Anne

**Anne** is a vampire from Clan Tremere.

## Biography

For a time you harbored all the big dreams: the posting at a prestigious hospital, a few revolutionary papers, an experimental medical technique and a heroic reception as the doctor who cured HIV, defeated epilepsy or perfected organ cloning.

Certainly your excellent track record presaged great things. "Excellent technique," your contemporaries said. "Phenomenal memory." the professors added "Real dedication to medicine," the medical doctors reported.

You were so determined to succeed that you flung yourself into residency and internship with a neurotic need for approval, a second job and an amphetamine habit.

A combination of stress academic competition and lack of fulfilling social life led quite naturally to a breakdown.

You collapsed --- two months later, you lost it completely in the hospital.

After that, you retained your talent, but many of your old acquaintances dropped by the wayside; they told you that you'd changed.

Your psychiatrist explained that psychotic and neurotic breaks often meant a fundamental shift of personality, even as he prescribed some preventative medication and therapy.

With time you managed to acclimatize yourself to work once more, but your perspective changed; instead of the self punishing, idealistic young medical student, you matured into a world weary doctor who'd seen too many deaths, starting with your own conscience.

Let other doctors make the big discovery --- you'd had enough.

In one of the downtown precincts, you secured a position as a medical examiner.

Not exactly rewarding work, but not too stressful or difficult.

You just tagged and hagged the bodies. Here and there you fudged a report when an overzealous cop went a little too far with a perp, or when them mayor's office didn't want an investigation into a suspicious death.

(The "clear suicide" ruling for 38 torso stal wounds was perhaps the most absurd, but pressure from the DA to wrap up the case quickly meant that you never made it to the stand.)

After a few years at your position, you started to notice trends in the city's deaths.

Hot summers meant more murders, of course, and suicides shot up in April and in December.

But to you, the city almost seemed a predator in itself, killing off its own inhabitants and sending them to you with morbid glee.

One exsanguinated body, you chalked up to the bizarre quotient.

Two, you made some notes and asked a few questions of the investigating officers.

Three, and you tumbled to the predators and murders that your work had just uncovered.

Of course the Masquerade couldn't bear your scrutiny.

If you died, another M.E would just replace you, so instead you wound up with nights at the morgue.

Now you cover for the occasional sloppy eater, bank some blood, collect a boon and dispose of evidence.

Night work at the morgue means that you don't have to answer questions about your schedule.

People expect a cadaverous appearance, so your Kindred nature doesn't raise too many suspicions.

Overall, you command a phenomenal amount of behind the scenes respect in Kindred society.

You can make or break the Masquerade, dry up or swell blood supplies, and push or suppress police investigations with your reports on causes of death.

Naturally, other Tremere expect you to use these assets in their favor, but you can get away with demanding the occasional return -- such as the benefit of having clout.

Working with dead bodies -- especially since you're one of them yourself -- takes its toll on your personality, and you have a morbid sense of humor and a grating bluntness.

Once people get past this gruesome exterior, you're not that bad, aside from the blood drinking and the fudging of paperwork on behalf of murders and -- oh, screw it, you're a jerk.

**Equipment:** Portable computer, surgical tools, M.E license, blank death certificates