Making a deceptively competent cult leader

[spice root]

I'm trying to workshop an NPC for my Vampire: The Masquerade game. She's formerly a PC and here's her writeup:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12us0B_Cxx_d67likH0VS2YFzl0YEANBomOS8PSeARm4/edit?usp=drivesdk

I want to emphasize her as a deceptively competent character who's leading a large scale movement without realizing it, and basically describe the movement as a force of nature. But I'm unclear how to write that as an antagonist.

Can anyone help me? Does this idea have potential, or am I trying too hard to force it?

[brittle ridge]

I don't know enough about VtM to be helpful with mechanics, so I will look at this from a character design angle:
My main gripe with what I just read is that I know more about her childhood than what really drives her right now and how she will interact with the PCs.
"Wanting to study more" isn't a clear motivation. Why and what precisely does she want to study? How does her studying this particular thing make her an antagonist to the PCs? What particular character flaw makes her so loyal to this case?
An antagonist must go directly against the player's wishes and be, at least to some degree, despicable. I don't think making her a leader who is unconscious of her own position is a good choice, as it muddies the waters and diminishes responsibility. I would tweak it a bit; perhaps she realized her real value to the case only recently and is now in the middle of a ruthless takeover?

[quasi merlin]

I agree with gemma here, and specifically want to highlight the "why does this make her an antagonist" portion there.

What she wants must put her at odds with the players or else she isn't an antagonist by definition. Perhaps she wants to learn something that the players want to keep hidden. That's the most straightforward way of doing things.

[spice root]

@quasi merlin @brittle ridge Fair points.

This goes into my setting info. The players are just trying to make a name for themselves, but Clan Hecata (think of it as a faction of one type of vampire) have a leader already, and are in tense negotiations with the leader of the city.

Rachel is coming into the city with her radical faction, and threatens the negotiations between the Hecata and the prince (leader of the city).

I am struggling to come up with a reason the players would be opposed to Rachel. An NPC could ask them to stop her, Rachel could attempt to undermine them for her own gain. A player is a Hecata, so I could also have her do a "If you're not with us, you're against us."

My main change to Rachel is that instead of being a new vampire per her writeup, in game she'll be leading a major cult with dozens of fanatical vampires under her banner.

[quasi merlin]

Having an NPC put the players against her is a straightforward way of doing things, but it's unlikely to make Rachel seem like a compelling antagonist. The whole conflict is "because you told us too!" No personal motivation attached.

What does the Capuchin want? That's who the cult is ostensibly dedicated to, right? Perhaps her interpretation of their wishes is rather destructive or has consequences for the wider vampire community.

[brittle ridge]

This depends on your party to some degree as well; Kermit is right to mention that the Capuchin should play a part in all of this, but another part is: what do the players want? Rachel's fanatics should either threaten their favorite NPCs or their usual haunting grounds.

[spice root]

Okay so there's some clarification that's needed.

The Speakers Of The Dead is a pyramid scheme built initially to serve Leonardo Boenella, a Hecata. He was an outcast, so he started going to outcast Hecata and claiming to be the right hand of the Capuchin, the global leader of a large portion of Hecata. He isn't, but they don't know that. Gradually, his followers began collecting information for him and growing in numbers. He is the "Speaker" for the Capuchin. Gradually, the cult got too big, and he tried to slow its growth.

Rachel is a novice he recruited who became incredibly influential within the cult itself, and began speaking for the Speaker, Leonardo, oblivious to how he's trying to slow the cult that is now larger than he can control.

So Rachel is the spearhead of a maddening movement with no leader, who's only goal is to grow and control the setting.