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| History • Strongholds • Advantages and Weaknesses • The Coyotes in DC • Coyote Characters |
Also referred to by confused Camarilla vampires as City Gangrel, Coyotes are a bloodline of feral shapeshifting vampires who are uniquely suited to an urban environment. They move easily between city and country locations, adapting quickly on the fly, and are masters at moving unseen in the shadows and hunting silently and quickly so that mortals never even hear them coming.
Most Coyotes are members of the Sabbat, due to the sect's focus on controlling urban environments and allowing less restrictive hunting and feeding in them; these goals align well with the Coyotes, who want to be able to hunt as freely in the cities as animals do in the wild. They also struggle with maintaining their appearance, since injury and feral outbursts can permanently scar them, and therefore are more than happy to hope for a future in which the humans don't have the power to do anything about someone walking down the street looking outright monstrous.
History
Although the Coyotes are distinct from the Gangrel, they are generally believed to have split off from them at some point; in fact, the most prevailing theory is that Coyotes were once Gangrel Antitribu who, moving into the cities for the urban onslaught of the Sabbat, found a way to adapt to their surroundings. While this is improbable (the Coyotes would be the first to tell you that they have been around a lot longer than the Sabbat has), it has definitely been noticeable in recent times that almost all Coyotes are members of the violent sect, which allows them more freedom to move around in human-populated areas. Most vampires simply assume any given Coyote is a Sabbat packmember on sight, and act accordingly.
Strongholds
There are no official strongholds for the Coyotes, who instead find their way into the nooks and crannies of every major city in the world (and a few less than major ones, too). Charitable vampires consider this an impressive adaptational strength; uncharitable ones compare them to fleas infesting every possible source of bedding. Either way, it's an open secret that most cities with a population over a million probaby have a Coyote or two in the area, though unless they happen to be very social they will probably never cross paths with other vampires without a good reason.
Advantages and Weaknesses
Advantages
Coyotes have perfected the art of passing unseen in a city, seeming to know every twist and turn of its architecture on instinct; this is not too far from the truth, since members of the bloodline share an ability to feel the "pulse" of any settled area. For the most part, this is an unfocused, general ability, more akin to a sixth sense than anything else; Coyotes "feel" a sense of how restless the city's population is and can generally find their way to particular areas, such as an industrial neighborhood or a suburb, without needing anyone to guide them. The more time a Coyote spends in a given city, the more their senses specialize, allowing those who have claimed a city as their territory for a long time to seem terrifyingly aware of everything that happens within it.
Disadvantages
Like their Gangrel cousins, Coyotes suffer from permanent disfigurements, although they don't have the luxury of avoiding them by simply not going into Frenzy. All Coyotes retain the visible marks of injuries they sustain; whether it was a tiny scratch or a massive impalement, the scars and bruises remain forever, regardless of attempts to heal or hide them with a vampire's normal abilities. As a result, Coyotes who go into battle with other creatures become very quickly incapable of blending in with humans or even other monsters, and many prefer to remain well away from hostilities just to avoid having to go through the rest of their existence covered in visible bullet wounds.
The Coyotes in DC
Unbeknownst to most of the city's residents there are two Coyotes within DC city limits, both members of the Sabbat: Bill Butler and Mu'tazz Bechara. Both are lying low with the rest of the city's bedraggled Sabbat population, biding their time to see which way the wind might blow in the future.
Coyote Characters
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| Bill Butler | Krome | Mu'tazz Bechara | Rashid Stockton | Tungsten Phillips |