Ian Kross
Clan: Ventrue
Age: Ancilla
Sire: Marcus Aurelius
Childer: Hope Gutierrez
Status: Acknowledged

Ian Kross is a Ventrue loose cannon; stodgy and stubborn as he is politically unpredictable. While his clan may understand, and even appreciate, a good hostile takeover, Mr. Kross lacks the refinement of his counterparts, and has little regard for the status quo. Regardless of his loyalties, as they do seem to change with the seasons, he has more than proven willing to use force when necessary. Unlikely to win many popularity contests, Ian comes across as snarling asshole when he’s angry (which is most of the time), and a snarky asshole when he’s not. Only his closest friends get anything else, and for the blustering blueblood, those have proven few and far between. He once boasted some support among the neonates, due to his supposed brand of “no bullshit” politics; however, after he defected back to the Camarilla (twice), whatever following he may have had faded away.

Physically, Ian stands at a formidable 6’5, with dark hair and blue eyes. He appears to be in his mid-thirties and generally tends toward well-dressed, though more interested in displaying wealth than fashion sense.

Mortal Life

Born in 1896, Ian Thomas Crosswell, Viscount Bayham, was the eldest and only son of Reginald Crosswell, 13th Earl of Kent. Young master Ian had the best tutors his father could afford, though more interested in fox hunting or shooting than in his studies. From an early age, Ian knew he wanted a military career, no matter what the Earl thought. As a young man he conceded to his father’s wishes far easier, however, and at eighteen he went to university just as the Austro-Hungarians invaded Serbia.

His enlistment was deferred until completion of his education, which was of course what his father had planned, but as the first few years of the war passed, it became harder and harder to remain behind. But those years were also some of the happiest of his life. He made new, unlikely friends, of the sort that his father would certainly disapprove. No doubt, that was partially the appeal. Not long from home, he met Colin Murphy, a young Irish traveler at school on scholarship. Barely sixteen, Colin was genuinely the nicest person Ian had ever met. He was also one of the most naïve. Colin tutored Ian through his first semester at university. After that, they didn’t need the excuse. They explored London together, got into the sort of juvenile trouble young men are prone to, and eventually Ian found himself spending more time at the tinker encampment outside the city than at home. It was after a night out with Colin, and his sister Becky, that a woman approached him on the street and handed him a white feather. Ian enlisted the next day, with Colin following after.

War is and was hell. They were stationed on the western front, during a time when French and British forces seemed to lose two soldiers for every one German they killed. Ian watched too many young men die. And over the course of three years, he slowly lost his best friend as well. Something inside Colin broke on the front and seeing the light fade from the young man’s eyes hurt worse than anything else he endured. By 1918, Captain Sir Ian Crosswell had had enough of playing soldier; he wanted to go home.

But it never is that easy, going back to the way things were. Colin never came home, not really. Ian left the young man to his grief, and his opium. He tried to reconnect with old friends, other privileged young men whom he’d seen at country dances or shooting parties his whole life, but he found them even more tedious than before. He tried for two years, eventually engaged to a wealthy heiress of his mother’s choosing. It was all so false, though. Something had changed, and everyone else simply refused to admit it. The world had changed. For the first time, Ian had realized just how meaningless their way of life really was. He had realized how small he was, and how very mortal.

He found the caravan outside of Yorkshire after a few weeks of searching. Colin wasn’t there. But he hadn’t gone looking for his friend. Late that night, after the fires had dimmed, he pulled Colin’s sister, Becky, aside. She’d made him happy, in those years before everything was ruined. She was beautiful and she made him smile. So he slipped a ring on her finger and he promised her the world. The next morning, they were gone.

Rebecca Murphy became Rebecca Crosswell in a small ceremony in London. Colin was the only witness. Three years later, Becky was dead. To his credit, Ian didn’t wait for his father to find out. He told the Earl himself, the next day. He’d expected the threats, of course. Sadly, he never thought they would amount to anything. But his father was stubborn, and proud, and his son just like him. They never saw one another again.

Disowned and disinherited, things quickly spiraled. What money he found from family or friends dried up soon enough, so that by the time Becky told him she was pregnant, he had already been working in a road crew for months. Before that had been digging ditches, or the occasional grave. Work was hard to find, lacking education or experience or any connections his pride would allow him to use. That was when he met Marcus. He’d be aware of Mr. Arthur for a few years, as the man had been Colin’s benefactor at university. The offer he gave was simple but too good to resist: a decent wage without manual labor. Ian immediately accepted, and entered the vampiric world for the first time.

He served as Marcus’s ghoul for only six months. Most of the work was nothing more than errands and message-running. But occasionally there would be things that he had to steel himself against, things that made him go to the pub after work instead of home. He did everything asked of him, though, and his life suffered for it.

Becky went into labor a month early. They had fought that morning before Ian left for work. She was dead by the time he came home. The baby survived, a girl he named Elizabeth after his grandmother. He sent her to live with his sister, Eleanor. Ian never went back to work for Marcus. He spent the next few weeks in one bar or another, and less than a month after his wife died was arrested on manslaughter charges after a bar brawl went wrong. He spent the last years of his mortal life in prison.

Embrace

Marcus did not forget about his ghoul. He met with Ian not long after he’d been sentenced. He made the man an offer: Immortality, with a purpose. He then left Ian with his thoughts, to consider. And returned after five years for his answer. Ian said yes, and entered the service of his sire.

New Haven

Ian did not share the same vision as his sire, which became apparent not too long after his release. But he did everything asked of him, again a good soldier, and spent the first portion of his unlife attempting to make himself worthy of his new bloodline. Mostly, though, he waited for the opportunity to set out on his own.

It took fifty years under Marcus’s tutelage, but finally he was given his chance. Ian was sent to New Haven, Connecticut to oversee his sire’s interests there as well as to help maintain Ventrue control of the city. As an entry point to New York, New Haven was a key Camarilla stronghold on the East coast. He thought himself more than up to the task.

Styling himself Ian Kross, he rose quickly through the ranks of the city and by the 80s had made a name for himself not only among the other Ventrue, but in the city at large.