Famous in the WoD

[CTPhipps]

I actually like the idea of vampires being Embraced AFTER the height of a person's fame or it destroying the person's fame.

* A lot of "dead at 28" rock and rollers as well as memorable actors in my setting were Embraced by Toreador and HATE it. Ash from Bloodlines is a perfect example of this being basically River Phoenix.

* Bela Lugosi IS a vampire but he's an old man who looks nothing like his classic self and bitterly resents his condition.

* Ed Wood was able to make movies because, well, him being a vampire is the least weird part of his life.

* I mentioned Al Capone as a vampire is not going to be his classic self but a guy who was severely run down by syphilis and life. Also, he frankly wishes he'd moved to Florida instead of staying in Chicago.

* In Sookie Stackhouse's books, Elvis (called "Bubba") is barely intelligent and took to the Embrace poorly because he was half-dead and brain damaged from the pills when the vampire EMT turned him. The other vampires treat him like a pet and he's able to pass himself off as an impersonator or just another redneck with a fetish because he was "Fat Elvis" at best.

A couple of more fictional examples:

* Alan Sovereign is actually akin to Bernie Madoff or Jordan Belfort for famous financiers who went crooked. The fact that he served a decade for financial crimes also shows that SOMEONE threw him under the bus and his crimes were especially egregious. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually was a beneficiary of either's malfeasance.

* Enron just flat out WAS Endron Oil in my setting and Endron Oil actually went bankrupt due to Glass Walker activity. It's been replaced with other companies but hit Pentex hard.

* Maldavis was actually quite famous as a Chicago Civil Rights leader and was on a bunch of magazine covers due to being so photogenic. It's something that bothers her now that it's 40 years later.

[Black Fox]

While there was a lot of pushback in Revised books against the idea of "George Washington was a vampire," and rightly so (early books could be a little gonzo about it), more obscure historical figures make great vampires.

Rather than use historical figures, if I want them to be a supernatural creature than I replace the real world person with a fictional one, and then embrace that person. It's like how James Clavell created "Toranaga" in Shogun to replace Tokugawa Ieyasu, or that "Dirk Struan" was a veiled William Jardine in Tai-Pan or that "Struan & Company" is Jardine Matheson & Company. In fact, I love Clavell's Asian Saga so much, I actually use these fictional characters in my own chronicles history. I call this the "Johnny Fontaine Rule" since the Godfather novels and movies famously used the fictional Johnny Fontaine as a roman-a-clef of Frank Sinatra.

When I ran a vampire chronicle in Chicago (which used the details on Ballard I posted above), I used "Sal Ciccone" as my Al Capone stand-in precisely because 1) I anticipated the PCs might do something to him and felt more comfortable using a fictional character that deviated from history than the real person, and 2) if things went as planned, Sal Ciccone would be embraced by Lodin like he did in the canonical history with Capone.

I think that respects the historical person while acknowledging how awesome it can be as an inspiration.

I do make exceptions as there is no way Vselav of Polotsk is not a Silver Fang king of the Garou. The older and more obscure the historical figure is, the more I would be willing to make them supernatural.

And of course, with wraiths, you can go all out. I recall a thread in which a poster had Julius Caesar be the Smiling Lord, which I liked. Why not, when you have Bismarck as the anacreon of Berlin and Qin Shi Huang as the ruler of Yellow Springs.

I think that was me because that's true in my chronicles, and I know I posted that in the Wraith forum.

[Black Fox]

This is great and exactly the kind of thing I was think of. It gives some character to the WoD, more so than just being "our world with vampires." It also would give an odd quality to any vampire who knows history meeting Ballard, as he is a historical figure.

It definitely gave that NPC more gravitas in the chronicle. When a PC finally met him, and I then explained how his character already knew of Ballard from mortal history, and that he recognized him as being the same figure, the PC certainly acted very differently than he was planning. Just knowing this vampire had vast "historical" achievements as a mortal would cause the PCs to tread more cautiously around him.

I have to admit that Ballard is my favorite character in the Chicago chronicles because he's such a magnificent piece of shit. He's capable and powerful, but has real weaknesses. So he's a great antagonist.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

* Enron just flat out WAS Endron Oil in my setting and Endron Oil actually went bankrupt due to Glass Walker activity. It's been replaced with other companies but hit Pentex hard.

* Maldavis was actually quite famous as a Chicago Civil Rights leader and was on a bunch of magazine covers due to being so photogenic. It's something that bothers her now that it's 40 years later.

That is my take on Enron/ Endron as well, though I've got Virtual Adepts thrown in as well. And that's a good take on Maldavis.

[Nail Eater]

I would use 3 persons famous in real world:

Hugh Williams - the unsinkable Wraith from Menai strait. At least 3 ships sunk there on the same date (5th of December) and there was only one survivor, always named Hugh Williams. Some source states that this is only a legend but what if it's true?

Wojtek - a syrian brown bear adopted by polish soldiers during II WW. I would make him a Gurahl still living today (he faked his death as an hibernation trance). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)

Hercules - another Gurahl, this time a wrestler and actor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_(bear)

[No One of Consequence]

I lament that there was never a classic sourcebook about the Fame background and how to work with it in chronicles, including characters who were famous while alive and what happens after the embrace, and vampires who become famous and how the Masquerade deals with that.

As for famous-in-life vampires, I like to imagine that 90s blues guitarist turned Ravnos Brian Thompson has turned into a sort of blues version of Elvis, with fans debating if he is still alive or not and his original CDs going for large sums on the collectors' market. Meanwhile, people swear they've seen someone who looks and sounds just like him but is too young to be a man of 50 at various small bars and clubs, with bad luck and trouble always following in his wake.

[Father Enoch]

As for famous-in-life vampires, I like to imagine that 90s blues guitarist turned Ravnos Brian Thompson has turned into a sort of blues version of Elvis, with fans debating if he is still alive or not and his original CDs going for large sums on the collectors' market. Meanwhile, people swear they've seen someone who looks and sounds just like him but is too young to be a man of 50 at various small bars and clubs, with bad luck and trouble always following in his wake.

What about Brian Thompson, the Actor? He was the bad guy in so many things in the 80s and 90s, he was the bad guy in Kindred; the Embrace! Imagine coming out of a Brian Thompson movie marathon, going outside for some air, and seeing him climbing up the wall of the apartment building next door?

Of course, the real Brian Thompson is still alive and doing well, so his life may have had to take a darker turn in the WoD...

[monteparnas]

I think in the end the idea of coming up with fictional famous people and attributing fictional fame to already existing characters works better than making real life people into supernaturals. It gives more freedom do adapt the character and less expectations on how they should be and behave and what should be true about them.

This is specially important when you want to link mundane events with supernatural ones. As a rule of thumb, if someone from real life is supposed to exist or have existed in the WoD, they should do so in the same way and have no confirmed supernatural link.

[Lysander]

I like this idea of having some npcs or even your own characters having some degree of fame in pop culture and some of the downsides to it.