APPEARANCE: Ambrose is a tall and gaunt man, appearing to be in his lower thirties.
He's too skinny to be considered handsome by any means, even if you factor in the smooth, pale skin of a cainite, but with a sharp intelligence to his eyes and force of personality that somewhat makes up for it. He has curly, almost black, hair, cut in a roman tonsure and dresses simply after the rule of Benedict.

BACKGROUND:
Born 472
Travelled to Ravenna 488
Presbyter by 492
Went to Rome 493
Fled Rome for Monte Cassino 498
Died & returned to Rome 501-502
Travelled to Constantinopel 530

Ambrose, he no longer recognizes his old name, was born in Corinth close to sixty years ago, in the Year of Our Lord 472 as the third child of four in a wealthy merchant's family.
From an early age Ambrose was a quiet, thoughtful and religiously inclined boy and noone was surprised when he decided to dedicate himself to God at the age of fifteen.
His father was a both a kind father and a practical man and not only did he genuinely want to help his son, one who didn't really stand to inherit his trade anyways, but he figured a son who was a presbyter, a priest, and maybe even a bishop would make a good contact for himself and his heir. So he made sure that the boy was allowed taken on by the episkopos, the bishop, Pietro II of Ravenna with whom he had had business dealings with for a long time. As a young man Ambrosius was eventually ordained at the age of 20.
The Bishop of Ravenna did however not keep the young presbyter in his own service. Recognizing the mental sharpness and the thirst for knowledge in his new priest Pietro wrote a recomendation for him to travel to Rome and study in the libraries of the Bishop of Rome. Ambrose wasn't hard to convince, during his time in Ravenna he had indeed discovered a love of academic pursuits, a thirst for knowledge.

Rome, however, proved a disappointment to the religious minded young Ambrose. He arrived shortly after his 21st birthday dreaming of a holy city, the city of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, a city of learning and a beacon of civilization. He found a run down city full of corruption.
He tried to bury himself in his studies, to let the secular world tend to itself while he looked to God. But even in the churches and libraries, among his own kind, sin and strife was everywhere. Still he endured, a stubborn recluse among his books. That is, until he heard about Benedict of Nursia. He too had found Rome a place of corruption and villainy, but instead of staying with the sinners he had withdrawn to a cave on Mount Cassino and was now the abbot to thirteen small monasteries on the mountain and around the lake below! For around him many likeminded christians had gathered, living together in peace and contemplation. After a few weeks of dithering Ambrose left Rome for Monte Cassino and the life of a monk, surely any lack of books and codices would be outweighed by the peaceful prayers that would let him get close to the Lord!

And indeed it did. The monastery was a slice of Paradise for the introvert young priest. Here he had all the time and quiet he needed for prayer and meditation and all the company he could want for theological discussion and, well... company.
Benedict of Nursia, a highly intelligent, even downright holy, man in his late thirties had set twelve monks as abbots for the monasteries in which he didn't live himself, but he visited them all and on occasion Ambrose managed to have quiet discussions with the future saint, a memory he cherishes still.

However, for the young priest-monk at least, this was not to last. One day in the early autumn of 501 Ambrose was asked to accompany his own monastery's abbot to the nearby town of Cassino where a young woman was suffering under a possession. Naturally the family of the woman had asked for Abbot Benedict himself to help them, but the abbot wasn't seeing anyone, secluded and working on perfecting the Rule of the monasteries and thus one of his immediate inferiors had gone in his stead. The abbot was a truly devout man, one with a true power to cast out demons and work other minor miracles. But even so, the battle was hard and the demon stubborn. They laboured through the entire night until the demon managed to get the abbot on the defensive, off balance. Ambrose, while lacking the faith in himself to find the strength of Faith in God to work miracles still managed to work up the courage to step into the fray, drawing the demon's attention. It cost him, the possessed woman flung him like a ragdoll across the room, crushing his hip in the process, but it bought enough time for the abbot to regain the command and in the end they managed to drive the demon out. Ambrose was carried home in triumph, but on a stretcher and it took months before he could stand up again, and he still has a severe limp to show for it.
But as word of his part of the effort spread, as it was bound to be, it attracted the attention of the wrong kind. Among the monks of Monte Cassino there lived at least one vampire called Hieronymos, Ambrose never learned about any more but it was hinted to him. This one, an old and clever Lasombra had hid among the christians since his own death in the first century and he was suitably impressed with the courageous, faithful and educated human that was Ambrosius. Masquerading as a brother he visited the young man often while he was unable to even sit up, always with some new theological point to discuss. And thus began a strange, dark, academic "courtship" that lasted until the monks working the infirmary declared Ambrose as healed as he would ever be. He would limp for the rest of his life, but he was otherwise in good health again.
The following night he died. Brother Hieronymos struck and without remorse or permission he killed and Embraced Ambrose. He then took the fledgling under his wing, retreated to the darkness and, while pulling strings to make sure noone thought too much about the sudden change in behaviour from Brother Ambrosius, waited out the winter. During those months before spring made the roads passable again he trained Ambrose in the basics of his new condition, and tried to help him come to accept his state as undead.

To Ambrose this was, naturally, a grieveous blow. Not only to his view of the world and his own salvation but it threatened his very view of the Lord Himself. He was beset with doubts about a caring and allmighty God and whether God had any plan for humanity or had simply abandoned it to the Dark.
But Hieronymos was there to help him immensly. The old vampire was indeed devout, although Ambrose never learned of the reason of the manner of his own Embrace which was uncharacteristically brutal, and he managed to convince the young vampire that even the Cainites had a place in God's plan. Fewer among the Damned sought to follow it, but it was there none the less. He inducted Ambrose into the mysteries of the Path of Heaven during these months and as spring approached he told his childe of the biggest of mysteries known to vampires: Golconda.
During the course of the winter months Ambrose sought and found the inner strength to turn the other cheek and actually forgive his sire.

With spring they returned to Rome and where the corruption and vice had once revolted Ambrose it now felt oddly comfortable. Not because he was tempted to throw the last vestiges of his soul away but because here there were a plethora of wicked men and women who deserved punishment. Drinking the blood of an innocent or (worse yet) a holy man or woman was anathema to both sire and childe but the evil doers of the civilised world? They deserved to be punished and thus gave the two Lasombra a chance to act as an extension of God's will. And his wrath.
They lived among the clergy of the city and studied together in the search of vampiric transcendence, of Golconda and they hunted in the docks and the slums of Rome, where crime and sin was rife. Hieronymos continued to train his childe, and in time had him ordained as an ashen priest as well as a mortal one.
Until one day they found a few obscure mentions of Byzantion, now known as Constantinople. As Hieronymos was to embroiled in both vampirical and ecclesiastical politics and too set in his ways they quickly decided that Ambrosius would be the one to go. Much to his own delight.
The elder vampire armed him with some information about allies, old and new, who could help the neonate out a bit, at the very least with some information about the city and it's inhabitants, and sent him on his way.

LINEAGE:
Lasombra
Montano
Roland of Massilia
Hieronymos
Ambrose

SECRETS:
1: Ambrose has a real, almost tangible lead in his search for Golconda. Whether it turns out to lead anywhere is up to the Storyteller (and I'd like Ich to give me some details on this lead. I'm not comfortable with fleshing that out myself since the nature of Golconda itself is up to the ST).
2: Unknown to Ambrose the demon he helped excorcise is seeking him out for revenge. He may or may not have already killed the abbot (let's call him Johannes). It's not very powerful, more dangerous than a simple imp but hardly on level with any kind of major demon. Thus it's probably going to try and tempt and corrupt Ambrose to begin with, prefering to make the devout vampire fall and only resorting to cruder methods should it prove useless. Essentially my Demon-hounded flaw is just about to take effect. ;)

IMPORTANT PEOPLE:
-Hieronymos: Ambrosius' sire and teacher. A lasombra on the Path of Heaven from the earliest nights of christianity. Died during the persecutions and rose again because a gaulo-roman pagan Lasombra was rather impressed with his piety and willingness to endure martyrdom.
-Roland of Massilia: Ambrosius' grand sire, a now thousand years old gaulish Friend of the Night. He was part of the city council of Massilia when the town decided to ally with Rome to gain defense from Etruscans, Carthage and the celtic tribes to the north and west in the 6th century BC. He was a successful trader who spoke numerous languages fluently and traded across the whole of the Mediterannean. Then a certain Lasombra Methuselah decided that he needed some insight in those modern days as well as maybe some trading contacts and made sure to Embrace him. That was Montano, the most favoured childe of Lasombra himself.
Roland, he no longer remembers his true name, then used his business savvy to quickly climb the ranks of the clan and was invited into the Amici Noctis within two centuries, a short time for the era. He now mainly dwells on Sicily, near his sire's and grandsire's sides. But often he travels far away, his skills still being employed by his elders out in "the field".
-So far unnamed demon: Physically and mystically not particularly strong but intelligent and persistent. Enemy.
-Abbot Johannes: Ambrosius' former abbot. A rather heavyset, close to fat, but very devout monk.
-Sarah bat Yitshak: A young ancilla/old neonate of moderate standing in Constantinople. She is mostly interested in two things: temporal power and studies of the Abyss and Obtenebration. When the two can be combined she's very happy. Follower of the Path of Night but with a certain sense of loyalt to the clan. But mostly because aiding other Lasombra tends to help her causes too. (In Vampire: the Masquerade terms she's following the Allied Path of the Night instead of the Hot Path of the Night.
Born a jew she holds little concern for her old faith or christianity.
Rather much an opposite of both her sire and her "cousin".
-Matathias the Wanderer: Sarah's sire, a young-ish elder. Taunted and laughed at Jesus Christ himself during the Son of Man's walk on Via Dolorosa. So the Lord told him that he was to travel the world without rest until His return. An elder Lasombra with a certain sense of respect for the Lamb of God, Roland of Massilia, made personally sure that the curse would stick and Embraced the disrespectful man soon thereafter. He has now wandered for five hundred years, never managing to find peace in any one place for more than a few years and always starting to feel a strange mix of dread, agitation and impatience that forces him to leave and move on. Rumours about this Wandering Jew is starting to spread.
Follows the Path of Heavens and tries to make penance for his sins.
-Possibly silphael's char.

KNOWN LANGUAGES:
Latin
Greek
Hebrew

ALLIES:
-Abbot Georgios, a mortal monk and minor assistant to the patriarch of Constantinople. Old friend of Hieronymos but unaware of the latters nature. Supposed to help with, among other things, a haven for Ambrose.
-Sarah, a vampirical "cousin" of Ambrose (the grandchilde of Roland) who has promised to keep an eye on the newcomer (at least after she was told that he was an academic to be considered an ally and asset rather than a rival)

CONTACTS:
-Major contact: Brother Thedosius, another roman presbyter and monk who abandoned the Eternal City for Constantinople.
-Minor contacts: Other monks and priests across Constantinople.

RESOURCES:
The amount of money he can raise from the church without raising suspicion.

WISHES:
To have a fun and lasting game.
To make this game go way beyond the initial part prepared by Ich. Preferably make frequent stops in time letting us play many different eras, maybe even witnessing some fun, important parts of history.
And for Ambrose to get something out of his search of Golconda. Either actually finding the true path to Golconda (prefered by your's truly, but way, waaay into the future). Or something else equally fulfilling. Anything that doesn't end in anti-climax, really.