Danny "Rat Boy" O'Reilly

Danny O’Reilly is a Gangrel in his Late Teens and follower of the Carthian Movement to liberate New Manchester from the static grip of the Danse Macabre, he’d like people to call him Rat Boy, but nobody does so.

Danny's Background
The first years of Danny’s life were spent in the country side surrounding New Manchester on a beautiful dairy farm. Already at that young age Danny showed a certain affinity with animals, especially rodents, much to his mothers malign he continued to bring back mice, rats and even squirrels into the house to keep them as pets. Days were spent in the sunny meadows surrounding the family’s house, nights dreamt away under a ceiling of a million billion stars. Spring meant flowers and beetles summer the smell of hay and glow worms, autumn turned the surrounding woods into a sea of red and gold and winter brought more snow than you could build snow men out of.

But good things don’t last. Being a farmer is never easy, but in these days it gets harder and harder and so, when Danny was five years old, the O’Reillies were forced to sell their farm and look for work in the city of New Manchester. Using up their last money the family purchased a small apartment in The Sticks. Danny hated his new surroundings, it was loud, smelly and dark. There was nothing green at all, nothing living, the river at the docks was too polluted to carry fish and the area was too dangerous to go to anyway, as was most of the outside in general. Still worse, the move also took toil on his parents, his father, Thomas O’Reilly, unable to find work and unable to bear to cope with his inability to provide for his family became an alcoholic and would terrorize his family with random outbursts of violence. His mother, Mary O’Reilly was broken by the level of violence and crime experienced in the Neighbourhood and became paranoid to an extend that she refused leave the apartment at any cost, demanded that the curtains remained drawn on a constant basis and would not even answer the telephone. As one can imagine this environment fostered Danny to grow up into nothing but a bitter, cynical individual who hated just about everything and everyone and was not shy to admit that, getting into fights on an almost daily basis.

The one event that preserved some kind of hope and good will within Danny was the birth of his younger brother Shawn when Danny was 9 years old. With both his parents unable to do so, Danny started taking care of Shawn as good as he could and over time became not just an older brother to him, but a surrogation parent, during later years Danny would be the one who took Shawn to school and walked him home, neglecting his own school work in the process, he would cook for Shawn, take him to the doctor if he was sick and threw himself between Shawn, protect him from their father and at night he would tell him about the country side and how he and Shawn would go to live there one day, buying back the old family Farm and make a living for themselves. Naturally Danny knew that wouldn’t happen, but the stories made Shawn happy and kept himself going from day to day too.

But this behaviour was neither healthy nor without consequences, in the end Danny missed to many days at school and was suspended, he got into one fight too much and was arrested and furious his father enrolled him into a military academy for troubled youth. Rather dying than leaving Shawn behind, Danny decided that it was time for them to move back into the country, waited till his parents slept and escaped with his brother in tow. Unlucky them, it was early November, icy cold and pouring down. Nervous and fatigued Danny got lost and he and Shawn were picked up by the police who brought them back to their parents. While a hysterical mother welcomed Shawn back into her arms, their father, blind with rage, knocked Danny down the stairs as soon as the cops were gone, telling him to “Never come back!”. And so Danny went back to the streets ready to die, unbeknownst to him a women called Lorna Phillips, the owner of a Retro 80s Club called Neon Wave and a Vampire of the Carthian Movement had watched him for quite a while and, intrigued by his resilience to survive she chose to embrace him.

The first few nights, even months after Danny’s Vampire birth were not exactly pleasant for any of the involved, especially after he learned that 1) he could never see his brother again, except if he embraced/ghoulised Shawn too and 2) he could never go back into the Country, as that was apparently Werewolf territory. But in the end he recognised that even with all those drawbacks the Carthians treated him better than his parents and so he settled into a mood that was not so different from his human one, especially since getting a vampire angry could have far worse consequences than fighting a mortal. Danny is still not happy, but now he has an eternity to find this happiness. For now he works together with a small coterie of friends who, just like him (or at least so he thinks/hopes), desire a change in the oppressive, choking status quo of the Danse Makabre. To substitute his brother Danny has adopted scores of street and “Liberated” laboratory rats for which he cares obsessively. Danny knows his situation is grim and he is realistic about it, but he has not given up hope that one day he would be able to take Shawn back into the country and smell the clean air and see a heaven full of stars. While Danny tries to act the adult out of habit, his true age, 17, sometimes betrays him and he often gets overexcited about things. While he often acts as he would feel nothing but contempt for those around him, he actually deeply cares about his Covenant and his Corterie alike out of his fear to be alone and his childish wish for some sort of family.

Physical Description
Height: 1, 77 cm

Weight: Normal

Ethnicy: Irish-American

Hair: Blond

Eyes: Green

Apparent Age: Late Teens.

Looking at Danny is pretty much like looking at any street kid, he tries to appear “though” with varying success. He is lanky as any teenager, but because of his tall build and his desire to appear mature he is able to fake anything from 15 to 19 depending on the situation. He has longish blond hair worn in dread locks and tends to wear clothing in a ragged “Sk8ter” style. A constant feature of his are the scores of rats he constantly wears on his person; on his shoulder, in his arms, one sitting on his head, one peaking out of each of his pockets and so on, sometimes when he, fed up with the world again, sits in an alleyway he is so covered in his beloved vermin that he is virtually invisible. Even to his job as bouncer for the neon Wave he will at least take one rat which will variably balance on his shoulder or sleep tucked away inside his jacket.

Haven
As they look after their members, the Carthian Movement has provided Danny with a small, abandoned apartment for a Haven, as it is the place is filled with sparse furniture mostly obtained from scrap yards and two important elements; scores of potted plants and the wickedest rat-cage the world has ever laid eyes on; running the whole line of the walls, spaning brides over doorways and including everything a rat could wish for it houses the dozens of rats Danny holds as his pets. Imaginable Danny spends most of his income on quality pet food and additions to the rat cage, no, he doesn’t care if you think that’s weird.

Stepping into Danny’s apartment would be stepping into a little piece of hell filled with the deafening noise of squeaking and the smell of rat poo.

The "Rat-Mobile"
Danny, as the teenager of the Corterie is naturally the designated driver, because everybody thought it would that would be a good (or at least entertaining) idea, Danny’s car, which he (and only he) affectionately calls the “Rat-Mobile” is an OLD Pinto: “Off-white finish, broken air-conditioning, and the seats are patched together with duct tape.” He obtained it because the people who attempted to sell it didn’t bother to lock the doors at night. Just like his Haven and his person the Rat-Mobile constantly shelters a selection of rats.

The Rats
Here's a selection of Danny's favorite rats:

Shawn Jr. (Beautiful Brown and White Rat obtained from a pet store)

Bright Eyes (Street Rat, has already dilivered 3 litters of healthy babies)

Collette ("Liberated" Laboratory Rat with amputated hind-legs)

St. Patrick (Street Rat)

Dracula (Laboratory Rat)

Ophelia (Laboratory Rat, that seemingly likes to watch TV)

Character Sheet
Clan: Gangrel

Covenant: the Carthian Movement

Embrace: November 2009

Apparent Age: Late Teens

Mental Attributes:

Intelligence: 1 Wits: 3 Resolve: 2

Physical Attributes:

Strength: 3, Dexterity: 3, Stamina: 2

Social Attributes:

Presence:3, Manipulation: 3, Composure: 2

Mental Skills:

Academics 1, Computer: 1, Crafts (repairing Cars) 2

Physical Skills:

Athletics 2, Brawl (Kicking) 3, Drive 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 2, Survival 1, Weaponry 1

Social Skills:

Animal Ken (Vermin) 3, Empathy 1, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 2

Merits:

Fleet of Foot: 2

Resources (Bouncer and Occasionally Bar Tender at the Neon Wave): 1

Brawling Dodge: 1

Contacts: (Street Kids) 1

Fast Reflexes: 2

Haven (Size): 1

Haven (Loc): 1

Mentor (Starr Nightsky): 1

Willpower: 5

Humanity: 7

Virtue: Charity, Danny can't see other beings, especially animals and small children suffer, and will go to lenghts to help them.

Vice: Wrath, as a teenager, Danny is quite emotional and is known to explode at others for very trivial reasons.

Health: 7

Initiative: 5+2

Defence: 3

Speed: 11+2

Blood Potency: 1

Disciplines:

Animalism: 2, Protean: 1

Experience: None so Far.