Zookeeper

Mexico City’s Sabbat call Efrain Sortano the Zookeeper because he claims the zoo in Chapultepec Park as his personal domain. Any Cainite who wishes to hunt in the zoo, or feed upon (or play with) its animals, must join the Zookeeper in a Vaulderie. Sortano is easy to meet: Just sit quietly on a bench in the zoo, and Sortano will notice you within the hour.

Sortano was Embraced more than two centuries ago. He speaks little of his past or his sire, but he claims that the great naturalist and explorer Alexander Humboldt set him on his path as a Metamorphosist. The Zookeeper still calls Humboldt the greatest man he ever met, even if the naturalist was only mortal.

Sortano decided that to discover the secret of transcending vampirism, he must understand the animal world from whence humanity emerged. As he puts it, “YOU must start at the base of the mountain before you can scale the heights.” Before Sortano learned the shapeshifting arts of the Gangrel, he used Vicissitude to warp his own body into animal forms.

He also reshaped one animal into the form of another, people into animals, or animals into people all to discover how much an animal’s character survived changes of form. He seized the zoo as his domain so he could study animals from around the world. The Zookeeper’s twisted pets proved so useful to the Black Hand that he became a dominion in that august body.

When stalking and diablerizing Camarilla elders lost his interest, Sortano attained renown as an exemplar of Metamorphosist research. The consistory appointed Sortano to the rank of priscus specifically to represent the interests of the sect’s other Metamorphosists.

Although the Sabbat includes many older and far more powerful Metamorphosists, most of them are too detached from worldly affairs to attend consistory meetings. The very factors that make Sortano known as a great Metamorphosist ironically limit his advancement in that Path. The Zookeeper cannot keep the Path‘s injunction not to teach.

Would-be Metamorphosists find Sortano a reliable but challenging mentor. He tries to send his pupils into learning experiences such as forcing them into new forms for a week or so instead of lecturing them about the Path‘s philosophy. The city’s Sabbat also recognize the Zookeeper as a teacher of Disciplines, not least because he occasionally instructs non-Tzimisce in Vicissitude.

b c o Cm BY Nicm 60 Both mortal and Cainite politics bore Sortano. He dds some influence over the zoo’s policy and funding, but uses other Sabbat as proxies. Although Sortano is less :ive in the Black Hand than he once was, now and then he )plies an animal war-ghoul or reshapes a Cainite soldier :o some deadly abomination.

As the Sabbat’s youngest scus, representing an interest group whose members tend vard isolation, the Zookeeper’s voice carries little weight in nsistory intrigues. Only a sense of duty to his fellow :tamorphosists keeps Sortano showing up for consistories. Sortano commands more power than the other prisci ilize, though.

Dozens of Sabbat neonates and ancillae lurid the world owe him boons for his instruction. xico City’s followers of the Feral Heart Path respect rtano as well. Sortano’s “pack” is a loose assortment of i students or Cainites with an interest in the zoo. Most them are Tzimisce and Gangrel untinib’bu; he is also a :mber of the University of Night.

He can claim five :stigious diableries of other Cainites, two of which vered his generation. His most recent diablerie (in 78) destroyed a priscus who had threatened to slay him. rhaps most importantly, large numbers of Mexico City’s ;httime animals the feral cats and dogs, the bats and ‘s obey Sortano and serve as his Contacts. So far, rtano remains neutral in the Sabbat’s political disputes.