| Name: László Tamás |
| Nature: Competior |
| Demeanor: Scientist |
| Essence: Pattern |
| Tradition:Order of Hermes |
| Faction: House Tytalus |
| Concept: Grandmaster |
| Physical | Social | Mental |
| Strength: oo | Charisma oo | Perception ooo |
| Dexterity ooo | Manipulation oooo | Intelligence oooo |
| Stamina ooo | Appearance ooo | Wits oooo |
| Talents | Skills | Knowledges |
| Alertness oo | Crafts o | Academics ooo |
| Athletics oo | Drive o | Computer oo |
| Awareness oo | Etiquette o | Cosmology |
| Brawl oo | Firearms oo | Enigmas oooo |
| Dodge oo | Meditation oo | Investigation o |
| Expression oo | Melee oo | Law o |
| Intimidation oo | Performance | Linguistics oooo |
| Leadership oo | Stealth oo | Medicine o |
| Streetwise o | Survival o | Occult ooo |
| Subterfuge ooo | Technology o | Science oo |
| Secondary Abilities | ||
| Enochian o | Game-Play ooooo | |
| Falconry oo | Strategy ooo | |
| Lore: Vampire oo | ||
| Lore: Technocracy oo | ||
| Spheres | ||
| Correspondence o | Life | Prime o |
| Entropy o | Matter o | Spirit |
| Forces oo | Mind ooo | Time oo |
| Backgrounds | Arete | Resonance |
| Fame o | ooo | Dynamic Conquering o |
| Resources ooo | Willpower | Entropic |
| Avatar oooo | ooooo ooo | Static Black and White o |
| Dream oo | ||
| Merits | # | Flaws | # |
| Unaging | 2 | Enemies | 3 |
| Coldly Logical | 1 | Blood-Hungry Soul | 2 |
| Concentration | 1 | Infamous Mentor | 1 |
| Misc. |
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Manipulation: Projected Confidence Intelligence: Calculating Wits:Changes in Strategy Enigmas: Complex Puzzles Linguistics: Practical Applications Occult:Sacred Geometry Game Playing: Games of Strategy Languages: Hungarian(native), French, German, Russian, English, Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, Romanian | Description/History |
| Laszlo could do two things well when he was ten - play chess and disarm Soviet tanks. The former he learned from his father, an academic and staunch nationalist; the latter from the Soviet-backed Youth Pioneers. Both discplines were of service when he was in Budapest late in 1956. When he was ten. Waving flags with holes in the center and pitching rocks and homemade nitroglycerine bombs at auxiallary petrol tanks were different than moving black and white pieces on a board, though, and infinitely more dangerous. Laszlo's father was arrested in December of 1956 and deported to a gulag. Turning to the chessboard as a means of solace and escape, when Laszlo regularly started beating his father's old opponents, he drew the notice of both Hungarian and Soviet state officials, who sought to capitalize on the talent and, snapping the boy up, sent him to study at Mikhail Bottinvik's chess school in Moscow. He would never rise to the levels of fame as one of his classmates, Anatoly Karpov, but he was the darling of the Hungarian press as a teenager, regularly trouncing older Polish and East German opponents in regional competitions. A symbol of intellectual superiority against the decadent West. As he grew into his twenties, though, he began to grow restless and disillusioned. His years of education in Moscow hadn't sold him on Communist ideaology, and he started to want a quiet life away from competition. He stopped playing for awhile after returning home from a Junior World Championship, spent some time conscripted into the Hungarian Border Guard, studied at a local University - wrote some papers, translated a few books, but, after some subtle pressure and the realization he really didn't know how to do anything else well, found himself behind the board again before too long. Members of his entourage - advisors and secret police designed to keep him in line - became incresingly dissatisfied with his private performance. He had illicit conversations, tried to shake people following him everywhere he went, carried on an illicit affair with a British Embassy worker while staying in Vienna, but the State was most annoyed with his attempts to shape himself into a counter-revolutionary icon. Reprimanded and threatened for giving controversial statements to a Western newspaper, he quieted down a little, but conitued to wear on his collar during matches a Hungarian flag pin with the hammer and sickle missing from the center - the symbol of the failed 1956 revolution. It wasn't until 1978 he was able to dodge his caretakers in Paris long enough to turn up at the gates of the British Embassy, suitcase in hand. His defection made a few headlines, even as he was trying to retire from the public view. It also attracted the attention of a Fortunae with a gift for spotting latent Hermetic potential. He was approached in London and jumped at every subtle offer tossed his way without being fully aware of what they were, until he was introduced to his would-be mater in House Tytalus. Strategy and conquest, albeit in abstract, had made up much of his life until that point. Victoria Everett took it a step further; practical tactics combined with self-awareness and sacred geometry. His worldview had been so narrow to begin with, however, that his Awakening was frustratingly slow in coming. The stubbornness and tenacity that had originally brought him to the House refused to let him give in, though, and even after Everett had all but discarded him in favor of another apprentice, he continued to plug away at the Art with the same single-minded determindness that gave him such success in the chess arena. He continued to play competitively for a time, but with every move he made on the board, he was fighting for comprehension. Part of his problem might have been his aversion to the ancient ritual trappings. His Latin was abysmal, his sloppy Enochian still sends Umbrood into fits of rage (or would if he were of the inclination to deal with any). When he finally connected his point A to point D (somehow managing to gloss over point B and skip C entirely), it was sudden and violent. The pieces that had been eluding come coming together in perfect order before breaking apart again, leaving him with a vision of the perfect order of the Universe that he has been trying to regain ever since. After beating his Apprentice's Gauntlet, he fell into a comfortable niche in the Order and Traditions - advising cabals and chantries besieged by enemies (Technocratic or otherwise), adapting comfortably to the Conflaguration and the blurring of lines between friends and foes without too much trouble. Bringing his very abstract notions of war and conflict down to practical levels for those less talented. The Second Massasa War was the perfect opportunity for Laszlo to apply his talents - a few of his colleagues in Britain were surprised by the normally soft-spoken Hungarian's mile-wide ruthless streak when dealing with vampires and their human servants. Everett's makeshift war cabal scored several critical victories in Europe, but began to suffer several setbacks as the war progressed. The loss of one of their most talented field operatives - by no coincidence, another Tytalus - in Southern France provoked Laszlo's suspicions that perhaps it wasn't their tactics or their way of thinking that was in error. Aided by a highly-respected member of his House, a dedicated Misker and a regional tribunal of quaesitori, he was able to uncover the cause of their misfortune. Victoria Everett had been double-dealing with the Tremere the entire time - selling out her comrades in exchange for a supply of vampiric vitae, which she was then imbibing for power. Her Requital trial scathed the local Tytalus population; Laszlo was one of the few lucky enough to come out with his reputation intact. Still, after the war, he put some distance between himself and his mater's tainted reputation. Settling back in London for awhile before relocating to the US. He worked as a chess coach for up-and-coming American players for a time before drifting back out of the public eye and more obscure pet projects.
National Chess Champion, People's Republic of Hungary, 1960-1965, 1969-1979
Rank: Adept (Sixth Degree)
Sphere Associations: Mind and Time
Avatar: A slow, wide river in which lives a water-dwelling dragon. Most often visible as a large golden eye peeping up from the water's surface, or the movement of silver scales beneath the surface, looping in a figure-eight pattern. It is an ancient, constant presense. Man and Dragon are locked in an eternally competetive, sometimes inimical relationship - one demands, the other defies, the other concedes until something of an accord is reached.
Foci:
Matter: Stones, square shapes, checkered board imagery
Curriculum Vitae
Education: Publications:
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Likes: Chess, precise measurements, being viewed as eccentric, affairs with younger women, Sartre, Mayakovsky, Susan Polgar
Common Rotes:
DOB: February 27,1946
á : Alt + 0225 |