Karel Reznik
Patient, Terrifying, Inscrutable, Measured, Awesome
Much of this history of Karel Reznik is collected from snippets of histories and words of the man himself. His life is shrouded in mystery and the Prince does not like to talk of the time before he embraced the teaching of the Ordo Dracul.
Born in Eastern Europe in the 9th Century Karel Reznik was an unremarkable mortal. A minor aristocrat he spent most of his younger years using his position to bed wenches and avoid responsibility until his father died suddenly when Karel was 25. For another 11 years Karel found himself with the mantle of responsibility that he was ill prepared for. Despite the insidious hand of his mother Karel fell under the sway of a powerful local lord who happened to be a vampire. Deciding that Karel would achieve more in death than life he was embraced. History has forgotten the name of Karel Reznik’s sire and the Prince himself is not talking.
The history of the next few centuries is hazy at best. It seems that Karel spent a long time in his role as aristocrat, working under his sire. He developed an elaborate ruse to make the locals think he was his own son for several generations and ruled with an iron fist. In this time the skills and demands of leadership were impressed on him more than they ever had been in life. As Karel grew in power his thirst became more difficult to satisfy and, as is the way of these things, he sank into torpor.
Karel Reznik slept for centuries, the depravities of his first centuries taking their toll on him. He awoke in the mid 14th Century to a different world. His position, his estates were gone. In his home land his name had passed into legend as a monster, an evil creature. Karel could not even consider giving up his name so he moved on, relocating to France. He presented himself in the court of the French king as an exiled Russian prince and soon used his skills and disciplines to build himself power and a reputation in Paris.
In this incarnation Karel was a power-broker and Prince in Paris. He soon established himself as the man to know. His network and influence soon spread across France and he epitomised the debauchery and depravity of the medieval French court. His power is recorded in few history books, his arms extending from the shadows to tug the strings of the rich and powerful. Soon his blood became strong again though and his time in Paris drew to an end. In the early 16th Century he sank into torpor again.
In the 18th Century Karel Reznik awoke again to a world even more changed than after his first torpor. Karel was growing tired of the necessity for torpor. Every time he would build his power then lose it again as he slept for centuries. It was at this time that he met Victor Leonenko. The young Russian historian had heard tales of Karel Reznik, the depraved Slavic monster, and he was indeed impressed to meet the man in the flesh. Despite the breach of the traditions entailed Reznik Embraced Victor, finding in him a kindred spirit.
Karel and Victor spent the next decade or so in France, the former half-heartedly re-establishing his network, the latter attempting to learn what he could from the older vampire. Word soon reached Karel’s ears of a revolution in the Kindred. He was introduced to the tenets of the Ordo Dracul and found in it the answers he had always thought must exist to the vampiric predicament.
Sire and Childe travelled to the New World to track down a powerful Dragon said to have gone that way. Arriving in New York they soon located the man in question. When he realised who Karel was he was more than happy to teach the tenets of the Ordo Dracul as far as he knew them. Victor did not share Karel’s interest in the teachings of the Dragons, seeking his answers in the rituals of the pagan which had riddled the culture of his origin.
By the end of the 19th Century Karel had learned all he could from his mentor as well as establishing himself as a powerful player in New York with Victor as his right-hand man. Continuing his studies alone Karel soon engineered the downfall of the current Prince of New York and rose to take his place in the early 20th Century with Victor Leonenko, by now a powerful worshipper of the Crone as his Seneschal.
Since then Karel Reznik has established his dominance in New York. For a hundred years he has controlled the city and his vast experience and power have prevented any from attempting to take his throne. He is regarded as the second most powerful practitioner of the Coils of the Dragon in the world, behind the vanished Dracula whom he has never met. His feudal aristocracy of New York is flourishing and he is now renowned across the western world as a Kindred to fear and respect. One of the very oldest vampires alive his powers are beyond the ken of many neonates. No vampire has even attempted to wrest control of the Big Apple from Reznik since he took over, so powerful is his reputation.
Prince Reznik is a tall, athletic man with wide shoulders unusual for his athletic build. Embraced in his 40s his hair is thinning and light brown and his eyes are dark and piercing. He carries himself with the fearsome and undisguised stance of a predator and most kine that come into his presence instinctively feel as if he is waiting to pounce on him. His movements are powerful and graceful and everything about him screams of power, terror and competence.
Karel’s cover company, Mystoline Incorporated, has its central offices in the Woolworth Building in the Financial District of New York. Ostensibly a specialist computer software design company most of its earnings arise from Karel’s powers. It produces enough software to disguise its nature to the average observer.
The power of the Prince of New York is astonishing. The mayor, the chief of police, even highly-placed government and FBI officials are under his sway and he is rightly feared for this as much as his supernatural capacity. His daily routine involves many meetings with Kindred around the city as well as private meetings with high-placed officials, making sure his concerns are being taken into account.
Personality-wise the Prince is a man of measured words and long silences. He is interminably patient and calculating, his plots so far-reaching and long-term that most cannot even see them. He rarely converses for pleasure though he is always polite to a fault, even when condemning another Kindred to sentence. Many have faltered under his stare and silence and his authority and power can almost be felt. Other Kindred instinctively know not to fuck with him.
