SchreckNet Data File
- Real/Birth Name: Lisa Sarah Polarine
- Known Identity/Mortal Alias: Lisa Polarine
- Place of Origin: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
- Height: 5'4" (163 cm)
- Occupation: Hotel owner / Financial Investor / Professor
- Apparent Age: Early-30s
- Embraced: 1982
- Kindred Status: Neonate
- Sire: Neil Boruff (deceased)
- Clan: Ventrue
- Clan Status: Non-peer
- Sect: Anarch Movement
- Sect Status: Respected neonate
- Player/Type: NPC
Appearance
Lisa is simultaneously attractive and eye-catching, yet easy to overlook. She is quite short but her posture, clothing and tendency to wear heels give her the impression of being taller than she actually is. She is a natural dark brunette, although it is common for her to dye it in subtle ways - especially the root beer style which involves a brunette base with subtle auburn, root beer-esque streaks throughout, which warmth and dimension and is flattering to her skin tones. Her hair-styles vary depending on the occasion but is usually kept as a medium-bob in the summer and long-bob in the winter. Casually, it is often kept straight or in short pigtails, and may be styled more elegantly or wavy when trying to be fashionable. Make-up is usually kept light and natural-looking for most casual and business situations, typically with light eye shadow and some lip gloss or complementary lipstick colour, getting a little more glamorous and obvious for special occasions, but not overly so.
Lisa has green eyes with a splash of brown around the pupils and although not blatantly muscular, is in good physical shape and well-toned due to an active lifestyle during her mortal days. She is of obviously mixed heritage, giving her the strange distinction of being typically considered to look Asian by Caucasians, yet considered to look Caucasian by Asians. Although she acknowledges her Asian heritage, she rarely styles herself or her clothing in ways to draw attention to this - she claims to be her own person and not defined by her heritage and prefers to use what works for her, regardless of cultural heritage. She is fond of wearing business suits whilst working - looking smart and professional though, in typical Ventrue fashion, not trendsetting or obviously attention-grabbing, as high-flying New York lawyers might appear. She favours skirted suits over trousers, believing it more traditional and complementary to her appearance, but on occasion wears suited trousers. Earthy and dark colours such as browns, greens, greys and blacks are her favoured - often with lighter-coloured shirts and blouses to add highlight, favouring cream, white or other pastel colours. For more glamorous occasions, she favours dresses but has no identifiable signature style - they can vary in style and colour dramatically depending on the event and situation, from bright and colourful (especially in the summer) to more subtle ones, and from casual or conservative, to quite revealing and sexy. Typically, however, they would compliment her without being Avant-Garde or risque. Casually, anything goes. She can vary between leather miniskirts and jackets, to casual dresses, to jeans and loose jumpers or hoodies. Most of her clothing is of branded makes that are modern, though not necessarily in-Vogue. Overall, it is fair to say that although she is not a fashion icon or trendsetter, she has a good sense of "what works" to make her look both appropriate and appealing. As many have pointed out - despite her defiant proclamation to not be a typical Ventrue, her styles very much represent Ventrue sensibilities.
Background
Prelude
Lisa's mother was a Hoa, an ethnic and racially Han Chinese person, born and raised in Vietnam. her family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1946, seeking to distance themselves from the growing instability as the Viet Minh guerilla war with the French occupiers increased. Shortly after moving there she married an American of German, Irish and English descent, leading to Lisa's birth. The marriage didn't last long, however, ending in divorce when Lisa was just 2. Lisa's mother remarried a USAF member shortly after, which resulted in Lisa and the family moving around a lot, but being raised principally on Yokota Air Base near Tachikawa in Tokyo, Japan, where her stepfather was stationed. During these formative years Lisa both learnt how to speak Japanese and was introduced to Karate by her stepfather - who had been exposed to it as part of the USAF training and cultural outreach - as she and her brothers were forced by their stepfather to learn Karate. Lisa's mother and stepfather divorced when she was 14, by which point she had become a black belt in Karate. After the divorce, the family moved back to Oklahoma, where Lisa finished her junior and senior high school years at Putnam City North High School.
Lisa showed incredible intellectual potential from a young age. She read substantially faster than most people, enabling her to cram more studying in shorter periods or read required texts much faster. But even more beneficially, numbers came easy to her; her logical mind handling them with ease and her quick mind processing them quickly. Added to a strong drive to excel (picked up being raised in similar-mentality Japan), Lisa would frequently work until she literally dropped from exhaustion - more than once falling asleep at a desk with an open textbook as a pillow. She was one of those rare teens who's mother would tell her she needed to get out more and work less, rather than the common reverse. She had relatively little social life in high school, especially coming in almost at the end, and so preferred to focus on her studies over making friends that would be gone soon anyhow. It was little surprise that she graduated valedictorian from high school, then went on to get a BA in Economics from the University of California-Berkley, minoring in journalism and politics, following which she got a Doctorate in Economics from Duke University (South Carolina).
During her time at UCB she was introduced to surfing by some friends from the nascent UC Berkeley Karate Club, which became one of her favourite pastimes to help her destress. Having fallen in love with California during her UCB years, she decided to return there after finishing at Duke University and managed to achieve employment as a Financial reporter for a minor news station in Los Angeles and, although it was an exhausting struggle to balance her commitments, achieved a second PhD, in Political Economy. Although she could have gotten far more lucrative employment as an analyst at Goldman Sachs or other Fortune-500 company, she enjoyed what she did at the news company, which gave her enough for personal projects, such as making investments on the stock market. Soon, her income, investments and shares were doing well enough to pay off her rather horrendous accumulation of University debts. Between her career success and obtaining a second PhD, she received an invitation to apply for an ideal job opportunity at the KASH-TV station in Ashford, which she applied for.
Embrace & Unlife
Unfortunately for Lisa, her own success had brought her to the attention of a Ventrue who had used his influence to create the "job interview" just to lure Lisa to Ashford and test her as a potential recruit. Seeing potential, though lamentably rough around the edges, he Embraced her, forced her out of retirement from the mortal world, taught her the basics of being Kindred, took her out for The Choice, then almost literally locked her in his mansion for the better part of a decade, with incessant lessons and tests she needed to pass before he could present her to The Board (the Ventrue Clan's internal structure/hierarchy - all Ventrue not outcasts or considered failures are members of this peerage, and Clan status is based on promotion within The Board). This would never come to pass. Her sire was neither as powerful or influential as he believed himself to be and had made rivals amongst The Board. Having decided a lesson in humility was deserved, her sire found his financial and political influence come crashing down around him in short order. In what The Board would consider a disgraceful breach of Dignitas (honour/status), at a low point and learning of more failure, her sire frenzied from frustration, which resulted in his breaking the Masquerade. Although Lisa managed to contain and preserve the Masquerade as best she could, she made the naive mistake of reporting the breach to the Sheriff instead of the The Board, which led to her sire's execution.
The Prince declared her actions just as regards the domain laws, as did The Board who cared little for her sire's plight because if he was unable to cope and frenzied, breaking the Masquerade, he had no Dignitas and deserved his fate. As reward for upholding the First Tradition of the Camarilla, her status as independent of her sire was acknowledged and she was allowed to reside in the Domain. But privately, in the eyes of The Board, by going to the Sheriff instead of them Lisa had proved herself unsuitable for peerage. They called for her blood to be returned (execution) but, although the Ventrue Prince agreed in principle, he was still bound by Camarilla laws and could not order the execution of an already-presented Neonate who had proven loyal and obedient to the Camarilla's Traditions. Therefore he decreed that she would be allowed to live - although made no decree that Lisa had to be treated fairly. Thereafter, Lisa was treated with nothing but scorn and resentment by her own clan who seemed to enjoy the game of striking Lisa down hard as they had her sire, and ensure she always remained there.
But Lisa was stubborn and had fought hard all her life to get where she was, and the same determination would not let her give up. She still had her financial investments - which she had to wrangle around and rely on brokers and investments outside the reach of Ashford's Ventrue, but any endeavour or investment she made was met with technical, legal or political problems that made the following decade a struggle to survive and prosper financially - but little by little, she did. Using up most of her savings, she took advantage of an opportunity that arose and purchased the Padre Hotel for $1 million in 2002, a once-iconic landmark popular from the 1920s to the 1940s, but fallen on bad times in the 1950s and 60s until the death of its previous owner in 1999, after which it was in a legal quagmire for a while until eventually going on the market for that low price - which Lisa took advantage of. The building had great potential, although at present only the lower 2 of its 8 floors were legally habitable (although squatters, human and vermin, frequented the other floors) as well as the bar on the ground floor. Lisa intended to renovate them as condominiums, knowing that it would prosper, but pressure from the Board prevented her being able to renovate. Legal problems from The Board's influence in City Hall caused various legal delays, as well as their influence in construction causing botched asbestos removal, and other problems. For every two steps forward she took, The Board pushed her one back (and occasionally, one more). Although she managed to convert the bottom two floors into basic, condominiums for rental, the delays and legal battles whittled away most of her income, savings and forcing her to sell some remaining investments and constantly having to spend time regaining finances lost to each consecutive problem The Board threw her way. But still, she was defiant and, slowly, her untouchable finances (and contacts) grew - though it would be decades at least before she could get enough financial clout to be able to properly win all the legal battles thrown her way and employ outside contractors to be able to properly renovate the Padre Hotel. Until then, Lisa eked a living and survived using her lower two floors, with the third and higher floors effectively slums used by squatters and the odd minor gang or drug addicts. The situation could have gotten worse, but the Hotel's reputation of being haunted possibly helped keep away even worse elements that may have been harder to eventually dislodge.
Although Lisa is proud of her personal achievements and despises the mentality that women can only succeed in the shadow of men they were romantically involved with, the irony is that the situation would persist until she ended up romantically involved with a new resident, a charming, friendly tattoo artist and neonate Toreador who was more articulate and intelligent than his background or occupation would indicate. Morally low, Lisa was vulnerable to the attention and charm of another intelligent, articulate kindred who showed only kindness and respect for her, instead of avoidance or derision like most, and their love affair ended with her becoming blood bonded to him. Time would reveal the neonate to in fact be the Senya Primogen Braxton Donahoe in one of his various aliases, undertaking Anarch-Sabbat related investigations - and Lisa was... an unexpected distraction. Although Braxton would soon return to his long-time paramour after she got tired of his indiscretion and seduced him back via their mutual blood bond, a bond of respect had formed between Lisa and Braxton, and he was suddenly known as her "Sugar Daddy." Although Lisa resented the term, or the implication that her success was only due to him, she found that under Braxton's patronage the Board suddenly backed off. Causing issues for a nobody neonate mostly for entertainment was one thing, but causing them to a powerful Primogen they traded with and could bring a powerful clan's resources to bear against them, was quite another. The fun was over. At least, sufficiently for Lisa to finally have a level playing field.
Without active interference from The Board, she soon recovered financially - often by working for Braxton as a financial consultant, helping him make a nice sum by investing in the stock market and helping him acquire ailing hotels to re-open as a chain of "Emerald Inn" hotels around Ashford, and reinvesting finances gained from her commission on the stock market. In time, she was able to resolve all the legal issues and obtain all the permits she needed to restart renovation. When she was financially sound enough, Lisa's trading company Polarine Enterprises LLC made a business agreement with the Donahoe Group of Companies to form the Padre Brothers LP with Lisa as the majority owner, and Braxton as a [mostly] silent partner, with the aim of renovating the Padre back into a luxury hotel - something that interested Braxton and both knew was lacking in Ashford. Braxton's capital investment and Lisa's own assets allowed Padre Brothers to begin the renovations of the hotel, along with successfully looking to the City of Ashford to treat the Padre Hotel as a historic site and secure a $1.8 million federal loan to help finish renovations. In February 2010, the Padre Hotel reopened as an 8-storey boutique hotel with 112 rooms and suites, and various restaurants and dining facilities including the Farmacy café, Prospect nightclub lounge, Belvedere upscale dining room, Prairie Fire outdoor lounge, and Brimstone tavern; as well as various conference facilities for businesses - which are often used by the Donahoe Group of Companies and their subsidiaries. The renovated Padre Hotel quickly received a 4-diamond AAA rating, the only hotel in Ashford to achieve this and the Padre Hotel, and Lisa, have prospered since then - much to the chagrin of The Board.
Mortal Society
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The Padre Hotel
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Personality
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Other Notes
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Combat Style
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Social Style
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Signature Equipment
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Signature Quotes
- "Unless there's a rally in the next 90 minutes, The Dow's gonna close down about 2.5%, S&P and NASDAQ will close down 2.3%. Let me tell you why."
- "I'm socially inept, but even I know that."
- "The greater fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think he can succeed where others have failed. This whole town was made by greater fools."
- "I fought The Board and... I won"