Dominic Vaughn

Contents

Biography • Abilities • Personal Life • Alternative Versions • See Also

Pham Hong

Character Information
Birth Name	Sūrya Badžo
Other Names	Dom, Domenico Lilicentra
Species	Vampire
Clan	Ravnos (known) Caitiff (actual)
Age	Elder
Gender	Male
Orientation	Pansexual
Ethnicity	Ḍoma
Birth	August 14, 512 Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Embrace	type here type here
Occupation	Stage Magician
Languages	Arabic, Bengali, English, Farsi, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Kalderash, Latin, Maltese, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, Vlax Rromanes
Powers and abilities	Animalism Auspex Celerity Chimerstry Dominate Fortitude Melpominee Obfuscate Potence Presence
Connection Information
Sect	Independents
House	House of Beng
Relatives	Beng (sire) Elijah Shalev (childe) Maeve Glaistig (childe) Pieter Van Reise (childe)
Retainers	Brahms (2004) Maeve Glaistig (2003 - 2004) Kijan (1996 - 2004) Franz Mannheim (1989 - 2004) Hans Mannheim (1989 - 2004) Pieter Van Reise (1932 - 1935) Candace Gilley (1910 - 1928) Patrick Coffey (1867 - 1882)
Background Information
Player	John McIntosh
Chronicles	Chicago Chronicle Greensboro Chronicle Milan Chronicle New York Chronicle Paris Chronicle Raleigh Chronicle
Character Sheet	Paris Sheet Raleigh Sheet
Archetypes	Jester & Magician
Astrological Sign	Leo
MBTI Personality	ENFP

There is no one more quintessentially a Ravnos than Dominic Vaughn - charming and disreputable, a magician and businessman, with a roguish twinkle in his eye and a mastery of swift-talking, rollicking music, and sleight of hand second to none. Old enough that it is unlikely that even his clanmates know exactly where he came from, he has been a polarizing agent wherever he's set up residence, often engendering immediate steadfast loyalty and love among his friends and associates and extreme dislike and antagonism from those in power in the area who recognize him as a destabilizing influence. With a reputation as a rabble-rouser and purveyor of secrets and pastimes perhaps best not spoken of in polite company, but also as a fiercely loyal protector of his friends and family, Dominic almost never fails to make an immediate and striking impression.

Biography

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Mortal Life

Born somewhere in western Asia more centuries ago than he usually cares to share (although rumors say that he rivals even some of the European court elders in age), Dominic was a member of a group of traveling Ḍoma, refugees from what is now northern India and Pakistan seeking to escape persecution from both the rigid caste system and the invading Muslim rulers of the Mughal dynasties. He spent most of his youth traveling with his family and their larger caravan of relatives and associates, learning a little bit of various trades that they specialized in and caring for horses and other livestock as they went.

Although very little ever happened to him in the way of the unusual or the interesting, he was content to spend his time helping the caravan supply and maintain itself, seeking out new and interesting items to trade for with communities they visited, and eyeing the local girls with an interest in eventual marriage. Once he reached adulthood, he became one of the caravan's roustabouts, and more than once had to come to his peoples' defense when a local village or group decided to take offense to their presence.

Embrace

The supernatural was not either unbelievable or unusual to anyone Dominic encountered, either inside or outside his home caravans, and when he was nearing his thirties the caravan encountered another group of Romani traveling in a different direction, all of whom were unusually dour and unfriendly when approached. It was eventually revealed that one of the baro's sons had recently died, and that a string of ill omens and even a death had caused the other members of his family to fear that he had returned as a vampire. Dominic was among those who offered to help stand vigil in defense of the combined caravans - a decision which turned out to signify the end of his mortal life.

Although the vampire in question did not turn out to be the recently deceased son, he was unquestionably real and following the caravans for his amusement, and after killing two of the other would-be guards surprised Dominic with an offer to gamble with him for his life. Evenly matched in both dice-playing savvy and cheating techniques, Dominic and the unnamed vampire could not settle on a winner, and as a result of the draw, the vampire Embraced Dominic before moving on to find less crowded hunting grounds.

Bloodline Experiments

With next to no information other than local folklore to explain his new condition, Dominic began to experiment in secret, keeping his state from being discovered by other members of the caravans while he tested its limits. Discovering that he had several but not all of the weaknesses described by folklore, and eager to know more, he spent several decades developing his own innate powers as well as attempting to see if any of the vampiric weaknesses he had inherited could be overcome.

After encountering other vampires from other clans in some of his travels, Dominic became discontented with the small amount of information he had gleaned from his own experiments, and decided to strike out on his own to learn more. He created a number of ghouls to observe and learn about, and spent several years encouraging stray vampires from other clans to join his own new "caravan" and become both friends and unwilling (and in most cases unknowing) subjects for further study as well.

The discovery of the secret of diablerie was a shocking turning point for Dominic, who realized that he could not only find out more about other vampire clans by observing them, but that he could actually absorb their powers and skills into himself and use them firsthand as well. In spite of the hefty danger of doing so, he became a serial diablerist, picking off vulnerable or poorly-defended vampires who would not be missed, and carefully leaving the area whenever necessary to prevent being caught for his crimes. In spite of his taste for vampiric blood and the large number of foreign powers he was slowly amassing, the larger part of vampiric society completely ignored him, thanks to the stigma against Clan Ravnos and the general refusal of any more "important" Kindred to associate with him unless forced.

After a few centuries of this, having become a powerful creature with a huge arsenal of powers at his command, Dominic began to experiment with attempting to design his own bloodline, one that would carry the best powers and the fewest weaknesses he had managed to learn about in his many years of study. Unfortunately, experiments with early ghouls and childer revealed a flaw in his blood: he was beginning to show signs of a Ravnos-specific illness, causing him to have trouble differentiating between reality and illusion, and the taint of that disease was being passed down to any other ghouls or vampires he created.

The Grand Guignol

After extensive travel in Europe, Dominic relocated to the New World, where he settled in the then barely-built foundations of the city that would become Raleigh, North Carolina. Along with a small caravan of other Ravnos, he set up a freestanding carnival to be run for the locals' amusement, and used its status as a legitimate business to partner with the Pentecosts, a local family of Malkavians, to create a very lucrative rum-running business up and down the east coast during Prohibition. By the time the alcohol laws were relaxed, he had become very wealthy, and the carnival had become a mainstay of the Raleigh landscape.

Dominic continued his experiments, now with more freedom in the frontier lands with less vampiric involvement, and began long-range experiments with his first permanent childe, the volatile Pieter Van Reise, with whom he had some success in passing down specific powers and bloodline features. While he monitored Pieter's progress, he also investigated creating non-human ghouls, with some interesting effects in regards to animals and plant life. Human ghouls, however, proved more disappointing; they developed signs of the same illness rapidly, and most of them had to be put down before they could cause enough problems to alert the budding Camarilla presence in the city to his activity. To Dominic's intense disappointment, Pieter himself also began to suffer from the disease, although more slowly and with less violent consequences.

In the hopes of consolidating a power bloc in the city to prevent the Camarilla and Sabbat forces squabbling over it from interrupting him, Dominic lobbied for and successfully convinced Prince Cyro to allow the Independent clans to have a Speaker in official Camarilla meetings and decisions, although with limited power compared to the actual Primogen. As Speaker for Clan Ravnos, he managed to convince the Prince to grant the clan Domain over the carnival, rendering it their sovereign territory, and to exert enough pressure to keep the other clans from preying on any members of the Ravnos, which caused considerable disgruntlement and even outright hatred from some more traditional Camarilla members. His increasing influence over mortal affairs, including a controlling interest in most entertainment industries in Raleigh, also contributed to the mounting resentment of the Camarilla clans against the upstart Ravnos.

As his bloodline experiments continued and he monitored the city for interesting activity, Dominic stumbled across a mortal named Mary O'Malley, whose fresh-faced innocence and enchanting voice pleased him so much that he decided to make her the subject of his newest round of experiments. While courting her for his own purposes, he first turned her into a ghoul to judge the effects of his blood on her, and was heartened to see that she did not display the same side effects as his other ghoul attempts. However, he was stopped from continuing when Octavius Sage, a Toreador elder spending time in the local city as a disciplinarian, took a fancy to Mary as well and attempted to purchase her from him, even going so far as to convince the Prince to forbid him to Embrace her. Angered by their interference as well as having begun to form a firm attachment to Mary himself, he flouted both of their wishes by first marrying Mary and then Embracing her as his second childe. To his delight, she showed no ill effects whatsoever, becoming his first "perfect" success in his experiments.

Death

Although Dominic was able to smooth over Mary's Embrace with the Prince after some effort, it incurred the considerable wrath of Octavius, who conspired to punish him for it by first restricting Clan Ravnos' access to city events, and then formally revoking their right to have a Speaker, effectively terminating Dominic's official position. This move coincided with increased pressure from the Sabbat packs around the city turning into an all-out siege, and as the carnival on the outskirts of town became more and more of a target, Octavius spent more and more energy preventing the Camarilla from aiding Dominic in its defense.

Dominic as Speaker for Clan Ravnos in Raleigh

When outright hostilities erupted, Dominic fought the interlopers with the rest of the carnival, only to be betrayed by his Brujah lieutenant Johnny Dirnt, who through Octavius' influence (and presumably the Dominate Discipline) had been convinced to stake him on the battlefield and remand him to the Camarilla. While staked and unable to defend himself, Dominic was formally charged with diablerie (ironically, a charge that the local Camarilla believed they'd invented), and while his childer and associates were busy with the Sabbat or corralled by Octavius and his servants, was beheaded on Elysium grounds as punishment.

Resurrection

Sick with horror at his part in the execution, Johnny stole Dominic's head from the execution site even as it crumbled, and managed to bury what remained of it at the old Pentecost plantation, where a combination of the strange sorceries the Malkavians had been dabbling in and Dominic's own ancient blood experiments managed to give it time to regenerate instead of crumbling fully to dust. After several decades of slowly rebuilding his body from scratch, Dominic managed to claw his way back out of the ground to discover that Raleigh was a ghost town, largely emptied by the fighting and long ago fallen to the Sabbat offensive.

Although several Kindred were nominally present at this resurrection, including Johnny, Mary (now renamed Maeve and a member of Clan Toreador), Zen Pentecost and Ian Kross, the confusing circumstances and Dominic's own illusiory powers, under none too strict control after a few decades of disuse, combined to prevent anyone from really having a firm grasp on what was happening. After attempting to reclaim Maeve from Ian and being rebuffed by their escape back to Chicago, Dominic investigated the city for any vestiges of his former contacts or allies, but found that of his original carnival roster, only Maeve and the missing Gangrel Stephen Rosengeld remained alive.

Pursuit of Octavius Sage

After establishing that his empire had been destroyed and most of his loyal friends were dead or kidnapped, Dominic turned toward meting out revenge against the responsible party: Octavius, who had apparently disappeared around the time of the city's destruction by the Sabbat. Dominic managed to find and force Paige Black, a former lover and associate of Octavius', into his service, and after learning all the information she had to offer sent her to Chicago to keep an eye on Maeve for his eventual return to reclaim his wife.

Dominic's search for the missing Octavius took him across a large swath of Europe, and included visiting a koldun in the mountains of Transylvania, performing services for the Kiasyd in central Europe, tracking down an old associate, the Assamite Namaan, in his Egyptian temple hiding place, and impersonating various deceased Toreador at the Parisian court in an effort to find information about his enemy's whereabouts. His efforts were severely complicated by the worsening of his disease, which was now causing major blackouts, alterations of reality, and accidental use of his powers on a fairly regular basis. Eventually, he managed to find a ghoul that had previously belonged to Octavius, and after extensive torture and telepathic interference managed to convince him to lead him to Octavius' resting place, a hidden crypt beneath the Paris Elysium.

Upon discovering Octavius' resting place and finding him in torpor there, Dominic realized that Octavius had fallen in love with Maeve and that her rejection had caused him to place himself in a coma. Seeing that his revenge had already been accomplished for him, he decided to also rest in the crypt and wait for a more opportune time to return to the world and reassert his control. His presence later caused Maeve, upon discovering the crypt, to also enter torpor in shock at seeing him, and to remain unconscious in the crypt with him for one year before she was discovered and taken back to the United States, but being unconscious himself, he was presumably unaware of these facts.

Personal Life

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Abilities

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Skills

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Powers

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Alternative Versions