The Vampire Family
Structure
The Vampires call their group a Family. Each vampire is intended to be subordinate to the vampire that turned them, considering them essentially a parental figure. This chain leads up to the Vampire Master, the head of the Family. The Vampire Master and those immediately below him are charged with the safe care of the whole family. It's a position analogus to a werewolf alpha. The master sets the policy on turning additional vampires, directs them against their adversaries, and so on. In practice, the job is highly political, tugging threads in allied and enemy factions alike to control the course of the city over several centuries.
Immediately below the Master is a chief-lieutenant. There is no formal name for the role. They're a second in command. Unlike a wolf pack, the Vampires have only one leader and one second in command, there are no pairings. This Lieutenant is expected to be the failsafe, in the event a master ever acts agaisnt his family. They're typically picked by the Vampire Master, one of their sons or a very close ally. In day to day operations, this second in command will largely sit in the background, juggling the logistics of the family to relieve the load on the Master. When things go wrong, they're expected to confront, and if necessary, take out the Master. In practice, most of them never succeed in the latter duty.
Culture
Vampires have a culture of arrogance. At large, vampires live into the hundreds of years on average. A fair few even cross a thousand years. A rare few make it to several thousand years old. They believe they're untouchable, better than humans, better than any other supernatural creature. Between their long lives, the knowledge they acquire over these lives, and the vast opportunities to bend history to their will with little nudges, they have some reason to feel as they do. In general they consider lesser-lived creatures to be more like children, meddling in affairs they have no hope of understanding. Most humans can't see more than a few years down the line, while Vampires have experienced centuries of the past and plan centuries into the future.
Someone contradictory, the vampires can be experts at romance. They love to seduce humans into giving them what they want. A healthy human, experiencing very healthy, happy emotions is an exceptionally good food source. Overtime, a vampire may come to even favor a few specific humans as their go-to 'snacks', regulars that they will give gifts and take care of. To an extent, anyway. There's limits on how much a vampire will care for someone who's life is essentially the blink of an eye.
Overtime, many vampires have had to acquire multiple identities. In general, they have had multiple names, idenitfying documents, and so on. It's expected that a vampire will have a new identity every 20-30 years to prevent humans from catching on to who and what they are. It's caused some chaos for the government, corruption, fake tax documents, and so on. Not that a vampire pays taxes. The whole hypnotism thing helps convince auditors to go away.
That said, the Vampires are deep into criminal activity. Whatever harm they cause the humans is minor. A few years of suffering, a life or two, are inconsequential to the grand schemes they plan out. Their fingers run deep into smuggling, financial fraud, extortion, and even some significant thefts. They operate essentially as a gang.
Public Agenda
Publicly speaking, the Vampires' goals are essentially unknown. Their plans are often of such scope and timespan as to be incomprehensible without spending years putting the pieces together. When a human happens upon their work, they tend to find only a small portion of it. Events throughout history like the Assasination of JFK, Richard Nixon's impeachment, and so on, can often be traced to SOME nudging by a vampire somewhere. It's a literal shadow war fought over centuries, each vampire working to their own goals.
The general assumption is that all vampires are fighting for their continued survival, for power, and to expand their family.
Assets
The vampires hold significant investments, both in businesses, land, and stocks. The most prominent of their assets are the clubs, restaurants, theaters, and museums they hold. They use their clubs as easy feeding grounds, the ideal place to attract humans for their need for blood. The theaters and museums play more to the vampire ego. Many older vampires have experienced the decadence of kings and queens of centuries past, when a king might comission millions of dollars in art as a status symbol. In a similar vein, the vampires like to hoard and have control over precious works of art. They even turn a profit from it, having the humans pay admission to these little projects.
The more upscale locations are often used for meetings with local politicians and other significant figure. They can be campaign fundraisers or little parties. It's all part of the political manipulation used to hold their control of city politics.
Territories
Vampires are territorial like werewolves. The Philadelphia Family's territory largely mirrors the wolves. It covers much of the Northeast, stretching south and stopping just above DC, then running north to cover much of New York state and going up the coast. They don't cover New York City, that's run by a seperate, strongly concentrated family that has resisted all outside efforts at take over (and by equal measure, refused toe expand beyond their city).
Most of this territory is managed by control of governments and realestate. There are likely some rogue vampires in the more far flung reaches of it, but it's readily excepted they have no power and very little chance of acquiring power. Some major cities like Harrisburg and Pittsburgh have child-families, families who are subservient to the Philadelphia Family. They're semi-autonomous. Their cities are big enough to warrant a family, but the families themselves don't have the numbers or resources to overpower those in Philly. It's very much a 'keep your friends close and enemies closer' policy on both sides.
Military
The vampires have no standing army or explicit military capabilities. In the event of a catastrophe, they would rely on The Philadelphia Pack to handle all their heavy defense. There are loose mutual-aid agreements between the groups. Recent trouble with the vampires though, has called those agreements into question and just how much help the vampires will get in the event of a true need.
As a plan B, the vampires have hired extensive private security. These forces are not sufficient to win a war, but they are enough to protect and evacuate to fight another day. The family isn't so prideful as to hold their territory at the cost of their lives. They would rather flee and take revenge.
Founding Date
1703
Type
Illicit, Gang
Leader
Leader Title
Location
Related Myths
Related Plots
No Friendly Relations
Given the events of October Rebellion, the pack is decidedly unfriendly towards the Vampires. it is unclear who currently leads the vampires, after the seeming death of all three leading parties. Formal diplomatic relations have not been re-established.
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