Four - Karen Lennox

Ah, Karen. She was all over the place – I think that's the best way to describe her. Impulsive, rash, ridiculously brave, sometimes oddly brilliant, sometimes criminally insane. It goes without saying that she illustrates her player's style quite nicely.

Karen Lennox was a police officer, who first became an investigator of the supernatural and thereafter a Willworker - a spellcaster extraordinaire. She specialized in mind-magic and warping space, and many of her greatest moments revolved around Thinking With Portals. Her adventures were strange, to the point of becoming outright comic-book bizarre. She fought her own evil clone created by the Mothman, she was almost possessed by a former college professor, and she killed some random woman by dropping scuba gear from a paraglider. I don't think anything will top the sheer weirdness of that last decision.

Karen existed in a world where supernatural creatures frequently rubbed elbows, and she seemed to live by the maxim that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger. She was arguably crazy – but on the other hand, she lived in a crazy world. Her lateral thinking often backfired, but it can't be denied that some of her plans were surprisingly successful.

Her most triumphant moment may have been using the Supernal Tarot to ascend to the Mindscape, narrowly avoiding her death even when her body was ripped to pieces, and thereafter being reborn from her friend's right rib. It's a great example of the sort of mad-scientist thinking she usually deployed.

Two - Dragomir Zhukov

Dragomir is another case of a first character who really holds up. Even as a player grows, learns, and tries out different things, sometimes you just click right away. Dragomir emerged in the long and complex Berlin chronicle, stepping onto the stage almost by accident but remaining in the spotlight for the remainder of the chronicle. Which was ironic, because Dragomir mostly dwelled in darkness.

A Russian street-kid turned vampire, Dragomir stumbled into the machinations of the Sangiovanni family mostly because he was too clueless to fear them. After that, his unlife became one of strange irony. He tipped the scales of city-wide politics without being interested in them, and had fortune falling in his lap without knowing why. What was ultimately the strangest about Dragomir, however, was how well he always did in spite of being intentionally sabotaged by his player.

Dragomir was the first example of “helping” I've seen, a character whose player almost seemed to have it out for him – he became saddled with phobias, addictions, and obsessions, and yet in spite of his rapidly declining mental health he somehow managed to keep going. He was a great example of a character who creates conflict sometimes merely by existing – the scorpion to Berlin's toad, someone who's destructive not because he wants to, but simply because it is in his nature.

I don't think Dragomir ever reflected on his actions. His player certainly did, and that definitely makes him an iconic character.

The most memorable moments with Dragomir tend to be his failures, for some reason. I think the time he stole a sacrificial dagger out of sheer kleptomania, only to realize he'd just robbed a group of werewolves, may qualify as one of the funniest. Did I mention he had a crippling phobia of dogs?