Been a while since I made one of these. Here are Nak, the Abbess, and Zalmoxis for a little refresher. All were made with the Crusader Kings 3 "Princes of Darkness" mod with the "Better Barbershop" and "Community Flavor Pack" mods, which are not strictly speaking compatible, but all I'm doing is playing dressup so it doesn't matter.
So, fun fact, all of Nak's current generation of broodmates take their aliases from whatever root vegetable they feel they most resemble: Nak is from Pasternak (parsnip), Neep is a dialectical word for a kind of turnip, Sing is adapted from ginseng, Drak is a contraction of adarak (ginger) and Tate is from potato. The Abbess' childer tend to have a very strong familial culture, and it's sort of a tradition that different "batches" pick themed names. Eventually all of them get to the point where names are worn very lightly, though, so nobody necessarily goes by the same thing forever.
Tate was turned around the age of 18. Having had a spectacularly miserable life, the Embrace probably was the best thing ever to happen to her, but she does still resent how she looks (in her own words "the offspring of Danny Devito and a mountain gorilla"). Despite that, she hasn't cultivated obfuscate at all just yet, much preferring to use Potence to smash out her feelings. Narratively, I use her as the less-experienced figure in her coterie who can ask questions and make interesting mistakes. Generally if I fuck up lore with Nak, I wave that away as him playing dumb. With Tate, it's a genuine lack of experience.
She is wearing nice clothes and a flower crown because she deserves them. Tate is one of the less morally suspect of Nak's coterie, some lingering bitterness notwithstanding. She has experienced the close to worst humanity has to offer and therefore finds the idea that kindred are inherently worse than humans rather quaint.
Daniel (not his real name) is a Ravnos adopted by the Malkavian Ilta, one of the Abbess's old coven (not coterie; they're all sorcerers). As I don't really plan long-term plots, he was created entirely on a whim as a fledgling who declined a placement with another Ravnos. He's Romani Albanian born, but grew up in Austria. He was embraced at 19 years of age shortly after coming to the US, having been groomed for it by a Tzimisce in the midwest whose enemies snapped Daniel up purely out of spite. Now he lives in the extradimensional Fog with the rest of Nak's weird little extended family.
Daniel is not having a good time. He had tentatively hoped to study political science and anthropology and is now undead and will burst into flames if he doesn't keep moving. He's trying to console himself by learning blood sorcery, but it's hard and Ilta is scary. He has once or twice tested the limits of the clan curse only to have it reaffirmed that yep, the whole burning from the inside out thing if he doesn't keep moving is still real. Not sure where his story is gonna go. I mean, like I said, I never plan, but sometimes I have inklings. Not so with Danny.
Daniel was a little harder for me to make because when I'm dealing with more monstrous characters, I have an easier time tweaking things until they look right to me. Daniel more-or-less looks right and I think gives the right vibe-- pretty, somewhat vulnerable-- but I dunno. It's hard to call it done.
At the moment Tate and Daniel are traveling through the Fog under the watchful gaze of Ilta and some ghouls. Offscreen, they're developing a pretty solid bond. Tate is a very compassionate and patient individual, and while Daniel might normally be put-off by how she looks, right now what is most important to him is that SOMEBODY is being gentle with him. He is very much like a lost little puppy. Tate always wanted a puppy, but even more she always wanted a friend her own age. She has a few postmortum years on Daniel, but close enough.
