Sierra van Burrace

Sierra is a young Japanese-American woman in her 20s. She prefers elegant dresses over business wear, and is particularly fond of Western clothes with Japanese patterns. She intends to always look striking, if not fashionable. First impressions matter.

As a former member of the Sabbat, Sierra tends to make others uncomfortable by forgetting to imitate breathing, failing to blink, or feeding with a little too much gusto. She has been working on these things at her sire’s order.

From a young age, Lucy enjoyed spending time with movers and shakers, attending galas and social events. When Lucy’s father Shinji emigrated to Chicago to continue running their international hotel chain from there, she found herself frequently traveling back and forth between Japan and America, staying with her dad whenever possible.

During their time together, Lucy’s father trained her on the delicate balance of running a successful company. He allowed her to sit in on meetings, introduced her to his business partners, and frequently allowed her to negotiate deals on his behalf. She was a natural diplomat and salesperson, helping the company grow exponentially. Shinji quickly grew to consider her one of his trusted business advisors, taking pride in his daughter’s accomplishments.

When Lucy’s father passed away, she took over the family business. She knew how to make profitable business deals, but also to not bend easily when faced with  adversity. Lucy ruthlessly negotiated large-scale acquisitions for her company, a task not easily completed due to the ingrained prejudice she met every day. She was a woman and she had inherited her role. Lucy constantly called out those business owners who used her gender against her, publicly shaming them. While her vocal attitude dismayed some potential partners, she never let it stop her from meeting her ambitions.

Lucy fended off many attempts to buy her out, wed her, or take over her business, but when a colleague aggressively solicited Lucy for sex, she lost her temper. Years of suffering peer underestimation made her lash out. She swung a marble paperweight and killed him instantly. Following the act, she coolly put his clothes in a black bag, kept his jewellery, wallet, and other identifying baubles separate, and took a shower. Only then did she contemplate what to do with the body. A few hours after the murder, she’d paid a hefty sum to the pimp of some of the escorts who used her hotels to make the body disappear.

It was her skills as a ruthless negotiator and her refusal to let anyone diminish her self-worth that caught the attention of a Lasombra admirer. Lucy demonstrated a strong conviction that this vampire, named Talley, found intriguing. He took Lucy under his tutelage as a ghoul for a while, allowing her enough time to transition the company into the ownership of a prefabricated Mask named Sierra van Burrace. She had the board take over day-to-day running of the business once she could not safely continue her position, but Sierra acted as majority shareholder. Lucy continued to conduct operations from the shadows, using it as a way to help her sire.

Talley eventually Embraced Lucy, inducting her into the horrors of the Sabbat. As far as the mortal world was concerned, Lucy Asano died when her car went off the Wells Street Bridge in a well-publicizedaccident. She only had one mortal relative remaining at the time of her “death” — her nearly 100-year-old grandmother, Aiko. In a care home and possessing little contact with the outside world, Aiko is the only person to whom Sierra is still Lucy.

For all the bloodlust and carnage the Sabbat embodied, Sierra remained out of the fray, choosing to align herself with those who showed restraint. Sierra wasn’t a street-fighting fool; her sire kept her mind unclouded while encouraging self-control. She was bound to a pack, but he was never far from her ear. Sierra spent many nights gathering influences and pulling strings to assist in the agendas of the Amici Noctis, via her sire.

When Talley informed her she and her brother-in-vitae, the Camarilla-Sabbat war hero Preston Malenkov, would be leading the clan defection to the Camarilla in Chicago, Sierra saw new opportunity for growth. She never thought much of her pack, the Dirty Titans, using them more as shields and lackeys. When the time came for her to return to Chicago for the first time in years, she sent the Titans ahead, deliberately setting them in the path of the city’s Gangrel Wolf Pack, leaving them to die on the battlefield. Sierra still has nightmares about it.

She doesn’t agree with the demands the Camarilla will put on her clan, and is working to try and lessen some of those requirements. She worries her clan will be left without upper leadership and guidance, and that may cause a fall from grace for the Lasombra.

Sierra is aware her appointment as ambassador is likely because she is more expendable than any vampire much older, so Sierra remains calculated in her efforts. She knows there is a lot of pressure on her, so she travels to Chicago focused and ready. She doesn’t know Malenkov’s intentions, but is determined not to be outshined by her older sibling.