Iconic group 2

It does occur to me that perhaps "iconic" isn't the right word for my iconics, given that I'm making them a little on the weird side. Well, maybe that's not really true; all four of the "PCs" from the last group were normal PC options. Alys is certainly weird, but I've always liked some gonzo stuff to happen in game, and since she's an NPC that is careful not to overshadow the PCs, but to actually just offer helpful aid when needed in a fairly passive way, maybe that should be seen as just the way I run.

I think of that last group as the most traditional, iconic, and "good" group that I'd likely see. The next group is a sometimes rival, sometimes allied group, and they'll bump up the weird factor, as well as play as more "neutral," which for this setting could be seen as evil or at least flirting pretty hard with it, for most other gamers. I'll do a last group too as an iconic group 3, except that they'll be straight up bad guys. This group already skirts that line, although I do see them more as edgy anti-heroes rather than villains. Although they are certainly less altruistic and somewhat more amoral than the first group. And these guys have to be even more careful than Stefan and Demir's group; traveling with a lich in disguise is one thing when almost nobody will be able to penetrate the disguise. Here, our group is even more edgy in terms of semi-voluntarily accepting the company of some bad people.

I'll also set them up the same way; two steady players, two unsteady players, and two NPCs, including one who isn't who she appears to be.

Claud and Griselda Lupescu are fraternal twin brother and sister, who hail from Timischburg. Their family was once a Tarushan noble family, but after the Timischer conquest, they slowly started falling on harder and harder times. They are now pretty thoroughly disinherited, although their lifestyle—while dangerous—gives them some measure of financial comfort. Claud is a more upstanding type guy, and he doesn't really covet the noble lifestyle that would have been his birthright had his family not fallen on hard times (long before he was born.) He enjoys being an adventurer, somewhat Robin Hood-like figure (at least, so he imagines) and troubleshooter about the country. They rarely travel in the Hill Country, as they see Timischburg as their home, but they know Stefan and Demir and have crossed paths with them several times in the past. Claud actually admires and looks up to Stefan, and aspires to be the kind of heroic witch hunter that he imagines him to be. He often falls short of this ideal, as we'll see below.

He's not as skilled and capable as Stefan, but he does have an ace in the hole, which he uses when things get desperate. The large turquoise ring on his right hand was found in one of the many ruined hamazin fortresses in the north by his father, and handed down to him as an heirloom. Little did either of them know that it is the key to communication with a buried seneschal to an Ash Monarch, a powerful daemon trapped in another dimension, but keyed to Baal Hamazi. Claud, in a moment in which he almost died in a terrible fight with a vampire, discovered on accident that he could communicate with this daemon, who offered to save his life... for a price. No, he didn't sell his soul, but he's had to accept some pretty serious moral compromises. When things get really dicey for Claud, he can rub his ring and transform into a daemonic version of himself; his armor and weapons change, not to mention his physical capabilities. This version of Claud never speaks and is a terrible combatant; much more dangerous than Claud normally is... but he can only hold on to this form for a few minutes, and then the connection is severed for many hours, or even days.

Claud normally

Daemon-Claud

Griselda, on the other hand, has no desire to be a hero, and does very much covet the lifestyle that she feels was stolen from her family. She is frequently pushing the edge into totally inacceptable behavior, and only the influence of her brother and her father keep her from indeed selling her soul. Claud fears that that was the ultimate end-game for the daemon; not his soul, but rather hers. She already practices a fair bit of witchcraft, and her grip on her morality, at least, if not reality, has been slipping steadily for a few years now, ever since her teenaged years (the two are in their early 20s now.)

Griselda with her familiar and her journal of the occult

The twins have two actual mentors that travel with them, although their advice and aid is often radically different. The first is their weary father, now a fairly elderly fellow, but still healthy. He's long ago given up any dreams of recovering family titles or fortune, and now just wants to extricate his children from their dark bargains before he dies, if he can. Victor is his name.

Victor Lupescu

The other companion came with the deal Claud made with the daemon; he was given a concubine and commanded to keep her with him, lest the conditions of the bargain be deemed in breach. She is a full on succubus named Redemption (which is almost certainly an ironic name), although she does not "feed" vampirically on Claud or the rest of the group. She has two alternative forms that she can take as well, since succubi are not exactly welcome anywhere in the setting except maybe in some wild parts of Baal Hamazi. The first is as a large dog, who travels with the group, and the second disguise she has is that she can "dive" into Claud's shadow and follow him as his shadow. Clever people sometimes notice this, although they tend to disbelieve the evidence of their eyes when Claud's shadow doesn't move the same way that he does here and there.

Redemption isn't the best temptress in some ways. She's actually grown rather fond of Claud, and sometimes holds back, hoping he can find a way to free himself from the grip of the daemon that bound him. She finds it more difficult to restrain her nature around Griselda, though, and often encourages her worst impulses.

The raven with Redemption is only sometimes a raven; that's, of course, a more "friendly" form of another minor daemon, an imp, that is Redemption's familiar and partner. The imp's name is Mabuk, and he has very few redeeming features other than that he obeys Redemption's command, although often with a sarcastic or surly attitude. 

Mabuk

The only sometime on again off again compatriot of this group is Dominik Schneider, a whip-thin Timischer ne'er-do-well who has only two real redeeming qualities: a roguish charm that just doesn't quit, and that he's a master swordsman and duelist, and a stone-cold killer when in the zone. Griselda gets a little giggly and silly around him, and is obviously completely and utterly smitten with him; yet another one of the pitfalls that her father is trying to keep her from, as best he can. Dominik has the nobility that Griselda aspires to, but as the third son, he wasn't set to inherit much. In her idle moments, she sometimes imagines causing the deaths of his older brothers and running off with him as the mistress of his estates. So far, that's just been idle day-dreaming, however.

Dominik

Claud and Griselda are the steady players; Dominik and Victor are the sometimes on and off players, and Redemption is an NPC. Mabuk is really just an accoutrement of Redemption, so he's also played by the DM.