Hey all - I know I’m super slow to post and also know I’ve been known to disappear. Just wanted to say I’m still here and this is still on my radar. I’m just working six days a week, so it’s sometimes hard to get here to post. 

Love y’all (even Jax)!!!

Just for general fyi, I have been adding some of the locations added in old threads:

Gracie's Gym (believe this one was CK's -- if there's any amendments or things to add let me know)

Devil's Lair (nightclub) -- the one Natalie got abducted in

Any other suggestions?

Greetings FA. We are currently settled in mid-2046 (I think). 

FAMILY

The Vasilievs are a prestigious crime family who maintain the veneer of respectability. Their boom to power and affluence was sped by the collapse of the Soviet Union, when organised crime in Russia reached a fever pitch of strength and influence due to an unstable government. In particular they are known for money laundering, money lending, gambling, fraud, drugs, and racketeering. Upon the birth of the ASU in 2023 the family was poised to open the city's first casino since such venues had been made illegal in 2009. Nebesa’s Gate is a lucrative and luxurious den of iniquity, and remains at the forefront of the gambling scene in Moscow.

These days the Vasilievs are rich, powerful, and prior to her death in 2046 they maintained a good relationship with Syndicate leader Yun Kao in order to facilitate their illegal interests.

It is rumoured but unproven that Sofia's father Konstantin ranks highly in the Russian mafia. He is believed to be the personal friend of Myshelov Arkadiy Tarasovich, the city’s Patron and arguably one of the most powerful men in the world next to the Ascendancy. Certainly the family knows to keep him on side, and the children have always been instructed to mind their manners around him. 

Sofia's mother is the current Privilege Valentin Sulteev's youngest niece. She has three brothers and a sister, all older. Her sister Alina is married to Scion Marveet's son, Maksim. 

At 26 Sofia is the youngest, and revels in her position as the overindulged baby of the family.

For more information on the crime families and other organised crime groups in DI, see here.
For more information on the other members of the Vasiliev family, see here.

BUSINESS

The Vasilievs own Nebesa’s Gate Casino, located on New Arbat Street in the heart of Moscow city. The casino consists of four game halls, a nightclub (Zaranitsa’s Dream), several restaurants including the 5* Elysian, a theatre, and a handful of bars, the most popular of which is known as Empyrean. 

For more information on Nebesa's Gate, see here.

SOFIA

Sofia is tall and slender, with sculpted cheekbones, a haughty gaze, and pouty lips. Though naturally brunette she maintains various shades of blonde, being a regular at the most luxurious salons in Moscow. Her commitment to self-care is exquisite, and appearance is important to her. She is generous with time and money, provided she likes the cause or the person – or if it simply benefits her or her family’s ambitions (the enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all). For those she favours life can be very good.

At her worst Sofia is vain, wrathful and short-tempered. She is easily provoked to jealousy, possessive of those she loves (or considers hers), and has a vindictive streak a mile long when her temper is roused. She can be incredibly loyal, but this is mostly reserved for close family. Of them she is protective, though sometimes even their favour wanes into petty squabbling. The resultant rivalries get spectacularly explosive, however there are some lines she won’t cross, and ultimately her loyalty to homefires always flares anew. She lavishes attention and gifts on her nieces and nephews. The children can do no wrong.

Sofia enjoys being desired and unattainable, and usually takes offence at being slighted, particularly in lieu of another. She is very good at holding a grudge. Her dislike of someone is usually righteous; she believes wholeheartedly they have done something to earn it. However, the targets of her vengeance might easily include innocents if the object of her wrath is untouchable. This might be due to their status, power, or even their standing and value to her own family. Either way Sofia is incapable of turning the other cheek. Someone has to pay. She is passionate, vociferous, and gets easily carried away. Sometimes her siblings reign her in; other times they are the match to her gasoline.

In fashion Sofia enjoys tailored suits, furs, and flashy jewellery. She drapes herself in luxury. Despite a party-girl reputation she rarely sleeps around. In fact she can be touchy about her virtue.

Concerning the family business she generally does not choose to get her hands dirty personally, though it’s less from squeamishness than it is a flex of power. She doesn’t have to; she makes others do it for her. When it comes to necessity though, she’s hard-nosed. At her core is an iron grit, able to withstand the most dire of storms. Given her often petty preoccupations this is sometimes met with surprise, for most assume her interests do not outstrip the socialite scene. Likewise, she has a sharp mind and a good business head.

When she makes a vow, she keeps it. Commitment and integrity have great value to her. She holds others by the same high standards, and makes enemies of those who wrong or betray her.

HISTORY

In the cut throat heart of Russia’s capital, family is everything. Sofia was a sweet and loving child, yet even as a little girl she had a vicious temper. Daddy’s Little Star often became Daddy’s Little Supernova. Her natural assertiveness got her into plenty of trouble at school, where girls were supposed to be demure and impeccably mannered. Which wasn’t to say Sofia lacked the grace, just that she was ruthless in securing what she wanted for herself, and was never prepared to turn the other cheek to an insult.

At home it was called leadership.

With three big brothers she could afford to be fearless. She still can. In those days she didn’t know what daddy did, or how important Uncle Sulteev was, but she knew what power felt like. It thrilled her. As she grew older she pushed the boundaries around her to discover exactly what she could get away with. She’s never learned how to lose, let alone to do it gracefully. She was both feared and loved by her peers, being the sort of bully who rarely ends up in trouble for it – owing in part to cunning, but also due to familial connections. No one wanted to risk upsetting the Vasilievs.

By her teens she began to integrate into the darker side of family life, realising that the plethora of kind uncles and aunties that dotted her rosy childhood memories were not exactly that. She grew up at the private poker tables among men and women who were titans of the mafia world. Sofia wanted to be one of them. She wanted to be greater than them.

When she grew Sick as a teenager she hid it. Rage at the unfairness saw her through. Her block is such that hatred fuels her gift. She can only channel to exact revenge, or in the heat of extreme negative emotion.

Her older sister enjoys their privileged lifestyle without ever dirtying her hands on the bloody money their empire is built on. In contrast Sofia never desired the protection her circumstances afforded her; she desires power in her own right. She interferes in the lives of her siblings on occasion, particularly Dima, who has a terrible habit of fixating on the wrong kinds of women. Her lifestyle is glamorous. She is often at the forefront of entertaining the important people the Vasilievs must keep sweet, and is intrinsic to the intelligence network that feeds her family’s work.

Sofia's wiki page can be found here.


PREVIOUS LIVES

In the 5th and 6th Ages she lived as the Greek goddess Hera.

Maksim had the misfortune to be the firstborn child of Scion and Irina Marveet. He was born, his parents were married, and they were subsequently divorced by the time Maksim was two years old. It was 2008, and Moscow was a very different place at the time. Scion was in his 30s, working tirelessly in a cut-throat industry. Irina a 25-year-old model. His father ruthlessly climbed the ladder in a steel industry heavily regulated by the Russian government. Scion himself was a child during the most tense times of Cold War USSR culture. He clawed and climbed his way from factory worker to positions of greater prosperity on the dangerous ladder that was post-Soviet Russia in the 90’s. By the time he was wealthy and powerful enough to attract the attention of someone like Irina, he was still fighting a daily battle to keep his power in his vice-like grip.

The formative years of Maksim’s life took place while the world changed around him - most notably in Moscow. Maksim was 15 years old when President Brandon reformed Russia into the ASU, a structure that ultimately propelled his father to even higher, albeit even more dangerous heights. Scion pulled young Maksim along behind him.

Scion had high hopes for a son nurtured through prosperity, wealth and atmosphere far friendlier to family life than the Cold War era that he survived. By the time Maksim was entering university, the CCD was a world-power and the Marveets were a force to be reckoned with in Moscow, but the bygone era of Cold War ruthlessness was fading to the previous generation. Therefore, it was a strange world that Maksim straddled with one foot on each side of the fence: the ruthless notoriety of the past looming from his father’s expectations and the optimistic prosperity of the future beckoning careless frivolity from his peers. Maksim was doomed to not quite fit in either.

Scion expected his son to follow neatly in his footsteps; he laid the path and all Maksim had to do was walk it. Pretty simple. It started well. Maksim was a good kid, generally smart and well-behaved. He wasn’t coddled. Spoiled perhaps, but not to the point of psychological damage many of his peers were. He was popular, fun, and affable. As a boy, his mother put him through traditional Russian ballet training, and Maksim was a natural with performing. He also played piano and violin, but of it all, he loved to sing the most. His vintage-style voice brought tears to the eyes of his audiences.

In university he scoffed at the more rigorous disciplines of study that might set him up nicely to someday take over Scion’s businesses. He had no natural talent for engineering or design. He was not interested in law or accounting, areas he considered mundane parts of the business. It took many years before he found a place he could be somewhat content. Sales.

Maksim was handsome, confident, and flashed a smile that melted hearts and scrawled signatures. He was a natural flirt that seemed to charm everyone he met. In fact, for the majority of his 20s, his family assumed he was gay. To their surprise, he had to officially ‘come out’ as straight to convince them otherwise.

Salesmanship and his sexuality aside, he legitimately tried to be the cut-throat closer that Scion required. He was one part of a scarily-effective team that wrapped up skyscrapers after all, but despite all his charm and connections, Maksim struggled to negotiate the basics. The contracts he did close (train tracks, automobiles) were marginally profitable in comparison to the more glamorous deals of city construction and Dominance infrastructure.

Then one day he flat messed up. In an effort to dial up the ruthlessness Scion constantly demanded, he made a bluff that got called. It was 2038, and the high-speed rail project announced by the CCD was a proof of concept that set up the eventual VacTrain intercontinental rail system. Altogether, it was going to be worth trillions, and Maksim’s mistake cost Scion the full market-share. When trillions were on the line, losing half was an astronomical amount of money. Instead, Scion’s steel was only going to supply the Custody-originating side of those tracks. Their North American competitors outbid them to build from the other direction.

Maksim was 30 at the time. A full grown man shaking with fear and begging forgiveness when Scion finally resorted to beating a spine into his son. He never really recovered from the confrontation, though he showed up for work the next day anyway.

Maksim passed the next few years trying to grow the spine he knew he was lacking. He had been a regular high-roller at Nebesa’s Gate for a long time. Alina Vasilieva was an off-again, on-again girlfriend who did not need convincing that he was straight. The first time he saw her was when he elbowed his way on stage, singing lounge-style throwbacks at Empyrean Bar. There was no way she mistook the handsome and rich Maksim for an employee, and when he returned night after night, he sang for her until she was his.

Their 2044 wedding was the biggest event in Moscow that year, hosting more than a thousand guests. Irina alone dropped $10 Million on just flowers. In keeping with appearances, Scion and Irina are publicly proud of their oldest son, who continues to work in sales at the company to this day. His own children have trust-funds to finance after all.

Maksim Marveet is worth about two billion dollars, but that fund is dwindling year after year, spent on family, play, lifestyle and his own ever-darkening gambling holes. The bulk of Scion’s estate will eventually pass to him, but he is poorly positioned to grow it when that time comes. Unless he hurries up and develops that spine, his childrens’ inheritance will be disappointing in comparison.

I always intended to make Jaxen's oldest brother have more of a presence. 

Behold. 

*Bows.



p.s. I hate all of you. Especially @"Thalia" right now. *frown

[The following are emails between various Atharim members. These have not been leaked or hacked. They not general knowledge except among the authors and recipients of them. They are here to give a window into the current state of the Atharim after the burning of Bacarrat Mansion, the disappearance of Armande Nicodemus, and the CCD proclamation that the Atharim are a terrorist organization.


With Ascendency]

Eddard Theiss
Master at Arms of the Atharim

Cardinal Valter Massimo
Apostle of the Sacred Ring

Eddard Theiss
Master at Arms of the Atharim

For your general awareness, I filled in the information of the CCD Patrons. Their names can be found here.

I wanted to draw particular attention to the Patron of D-I, Myshelov Arkady Tarasovich. This individual is basically the autocratic ruler of D-I, including Moscow, and represents the Ascendancy as regional Patron.

The countryside was bright green. Fields angled toward sloping mountains all around. Kiyohito stood in the middle of a village. Most of the buildings were single or two-story wooden structures. It looked like any generic countryside, although he could not recall ever visiting it before. 

He began to walk along a crushed gravel path. As he reached the closest house, fog curled off the mountains, sweeping around his feet. He hurried inside just as the fog crept to the door and locked it out behind him. 

Within, he found a dark interior. The furniture was sparse. Mats were rolled in the corner. An iron stove was cold in another. 

There was an empty cup on the table. When next he looked, the cup was filled with a golden light. Curious, he picked it up and peered inside. When he upturned the cup, out poured gold coins. They clattered loud on the floor, pooling around his feet. Their light shone upward from the floor.

He knelt to scoop one up, studying the strange markings when a shadow appeared. The figure rushed him, and the gold coins were kicked in the scuffle. A knife flashed and burns erupted on his throat.

He fell to his knees, looking up at the assailant as blood poured out, glimpsing the attacker's face as he did.