state of chaos and disarray.
The Gangrel decided to keep it secret from the Prince and tasked Lester with keeping an eye on it and keeping it fed. Lester became a volunteer maintenance person for the building once the community agreed to let him come around again. Lester has managed so far to keep the entities under control, though recently the community decided to leave the building, after over 50 years of occupying it. This has left Lester in the predicament of not having easy access to feeding stock. Lester is nervous about what may happen with the entities if they grow hungry enough to reach out. He does what he can to get access to the building and feed the entities, but time is running out.
Character Sheet
Lester Knife
Sire: Tyrus
Embraced: 1983 (Born 1942)
Ambition: Don’t allow the masters beneath the ground to wake
Convictions: Always keep the masters fed
Touchstones: Ernie Head — an abusive Native elder to whom Lester is painfully linked
Humanity: 6
Generation: 8th
Blood Potency: 1
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2; Charisma 1, Manipulation 3, Composure 3; Intelligence 1, Wits 4, Resolve 3
Health: 5
Willpower: 6
Skills: Brawl 2, Drive (Motorbike) 3, Firearms 1, Larceny (Bypassing Security) 3, Stealth 1, Survival (Homeless) 4; Animal Ken (Urban Scavengers) 4, Intimidation (Stickups) 2, Streetwise 3, Subterfuge 2; Awareness 2, Investigation 1, Occult 3, Science 1, Technology (Repair) 3
Disciplines: Animalism 4
References
- VTM: Chicago by Night 5th Edition, p. 121-123
