Richard Fitz

The cold stole in through the gaps beneath the floor skirting like a young maiden shyly courting her first swain, whipping around the ankles of the lanky man who sits with shadowed eyes on the rickety wooden chair before the scarred desk. A lit cigarette hangs forgotten, as he stares at a set of pictures splayed across the once-pristine leather surface of the desk, now a shadowed wildland of slashes and cuts, discarded drifts of paper and half-forgotten whiskey bottles. The desk lamp blazes steadily, casting a pool of light across the three burned corpses in the photograph, and Richard Fitz stares down at them and the sheathed bowie knife carefully placed perpendicular to the photographs, angel wings engraved into the hilt. He stands like a doll with cut strings, pulls on his long black felt coat and moves over to a window more than half-obscured by old and dusty venetian blinds. Things ain't right in this city, haven't been for a long time, and they don't look to be getting any better. The vampire stares out moodily over the harbour, taking a final drag on the cigarette before he stubs it out in an ashtray. Like a small but potent thunderstorm, he mutters and grumbles his way out the door, catching up his .38 special with one hand and clicking the lamp off as he goes, slamming the door as the period in the sentence of his exit. Behind him, amid the twinkling of the lights of Sydney, the harbour twinkles ominously, reflecting the lights but only faintly, presenting in it's chop and it's sway the illusion rather of swallowing the light, like a giant black canker squatting in the heart of the glittering metropolis.

---

The Kindred are parasites and predators, hunted and few, each able to spawn a new vampire society and fearing that capability in their erstwhile allies even as they attempt to keep their existence a secret from the teeming hordes of mortals who could crush them like a bug if only they knew, or were capable of knowing, the truth.

By design, inclusion in this shadow world of half-truth and deception is limited to a very few - scions carefully educated and groomed, chosen from the cream of the elite or the deepest and most broken of individuals as the individual whims of the Kindred dictate. Many kindred die, and few are initiated on the paths of power, barely enough to keep the population of vampires stable in a city or court.

The lifespan of a 'neonate', as these young vampires are known, can in many cases be measured in bare years - far from the 'eternity' promised to those who have received the 'embrace', the transformation from warm-blooded mortal human to cold-blooded eternal predator. In an attempt to halt this unfortunate mortality of their young in the brutal politics of power the elder vampires practice, the practice of keeping a 'childe' in thrall, teaching them of the 'new world' they would enter, was developed. Until a 'childe' is 'released', he is not considered a person in that world, and if he is killed by his progenitor for lack of promise, it is not even a misdemeanour, no protections from their leader as other Kindred enjoy for being the member of a particular court.

Richard Fitz, known as Ritchie, was one of these unreleased. A young man with few prospects from the south of sydney, he displayed an almost supernatural ability to find out information, from street rumours to the location of well-hidden and highly paranoid individuals, keeping a low profile about his skills and working for selected individuals, safeguarding and leading a small gang of childhood friends working in the fringes of the underworld in a nonviolent, intelligent, and highly skillful manner.

He came to the attention of fixer, pusher, and sometime pimp Sydney Shaw, a member of the vampiric Court of Sydney, who noticed the skills this young man was able to bring to bear in a particularly skillful rip-off of a south sydney crime lord that ended with the sputtering lebanese mafia don being escorted into an armoured police van protesting his innocence.

He followed this young lad, for a time, until dire circumstances forced his hand. Wounded unto death, he could either embrace young Ritchie, or let him shuffle from the mortal coil of massive wounds and blood loss. He chose the former, and the result is a young Mekhet unreleased neonate by the name of Richard Fitz, a genius with security, secrecy, and investigation who is, rather than intimidated, entranced by the possibilities of a vampiric society.

Information Known by Kindred Society

Richard is Sid the Mekhet Priscus' childe and is a very new vampire - only 13 months old. He has used various talents to aid other members of the Court multiple times, and in a rather unformed way, appears to enjoy the good opinion of the court at large.

After being released, he withdrew from kindred society for several months, but returned none the worse for wear around the time of Sawyer and Jack Wolf's deaths, not that those events seemed to be connected to him.

He is often witnessed conversing with Ordo Dracul and Carthians, despite being Unaligned. Recently, he met and got along well with several Canberra Ordo members, being involved in a long discussion with them at a Court function at the Orlok.

Also at that same function, he was asked by the Prisci Council to serve as a temporary Priscus Harpy. He was seen after that affair, having been confronted by Ferdinand Wolfe, the ex-Prisci Harpy speaking to his Sire about the whole matter, and has firmly stated to several parties that he has "no intention" of running for the role of Harpy for the Council.

He remains one of the foremost Security experts amongst the Kindred, especially using modern technology and surveillance methods.

Lineage

• Great-Grandsire: Britannia
• Grandsire: Cal
• Sire: Sidney Shaw

Quotes By

• "So, if vampires are real, do elves exist?"

• "Look out! There's some sort of invisible man over there!"

• "By golly gosh, you taste delicious."

• "Vampires work about as well together as the three stooges. No, I take that back. The Stooges have much more cohesion."

Quotes About

• "Oy, you. Stay out of trouble." - Sid

• "Listen, you can fuck the Ventrue chickie, but make sure you do her from behind, you don't want to go looking in her eyes. Better yet, find a Nos girl you can stand, they may not be the prettiest girls at the dance, but you can bet your arse they'll be a little desperate and a lot more adventurous ." - Sidney Shaw

• "That guy there, was right helpful he was. Right helpful." - Anthony Desmond

• "Give me the body. Your body." - Yegor Zadorozhny

• "You have some interesting ideas, young man. We should play chess, some time." - Marquis Aurialanus

• "So, when are you going to be released?" - Everyone.

• "You're not a complete fuck-up, which is rare in these days. I'm proud of you." - Sidney Shaw

• "He has a nose for investigation. Leash him push him in front of us." - Mr Hobbes

Inspirations and Soundtrack

The Everyman

Stolicus

Lewis Carroll

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Lucius Septimius Severus

Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Samuel Vimes

Harry Dresden

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov

Boons

Trivial owed to The Maker for access to the Orlok.

Three Minors owed to Alder Aurialanus for misc.

One Major owed to Jarret Elroy for misc.

One Minor owed to Jarret Elroy for a matter of etiquette.

---

Reference

Member Information
Player:	Jack Lesnie
Number:	201307003
Domain:	Sydney