Alea Iacta Est

I'm happy to talk clans with players familiar with the setting or want to become so (the lineup is a little different to Masquerade, but similar), although such people should note that some clans aren't good choices; they're based too far from the setting, they're on the wrong side of one of the various disputes, or in some cases I'd advise against them just because I don't like them...

Those who don't know the setting and aren't worried about learning it up front are welcome to propose a mortal concept and describe what kind of things they'd like to achieve, and I'll sort out a clan that's good for you and the story (not necessarily in equal measure). The game could go on a while if people stay interested, so it might be worth listening to a summary of the clans if only to avoid getting anyone stuck with one they don't like. (Changing characters is possible, but obviously weakens the consistency of the story and wastes all the personal subplots of the character being retired.)

Friends? Relatives?

I expect to have trouble getting enough convincing justification for the party to work together. While I'm happy to have a wide range of archetypes in the group and that generally precludes a big happy group of best-friends-forever (and besides, that's never very convincing), if you do want to share elements of history with other characters that should help a lot. What I don't want, though, is a cliquey party where the brothers will only trust each other and the old friends have agreed not to talk to them, and so on.