Jake Rush, Under the Surface

What the slick video does not mention is that Rush – as “Chazz Darling,” “Staas van der Winst” and a host of other roles – was a long-time member of the Mind’s Eye Society, otherwise known as “Camarilla.”

Mind’s Eye, or MES, is a nationwide community of gothic-punk role-players who come together to take on personas of vampires and other supernatural beings (known as Kindred), dealing with night-to-night struggles “against their own bestial natures, hunters, and each other.”

MES has a number of different sects, with names such as Vampire: The Requiem; Vampire: The Masquerade; Changeling: The Lost; Geist the Sin Eaters; New World of Darkness and Werewolf the Forsaken, among others.

Using various “domains” — through both table games and “live action”— Rush participated as dozens of “characters,” with names like Darling, van de Winst, Johan Gambrys, Zane Daily, The Kriesler, Archbishop Kettering and more...