Tad Mason
Tad is a Nosferatu Ancilla. He is always accompanied by his brother, Isidore, who was ghouled at age 13. Tad runs the Tad's Ramblings poetry blog, and Isidore runs the Isidore's Bedtimes Stories fiction blog. There are several poetry and fiction books by their "ancestors", and they have a combined Fame 4.
"If you think you know how to behave, think again. If you only feel the slightest hunch of doubt, speak to the Harpy. Mr Mason never faltered once in this regard." - Dr. Vogt
History[edit | edit source]
Note: This backstory kind of got away from me. This is the short version.
Mortal Life[edit | edit source]
Tad (called Teddy at the time) lost his father to chorea (now called Huntington's disease) when he was eleven. Watching his father's decline shook him, especially knowing that the condition was hereditary. Tad made his four year old brother, Isidore, who worshiped him and would have done anything he asked, promise to kill him if he ever got so sick that he wasn't really a person anymore. Tad promised that he would do the same for Isidore. The following year, their house was burglarized by two men who see it as easy pickings without a man living there. Tad's mother was killed. Tad and Isidore hid under the bed, and Tad wrapped Isidore in a blanket to keep him quiet. When the burglars left, Tad realized that Isidore had not been able to breathe through the blanket. Isidore survived, but his brain and heart were badly damaged. The police assured Tad that he did what he had to do to keep them alive, but Tad couldn't let go of the guilt.
When Tad went to testify against the burglars, he panicked and forgot what he had heard. They were acquitted, and people began to speculate that Tad had had a brief but violent bout of madness and invented the burglary to cover it up. Tad began to doubt his own mind and begins to keep a journal. As he reads about the frailties of the human mind, his journalling becomes ever more obsessive.
Isidore's mind slowly recovered, but his heart remained weak. Both brothers were plagued by nightmares, and Isidore immediately panicked any time Tad was out of his sight.
Tad met his best friend, Dale, at the orphanage and the two quickly became inseparable. Dale read some of Tad's poetry and encouraged him to try to get it published. Tad reluctantly agreed and succeeded in selling some of his poems to magazines.
When Tad was sixteen, he got a job as a scrivener at the Minneapolis Tribune. Isidore was still terrified to be left alone, so he got permission to sit quietly and read in the corner while Tad worked. Tad quickly became an unofficial ghostwriter for several of the journalists.
When Tad was eighteen, he took custody of Isidore, and the two of them moved back into their parents' house.
When Tad was twenty, he turned down an offer to become a journalist himself because it would require him to leave Isidore alone. One of the journalists told Isidore that he was holding Tad back, and Isidore told Tad that he had read Tad's journals and knew about the promise they had made when their father died. Tad assured Isidore that he wasn't a burden and yelled at the reporter who had said that he was.
A few months later, Isidore disappeared from the newsroom. Nobody saw anyone take him, and he was too weak to leave on his own. When Tad returned home, he found Isidore's belongings missing and a note in Isidore's handwriting saying that he was okay, and that Tad shouldn't look for him. Tad fell into a deep depression, and Dale had to come over every morning to make sure he ate and went to work. Finally, Dale bought Tad a new journal, which he used as a starting point to convince Tad to move on with his life.
Tad received another offer to become a journalist, which he accepted. He met Annie Lester, a wealthy patron of the arts, and she fell in love with his poetry and gave him permission to court her despite the difference in their social standing. Before long, he proposed, and she accepted.
When Tad was twenty-two, he began to recognize the early signs of chorea. Dale promised to look after him when his condition worsened. Miss Lester refused his offer to end their engagement, but he insisted on delaying the wedding to give her time to change her mind. Both Dale and Miss Lester began to speculate with Tad about the hypothetical idea of eternal life and grew unhappy when Tad refused to entertain the thought.
Kindred[edit | edit source]
When Tad was 31, his health had declined to the point where he was no longer able to work. He put an ad in the paper asking Isidore to keep his promise. A week later, Isidore appeared in Tad's house, now strong and healthy. Tad was angry with his brother for abandoning him. Isidore offered both an explanation and the opportunity for eternal life. Tad was still skeptical about the concept, but when it came from his brother he was willing to consider it.
Isidore took Tad to a Nosferatu lair, where Dale is waiting for them. Dale and Isidore explain that a Nosferatu named Clementine has a centuries long rivalry with a Toreador named Celeste. Whenever Clementine moves to a new city, she selects a child who has the potential to become a great artist. She places her favorite ghoul in the child's life to encourage it to grow into someone Celeste will want. Celeste's ghouls arrive with beauty and splendor, but Clementine's ghouls have the child's trust. Celeste sometimes manages to snatch the target away, but they almost always choose Clementine, and hardly ever rebuff them both. Clementine then ghouls her new protege and Embraces the ghoul who recruited them, and the new protege goes on to the next city to groom another child. Dale belonged to Clementine. Miss Lester belonged to Celeste. There were a few other people who had been ghouled in the process, but only the chosen protege will be taken in.
Tad was extremely hurt to learn that two of the three people he loved most were only playing a part, and he was slightly offended on Isidore's behalf when Dale dismissed him as a means to an end and said that he could keep Isidore if he wanted to. Dale assured Tad that he did care for him. His feelings had been romantic as well as friendly, but he had been afraid to say anything. In the end, Tad trusted Isidore and agreed to join Clementine. As a gift for Tad, Dale had captured the men who killed his mother and planned to save them for Tad to feed on in ten or twenty years when he was Embraced. Tad wanted to show mercy, but Isidore wanted to see them punished, and Dale drained them after his Embrace.
Clementine got Tad and Isidore set up in Hartford, where Tad adopted Malissa Daugherty. She was a homeless child who had great potential as a dancer. Celeste's ghoul arrived in the form of a choreographer who asked Malissa to join a professional ballet company, but Tad outmaneuvered him. Tad's obsessive journaling served him well when Malissa found out that she was being groomed and he was able to show her the place in his journal where he had written that he would always love her as his own, whatever she chose.
Malissa accepted, Tad was Embraced, and they moved to New York, where Malissa recruited a sculptor out of a cult. Since then, Tad has worked for several newspapers and published some poetry, and Isidore has published a few children's books. Tad embraced the digital age, since the advent of scanners meant that he no longer had to travel with several trunks full of old journals. He is a frequent contributor to several news sites and his poetry blog, Tad's Ramblings, is reasonably popular. The internet feeds his endless hunger for information, and he sometimes pokes around the dark web, looking for the best and the worst the world has to offer.
Dale stopped responding to Tad's correspondence, although Clementine assured Tad that Dale was still alive and that he didn't mind receiving correspondence, although wouldn't say why he stopped answering. His interest in the human mind and Malissa's time with the cult have led Tad to do some research on brainwashing and deprogramming, and he sometimes reaches out to current and former cult members to discuss their experiences.
In the digital age, moving to a new city with a new last name is no longer a viable way to change one's identity. Instead, records show that Tad Mason, born in 1983, had two sons, Theodore Jr. and Isidore II, through a surrogate.
In 2042, in Boston, Tad read an article about dangerous corruption surrounding the Boston sewer system. He seeks out Warden, the whistleblower, to do a more in-depth article on the subject. Warden's willingness to sacrifice everything in service of information impressed Tad, and he Embraced Warden a year later.
In 2048, Tad, Warden, and a few other Boston Nosferatu hear about the chaos on Caliburn island. It seems to be a good place for older Nosferatu to settle down and younger Nosferatu to make a name for themselves. They get in touch with Ghost, who does some advance work to set up the warrens, and move to Sunset on April 30, 2048.
