More Vamps!

Below are more vampire characters you can select from on your form. Treat them as canonical to our setting, though they are technically original characters.

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Aksinia of Reka

Cappadocian Ancilla

A woman of particular scholarly talent and devotion to the church, you were able to access a good education due to the virtues of your noble blood. Now a staunch follower of Via Ossium (the ancient and secret philosophy of your clan, used to control the Beast), you have watched the growth of the Giovanni family and their rise to power with a critical eye, not daring to say a word against the judgement of your older peers. The Giovanni came before you after all, you had no say in it, but ever since the banking and merchant’s trade has boomed in the recent couple centuries, you’ve seen them rise and rise and…. well…

Once upon a time, long before this, you were due to enter into an arranged marriage despite your desire as a mortal to become a nun. Politics, father had said, were more important than freedoms. Freedom (especially political freedom) lost you and your family power. You were saved this fate by catching the eye of a travelling Cappadocian - an elder no less. “To marry would be a waste of the woman's remarkable head for research and purity under her Devotion to the lord” - and so you were gifted the embrace. As simply Aksinia, you travelled for a time with your sire leaving behind your noble trappings. It was a breath of fresh air. You were eventually given leave to settle within your home country to perform your new research alone, and modestly so; for this simpler life was a pace you had long sought.

As dictated by your clan’s philosophy, you seek knowledge above all else - but to the point that you might even come across as cold as the grave and even less compassionate. Power and wealth are trappings that distract from seeking the truth of the Cainite condition, and the purity of existing outside of life and death. The fall of Constantinople, however, has been an event that moved even the Lady of Reka to mourn, and mourn you did. From your modest cloistered haven in Reka, you watched scholars and luminaries travel west, fleeing toward the cultural Edens of Italy and Spain. Tied to tradition and a certain stubbornness, you refused to leave Bulgaria despite your closeness to the broken Dream. This too, shall pass.

Motivation

The Day of the Black Dawn would have been of huge importance to you, a great portent of shifting powers and even a disturbance in the veil between life and death. A keen researcher, you would have scoured records for any previous evidence of such a phenomenon as this, diving into Cainite histories rather than looking to the present. It was therefore perhaps with some bitterness that you received word of Claudius' discoveries.

Always and always the damn Giovanni. So prodigious, so ambitious, so protected. You might even be disgusted by the way in which the family have twisted this unprecedented appearance of these fate-touch children into a way to grab money and power. It is truly a waste of such unique individuals to allow them to be 'bought' by those with zero scholarly aptitude or spiritual curiosity. You have grown deeply critical of the Giovanni penchant for merchantilism and personal power, and your feelings have gotten worse over the last decade; this is simply the last straw. You might wish to make of your clan clan realise this, and to ensure that the eclipse humans with the greatest potential for revealing secrets are acquired by the true Cappadocians, who put research and scholarly pursuits above petty mortal finances and political squabbling. You really don’t rate politics, but perhaps it is time to dip your toe into the remote politics of your clan. Someone has to return things to how they are meant to be, and why should the Giovanni be allowed to be such rebels to what your clan is mean to stand for? They should leave behind this nonsense with human affairs, and focus on death alone. Their research is so often not even shared!

As for these fate-touched mortals, these Black Sun children… They are important, you have chased the ghost of their coming in old myth, glimpsed it in ancient lore, but the details are so frustratingly out of reach, just out of reach as if some larger force were in opposition to your attempts to clutch at the truth. Why so? Why these powers, why these humans? Why now? How - and from where? An esoteric glitch is as unlikely a thing as you praising the Giovanni. No, there is something behind this, but what? And on what scale? 

The Prophet makes an obvious choice for you, therefore, in discovering these hidden depths, but then your curious mind would surely be piqued by the Unknown as well, and perhaps the Dreamer for that human’s ability to reach into the truth of Cainite's personal histories.

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Aksinia’s Companion

Nosferatu Ancilla; You may name her

Location: Bulgaria but has travelled

Connections: Aksinia of Reka, Josef von Bauren, Maria Ascuncion

Good concept if connections are cast, requires Aksinia

You are a true fly on the wall - one who sees all of the dirty secrets of the wealthy and elite, and isn’t afraid to use them to bring those who deserve it to their knees. You are every bit as sly and conniving as many of your peers, despite your devotion to God. You know sin when you see it, and you won’t hesitate to use your enemy’s secrets against them.

In a world that is hostile to those of your sex, you have carved out both a place for yourself, and allies to ensure you survive the long eastern european nights. That being said, gatherings of so many kindred are new for you; you are more used to dealing with kine than your undead cousins. Will you adapt to more wily prey, or fall to the machinations of the high clans?

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Catallana de Rommain 

Lasombra Ancilla

The eldest of the de Rommain twins, of the two you are the perfect noble. Dripping in luxury and well-versed in nepotism, you know how to make people dance to impress you. Extrovert and always in the center of attention, you know how to woo crowds and win hearts - or enforce someone’s compliance under threat of your station above them. Born in Toulouse with your sister Idelinde, you were the prime target of your sire and the firstborn daughter to a considerable noble French house with an impeccable pedigree. Men and women alike fell prey to your charisma, which, combined with your stunning physical countenance made you an ideal subject for the embrace; irresistible to a Lasombra looking to pull strings within French aristocracy from the shadows, all through his silver-tongued childe.

The less cunning of the twins, you are nevertheless more physically able than your sister, made athletic under archery and horse sport, with a penchant for the hunt. It was Idelinde who first became aware of the stranger’s nefarious intentions however, he who would ultimately become your sire, and she persuaded you to beg him to embrace you both, instead of parting you forever. You quickly grew to shine as the prodigy of your sire - your charm and political acumen matched only by your strength of body and quick foot. You are rarely seen without your sister (indeed the auction may be the first time she has stepped alone into Cainite society) due to the fact that Idelinde provides the true cunning and intellect of the two of you, she is your silent observer who reports everything to you. As your right hand, Idelinde is your eyes and ears where you cannot go, for she can remain unseen while heads turn to you.

Most concerningly, you posses no skill for Obtenebration at all - seemingly completely inept at manipulating the Abyss. You and your sister have hidden this from everyone, including even your sire (though it is clear he grows tired by his childe’s unusual stubbornness with exploring the art yet; you claim to enjoy Dominate more, and besides it is more useful in mortal courts), but it is a secret Idelinde frequently uses to her advantage to keep her beautiful, much-loved sister on a leash.

Motivation

The Day of the Black Sun was most likely a passing curiosity and object of wonder for you - but you have never been the scholarly type to study such omens in depth. Claudius' auction on the other hand provides a social hunting ground perfect for your networking skills. The twins are known to be  viciously ambitious, and there hasn't been an event with quite the potential for social climbing in your unlifetimes. 

There is no better place for the selection of a potential childe than this, one to share between you both and mould with the best qualities you each possess - though you will usually relent to Idelinde's choice of mortal, from decades of reinforcement that your younger sister possesses the superior wisdom in such things. It will be your task to secure the Childe, smooth any ruffled feathers amongst elders and ensure the kine is more than willing to fall into your embrace. Who actually gets to perform the embrace is another matter… you wonder what occurs if blood from two sires is given at once…?

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Dagny 

Gangrel Neonate

The rebellious grandchilde of Wulfgar the Reaver, you, Dagny, are a hot headed firebrand with a passion to rival a Brujah. Your sire held a deep grudge against a royal house in Norway, having watched the country convert gradually to Christianity over the past few centuries. By the 1300s, it was certainly the dominant faith of even much of Scandinavia, but your sire demanded a final pound of flesh before the old ways died. This family was your family. You, the firstborn daughter, were taken from your family’s halls and embraced out of vengeance and spite. 

Your sire's plan backfired; you remained fiercely faithful to the church - believing your sacrifice to be a Christ-like martyrdom for the sake of your family. Your sire spent time attempting to teach you the old ways - your new existence as Cainite and the loose rules that northern Wolves followed - but eventually he abandoned you out of disgust when you refused to renounce your God. 

For the next few decades, you ran with packs of Brujah in Germany - drawn to zealous bands of Cainites believing their condition was part of the Lord's plan, and punishing those that caused corruption in the name of the church. You bowed to Hardestadt’s rein and laws, but were for once free. You changed your given name, no longer a Norwegian princess, but never left behind your religious zeal. If anything, it has grown stronger since your embrace, and you gladly hold a banner for those young Cainites searching for purpose and camaraderie to rally to. You might even consider attempting to rise in ambition to serve Hardestadt’s regime - at least the aspects that push Christian interests in the area. As far as you can tell, Hardestadt himself is not particularly religious, a matter that you might hope in your young naivety to change. Perhaps a word here, if only you could become powerful enough to be seen.

Motivation

The Day of the Black Sun occurred not long after you were embraced, and to any deeply devout Cainite it would have been seen as an omen of great importance. You might have taken it as a sign that you needed to double down on how much corruption there is driving the church, or even see it as grim tidings relating to your sudden knowledge of this new, dark supernatural world that you’d been pulled violently into. You might even have believed it was a sign specifically sent for you, given its occurrence shortly after your embrace. A divine calling.

Knowing your grandsire may be in attendance at the Auction provides you with some caution, but you cannot abandon these supernaturally gifted mortals. Were they sent by God to balance the corruption of Cainites? It is your duty to ensure at least some of them find sanctuary with the truly devout. The human known as the Prophet would certainly be of interest to any zealous devotee of the Lord, but perhaps even more so the Cleric with their clearly divine powers of healing. Surely a soul as that should be saved from damnation, or at least prevented from becoming the tool of a corrupt sire.

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Hesker Feist 

Gangrel Elder (Female, but can be Genderswapped.)

In the wake of The Omen War, many members of the lower clans found themselves displaced and left without a cause, thrown adrift in a world that saw them unwelcome in the world as the Ventrue began to favour the Tremere as a more valuable ally than foe. Young Gangrel are having to lapdog themselves to any Ventrue Prince they can, in the hope that they will not be left targeted, little more than target practice in the collateral of The Omen War. You, Hesker, were young when the conflict first began, but you have lived much of your new unlife surrounded by Cainite warfare. From watching comrades captured, tortured and twisted by the Tremere to experiencing capture briefly yourself, you trust very few Cainites and you are more understanding of the true predatory and sickening nature of vampires than most.

Like so many of your kin, you are one of those Gangrel abandoned by their sire shortly after the embrace, left to roam in a feral daze for weeks before your mind returned to you. Somehow, having found your way back to your home like a dog, you came to your senses amongst a bloodbath of familiar faces. You had murdered them all, every bright star in your past. Though this traumatic event is centuries in your past, you retain a hatred for irresponsible sires and in particular disdain those who sire and kill indiscriminately. You are unusual for a Gangrel in this, and perhaps disagree quite strongly with how your clan embrace.

No longer a soldier, you left your ancestral home of Austria and spent much of your years in and out of the courts of Germany, finding that remaining in one place for too long begins to feel akin to a snare around the throat. Whilst you cannot stand the Tremere, you are tired of war - taking  a more diplomatic position amongst your clan. Ceaselessly pragmatic, you are an excellent strategist who seeks to quietly ally those who still wish for vengeance against the Usurpers and would see them unseated from their new places of power.

With the wheels of the Renaissance turning, you find yourself caught between needing to participate in a more civilised society in order to retain standing, but longing for the domains of true wilderness that are fading across Europe. You have adapted to city life better than most of your clanmates, though you lack the blood and status to break the glass ceiling of a Low Clan existence at present.

Motivation

You watched the dark skies on the Day of the Black Sun with great trepidation. Given the state of The Omen War, it would seem to be a grim tiding of things to come - perhaps brought about by the crimes of the Usurpers. If they manage to consolidate too much more power from the mortals present at this auction, they will be at a gross military advantage.

You might be interested in siring for yourself too - a motive beyond your desire to reduce the Tremere’s power - part of finding a more permanent position of respect and stability involves lengthening one's reach after all. Whilst not exactly a 'caregiver', you possess the fierce protectiveness of a pack leader, and may believe that certainly many of the younger Cainites in attendance would make poor sires without a proper experience of how harsh the world can be. 

Naturally, the Prey would seem a suitable candidate for the embrace with their potential to make a Gangrel of unparalleled speed and scouting talent - not least, who on earth would think a hare could be one of us? Unless one were to be able to see the auras of such animals, there is no Gangrel in existence today who can transform into a prey species, only predators. If this mortal could keep this power through the embrace… what else could they develop? New forms entirely? Could this be a new bloodline to come for your people? 

Likewise, it might be in your interest to target humans such as the Plague or the Leper for their unique skills as military assets whilst ensuring they find themselves with a sire that will not twist them into a true monster - which is what you expect by now of those clans that disregard the lives of those lower and more 'dirty' than themselves.

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Hildegard von Bingen

Toreador Elder

Born c. 1098

“In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places.” - Hildegard von Bingen

This character is based on the incredible historical figure of polymaths spiritual leader (and rather stubborn blaze) Saint Hildegard of Bingen

(This is her full brief.)

Known as Magistra by devoted clanmates and cynical rivals alike, surely not a Cainite in the Holy Roman Empire could doubt your role as Mother Superior to any Christian vampire who has experienced the grace of your presence. For centuries, you have provided enlightened spiritual and moral guidance to Cainites in religious extremis throughout Europe. They travel in their numbers to your monastic haven in the German Rhineland, crossing dangerous lands to receive advice and instruction on the soul from the famed and respected mystic – Magistra Hildegard of the Clan of the Rose. You are one of Prince Julia Antasia’s most trusted and respected subjects and your haven of Eibingen Abbey lies less than a day’s ride from the Antasian City of Frankfurt. 

You are the youngest of ten children from low nobility. A sickly child, you had visions from age five. From your mortal childhood, you have been visited by powerful visions that paralysed your body and wracked your mind and soul with pain so exquisite that all the colours of Heaven seemed to dance before your very eyes. Your noble family became desperate as the intensity of these paroxysms grew and you were proffered as an oblate to a Benedictine monastery at the tender age of eight in the hope that God would soothe your agonies with service. You formed a close bond with your anchoress – Jutta – and the two of you were enclosed together in a cloistered order by your fourteenth birthday.

Together with Jutta’s guidance and the stillness of the cloister, your visions began to take on more form and purpose. With the grace of God, no longer were you totally consumed by the pangs of anguish that ripped through your body with every visitation. The vibrant colours that had once been blinding to your eyes seemed to bring with them a message from Paradise – you found peace in that cloister and the rapturous ecstasy of Christ has guided your soul every day henceforth. Over these years, both you and Jutta grew closer to your Prior and confessor - a humble, quiet man named Volmar. He became your close friend but also acted as your scribe - writing down the details of your visions and aiding you in the realisation of your many written works.

No more a slave to your agonies, you excelled in your religious and spiritual education and became something of a polymath in fields outside those that were purely ecumenical. The Reflection of the Living Light (the name you have given to your visions) inside you compelled you to profess your passion for Christ in every form that could be imagined. By the year that you were elected Magistra by your community of nuns, you had made the will of the Lord known through your contributions to philosophy, theology, musical composition and even the physicking and healing of the human body. 

The details of your Embrace are known to yourself and God alone and you defend the identity of your sire as fiercely as you would protect the confidence of your sister nuns and novices. What is evident to Cainite society is that you are an unrivalled master in the art of hiding the truth of your nature from mortals – as your original convent community believed you to have passed away of natural causes at the grand age of 81. Whether through use of your powers or through a clever concealment of your true date of Embrace, you appear to the eye to be a healthy and stately woman in her prime with a glowing aura of humanity and Christian grace about your gilded crown.

When Abbess Jutta ‘died’ after  becoming your ghoul in 1136, you were unanimously elected as magistra of the Disibodenberg community by your nuns. The Abbot of Disibodenberg asked you to be Prioress, a change in position which would have placed you under his authority. However, you wanted more independence for yourself and your nuns and asked the Abbot instead to allow you to move to Rupertsberg.  When the abbot declined your proposition, you went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz in a typical show of your headstrong independence. 

Angry at your gile, The Abbot did not relent until you were stricken by a strange illness that rendered you paralyzed and unable to move from your bed - an event that you attributed to God's unhappiness at you not following His orders to move your nuns to a new location in Rupertsberg. It was only when the Abbot himself could not move you from your bed that he decided to grant you your monastery. Your vampiric strength and ability to remain completely rigid and still for long periods of time were certainly helpful in convincing  the Abbot of the validity of God’s judgement. Soon, you took Jutta in secret along with approximately twenty nuns thus moved to the St. Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as your confessor and scribe. In 1165 you founded a second monastery for your nuns at Eibingen.

Your convent of Eibingen Abbey still thrives in the 15th century and you take great pains to conceal your identity and immortality from the mortal nuns of the community. Your more cynical Cainite neighbours occasionally imply that the vampiric residents of your domain must feed on these nubile and talented novices to whet their appetites – an accusation that you and yours deny with the wrath of an avenging Seraphim. However, even the most faithful of Christian pilgrims note that some of the nuns of Eibingen are exceptionally fragile and pale in complexion and many of the young women are confined to their beds due to ‘raptures of the soul’ for extended periods of time. Surely, not blood loss, of course.

Your private coterie of enlightened Cainites dress in the garb of literal angels – draped in white habits and crowned with golden halos - to better embody the grace of the Lord and the visions of light that He still sends to your soul in the form of visions to this very night. Your coterie is strictly female save for the odd monk who dedicates themselves to recording the arts, music and theology produced by your learned and prolific community. Just as you welcome all walks of mortals and Cainites to your haven for education and guidance, your coterie is varied and made up of vampires from multiple clans. All trusted members of your coterie are taught how to speak the Lingua Ignota - a holy language that you constructed through the guidance of the spirit.

In current nights, your time is spent tending to the spiritual needs of your coterie and of any Cainite pilgrims that wish to be guided by the Living Light of the Lord – though the numbers of truly faithful visitors that seek refuge in your haven are to be dwindling by the decade. You grow more and more impatient with your fellow Toreador who seem to delight in pressing and nagging you for more exquisite musical compositions and art of your sacred visions. You have long believed that many Roses are merely misguided and struggling under the burden of the Beast but in recent nights you have begun to see them as debauched and decadent creatures unworthy of Gods’ grace. To know the Lord is to know suffering and the relief given only through ecstatic communication with the Spirit – these spoiled courtly Toreador know nothing of true mortification of the flesh, and they are beginning to test even your deep and enduring generosity of the soul.

Motivations

You have more than a passing interest in astronomy and have heard rumours about powerful humans born on the day of that strange, unexpected eclipse almost 70 years ago. You did not pay much attention to these rumours until you had a particularly violent and confusing vision just over a year ago. In between frantic paroxysms, you described seeing dungeon cells filled with mortals - all of them in chains and many of them with the halo of an angel about their heads. You saw them dressed in finery and paraded before a hall of ravening, greedy vampires all bidding their eye-teeth to have a Child of the Sun for their own. Overlooking the scene, you saw the guide of Death spreading his shroud over mortals and Cainites alike - his spectre’s fingers holding them all in his grip. Before you came back to your senses, Death himself whispered a name into your ear. Claudius Giovanni.

Despite Jutta and Volmar’s protestations that you must rest and not take hasty action, you lost no time in writing directly to Claudius in your natural brisk and authoritative tone. You demanded many things from the Cappadocian - peppering him with questions about his intentions with these mortals and vampire society all the while reminding him of your status as a well respected Seer and spiritual leader. Claudius was only too happy to respond, politely reassuring you that you and your coterie need only await the invitation to his auction that he was of course always planning on dispatching directly to your abbey. 

You have strong misgivings about attending what amounts to a slave auction, but surely the Lord only gives his followers challenges that they are capable of bearing the burden of? Perhaps the Lord intended for a great number of these humans to be gathered together and dispersed among Cainites - the better to understand the extent of the powers he has gifted them with? You cannot help but wonder if any of these mortals possess divine sight or experience visions similar to your own. If so, surely the Lord would intend for you to take them under your protection and to help them understand their visions along with the guidance of Jutta and Volmar.

Despite their connection to the unholy art of necromancy, you hold no ill will towards the Cappadocians and have often extended your hospitality to their clan - enjoying deep and compassionate discussions on faith and theology with many Cainites of their blood over the years. Their dedication to scholarly pursuits and their tendency to take an interest in matters of the soul is far more important in your eyes than their unfortunate fascination with the dead. You view this sacrilegious practice as a burden of their vampiric existence and you hope to find that this new family of Cappadocians - the Giovanni - are just as committed to higher pursuits of the mind and soul as their older, learned cousins. Despite your misgivings about the nature of this auction, you are interested enough in this rising, powerful family to accept their invitation.

After all, even if your vision from the Lord had not demanded that you attend - there are other benefits to being seen at such a large gathering of vampires. In your youth, you viewed politics and diplomacy as dirty matters of the flawed physical world to be avoided and remedied at every cost. Your widely reported visions and prolific contributions to theology, music, medicine and more made you something of a reluctant celebrity in the Holy Roman Empire. This resulted in your Abbey’s inundation with masses of correspondence and pleas for advice from more heads of state and church officials than you thought could possibly exist. You endeavoured to provide morally sound and spiritually guided advice to those who approached with genuine queries on faith and the soul and rejected any inquiries of a selfish or material nature. 

As the world continues to grow around you – becoming ever more interconnected and populous – you are learning that politics and diplomacy may have a role in creating good works for the Lord after all. Jutta has made heroic efforts in helping you to understand the importance of engaging in politics before they leave you and your cause behind. And what better than a meeting of Cainites to ensure that the faithful have a strong and clear voice among the cruel machinations of vampire society?

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Idelinde de Rommain 

Lasombra Ancilla

The younger, less physically imposing of the de Rommains, you often fade into the background behind the stunning radiance of your sister. People always looked to her, like flowers to the sun.  It was said that within the womb your sister must have drained you of life, for you are frail of body and wraithlike - quick to bruise and break even as a Cainite. You are somewhat haunting and certainly not possessed of the rosy, virile qualities Catallana displays in abundance. Most Cainites don't even know that Catallana has a younger twin, a fact that grows in the back of your brain like an infection. 

Nevertheless, you make up for this with your cunning and scholarly nature, as well as a wit that is as biting as it is cruel. Your love for your sibling cannot be denied, but it is possessive, manipulative love and that of one who always knows a better way to undercut their rivals. Catallana frequently disapproves of your callous approach, but cannot bring herself to stand against her younger twin, not when she herself has so often in your past used her status to humiliate minor nobles or remind people that she was better than them. Whilst Catallana plays at being the perfect politician, you are the master of operating from the shadows, the real strategist behind her throne. You have made yourself an almost obsessive scholar of Abyssal mysticism, and your young mastery of Obtenebration is considerable enough that you frequently fake your twin's abilities in the field in order to keep both a healthy respect and fear alive for your pair.

Whilst you share almost everything with your twin, you carry a secret that gives you genuine fear that Catallana might finally leave you. Only a year before the Auction, you committed the diablerie of your sire and patron, leaving you free to rise through Cainite society without him. You had reached breaking point, his coveting of your twin pushing you to set a trap for him on one of the rare occurrences when Catallana was out of town alone. You still struggle with the fallout of this crime, as the consumption was not perfect. You were not expecting how very hard it was to hide this, and have lived in paranoia increasingly. There are members of your clan now hunting for him, for he had allies of his own, and you’re finally acknowledging how terrified you are of being caught and executed.

Motivation

A solitary scholar, you would have found a great mystery within the Day of the Black Sun - scouring Cainite texts as to its significance and possibly even corresponding with others over such an event. You would attend the action knowing full well that the power and supernatural significance on display here might not be seen again for a millennia. It is therefore vital that you reap as much benefit from the auction as possible, and to impress the same upon your twin. 

However, there is a more pressing matter. It is the motive that drives you almost desperately here, to Florence, and to Claudius Giovanni’s auction. Your tail is nearing; the occultists in your clan sent to locate your sire have since discovered his destruction, and have been - until now - unsuccessful in finding you. They grow closer, and you would do anything to avoid going before the clan for the destruction of a respected elder. You know the horrors that a Mystic can offer to another. You hear among the mortals here is an Illusionist capable of masking others; there is also a Shadow capable of much the same feat, and you may even be able to twist this one out from under your clan - may even be able to bid on them for your clan, and steal them and yourself away, onto the other side of the damned world if you must. You’ll take your sister with you, wherever you go, because she belongs to you. No matter what she feels about your sire, if and when she finds out the truth of him, she will stay with you. She is yours, you will make it so.

If attending alone, you will lack your sister's charm and guile but still have plenty of opportunity to acquire one of these humans to study and potentially embrace. If you can convince your sister to attend, you will have the childe together, though with any luck creating a creature that adopts the best aspects of each twin but answers primarily to you. For that reason you might have a preference to be the one to sire the mortal yourself, or get more of your blood into it. Catallana is surely just too compassionate for the process.

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Jeanne Heron 

Gangrel Ancilla

While the Nosferatu might be the undisputed rulers of the information trade in England, you have spent much of your unlife carving out a lucrative place for yourself. Baulking from the usual expectations for a Gangrel, you were never built for warfare - a spidery, lithe creature with a certain grace unknown to much of their rowdier kin. A distinctly androgynous individual for a she-Wolf, you currently find your place in the Court of Mithras, where most of your time is spent working with spies of Richard de Worde.

Blessed with a far better human bloodline than most low clans, yours was a sudden and unprepared embrace. Like many bored young nobles, they had a penchant for riding out amongst the smallfolk to remind them of the divine benevolence of their God-chosen masters. Possessed of a daring and cocksure spirit, you often neglected to allow attendants to accompany you, or would wander off from a hunting party to follow your own whims. It was upon circumstance that you were riding alone back towards your estate when you witnessed a person bent over in the woods, clutching a woman already dead and lifeless upon the leaf-litter. There was another peasant man in his final throes of death, nearby them. The hunched figure spotted you - amused at the horror upon a young noble's face.

A chase ensued, and the murderous stranger found themselves impressed by your cunning - not to mention your mastery over your mount and knowledge of the woods; you could move through it like a phantom, mounted or not. Naturally, when the Gangrel tired of playing with his new mortal, he caught you with ease. You were embraced violently, and left to fend for yourself, alone in the woods.

You are known for a collection of charmed and ghouled creatures that act as your eyes and ears - mostly magpies and crows and other carrion eaters. Your human pedigree and experience as a member of nobility has helped you navigate the intricacies of Cainite court better than most of your kin, and you retain a judgemental contempt for the unrefined tastes and coarse lives of the low clans, believing them too fixed in their ways to ever rise above their pitiful status.

Motivation

Compared to most of their peers, you were fairly young during the Dawn of the Black Dawn, and have never been one to ascribe a large meaning to omens. That being said, you would revelled in the opportunity to walk the world one last time during the 'day' - perhaps indulging old desires and pastimes you might have once loved.

The auction presents a conundrum for you. You might not have thought much about siring your own Childe yet, but truly there is no better prospect for a powerful and beloved companion than this. You find yourself an island apart compared to much of your clan, and not being an actual Nosferatu (given your work as an information-Currier) or high-clan politician leaves you in a pack-of-one much of the time, alone. A childe could present the true companionship that you have sorely missed - having taken such things for granted as a human. The Hound would be an obvious choice among these mortals, but the skills of the Illusionist and the Expositor are also invaluable for a Cainite spy.

That said, if such a thing is not to your tastes, you could certainly assist your superiors from Mithras' court in the acquisition of their own empowered kine. Such an action would no doubt earn you court favour, and assist in their social ambitions, should they also attend the auction.

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Jutta von Sponheim 

Toreador Elder

Born 1091

This character is based on the historical figure Jutta von Sponheim

(This is her full brief.)

You are the voice of reason and order in the coterie that watches over the sacred convent of Eibingen Abbey on the border of the Holy Roman Empire and the Duchy of Burgundy. Perhaps more importantly, you provide rational guidance to your sire and the abbey’s nocturnal protector - the fiery and famous Abbess Hildegard von Bingen. You have lived and worked alongside Hildegard since you were both girls and just as you provided the visionary mystic with sound, reliable advice during your mortal life - you now act as her guardian as she navigates the developing world while remaining an important spiritual leader for many Cainite pilgrims across Europe.

In life, you were born into a noble family and held the title of Countess. As was common for many noblewomen of your time, you chose a life devoted to God rather than marriage. Instead of entering a convent as a novice, you made the unusual decision to become an anchoress - a symbolic anchor for the world to God. Your life existed within the limits of an enclosed room with only a small window through which you received food and communicated with your prior and confessor, Volmar. You were also the abbess of the nearby Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg and your role included tutoring female pupils from wealthy families - many of whom became novices at the monastery. One such pupil of yours was the young Hildegard von Bingen - who entered into your care when she was 8 years old and you were only 14.

Soon after Hildegard came under your care, you bore witness to her frightening visions and were privy to the beautiful, spiritual explanations she painted with her words before your eager senses. With your guidance, Hildegard agreed to share her visions with Volmar, who was also her confessor. You knew that Volmar’s patient, loving demeanour and way with the quill may help Hildegard to understand that her visions were from God and were not to be afraid of. The two of you supported the young Hildegard and remained by her side as she became an important and influential mystic who provided spiritual leadership to the citizens of the Rhine. 

Neither you nor Volmar question Hildegard when she became more distant and insisted on sleeping in private during the day and tending to her works strictly in nighttime hours. She had long suffered terrible headaches with her visions, so you assumed that her nocturnal habits were related to controlling her pain and did not question them. She had always been eccentric, after all. Gradually, Hildegard began to tell both you and Volmar of how the Lord had blessed her with the most exquisite gift - the gift of his eternal blood. She introduced both of you to the truth of the vampire condition slowly and gently, so as not to shock your minds and souls. You yourself were embraced by your lifelong friend after a short period as her ghoul - during which time she was always kind and patient with you as you learned how to exist in this strong, new body. Volmar’s journey into the blood was more painful and complicated, but that is not your story to tell.

As the years progressed, it was necessary for all three of you to stage your ‘human deaths’ but you still govern and watch over the abbey at Eibingen. Hildegard gained much fame among humans as a spiritual leader during her ‘natural’ years before her death, but she gained even more as a seer and great intellect in vampire society. Eibingen remains an important place of pilgrimage for vampires and mortals alike - Cainite pilgrims are received by yourself and Volmar in your haven not far from the Abbey and you are in charge of who gets to speak directly with the Abbess herself. 

Hildegard and Volmar have always been more deeply spiritual than yourself - though you practice your own strict faith through asceticism and even occasional mortification of the flesh when the Beast is troublesome. However, it is the physical world that most holds your attention. Though Hildegard does engage with diplomacy and vampire politics to some level, her fiery and hot-headed ways can sometimes get the better of her in her letters. You have been gently coaxing Hildegard to become more seriously involved in vampiric political spheres - especially since the world around is developing at such an alarming rate.

Motivations

Hildegard’s vision about the auction alarmed you but you are not as wary as Volmar is about attending. You are secretly quite excited to have an excuse to leave the abbey - your duties at Eibingen mean that you’ve never travelled far from Frankfurt. You feel quite safe attending an event full of Cainites so far from home as your Prince - Julia Antasia - will be there with her supporters. You will stay close to Hildegard and Volmar to protect them from more subtle social barbs and political intricacies that they might not recognise. 

As for the humans up for sale at the auction, you are conflicted about how to approach such a strange and macabre wholesale of human flesh. It has always been your role to mentor, guide and nurture younger people and even as a vampire - you have continued to watch over the novices and pilgrims of Eibingen from the shadows. You have never taken a childe before - perhaps you can save at least one soul from a desperate fate by taking one of the humans under your wing.

Notes

• She is a Countess by birth so is part of the gentry - from a higher born background than Hildegard - who was free lower nobility

• Instead of joining a convent as an oblate/novice, Jutta became an "anchoress," a symbolic "anchor" for the world to God, and thus she closed herself for life in a one-room shelter, with only a small window through which food was passed in, and refused to be taken out

• Tutored Hildegard when the girl was age 8 but Jutta seems to have been only 14 when she acquired Hilde

• Taught and raised loads of young noble girls who were sent to her hermitage

• Enclosed formally with Hildegard when Hilde was 14 and she was 20

• They formed the core of a growing community of women attached to the monastery of monks

• Became Abbess of Disibodenberg monastery where she was cloistered, a Benedictine monastery

• Taught Hildegard to write; to read the collection of psalms used in the liturgy; and to chant the Opus Dei (‘work of God’), the weekly sequential recitation of the Canonical hours. She probably also taught Hildegard to play the zither-like string instrument called the psaltery

• As a teenager, Hildegard began to realize her visions were unique experiences, and she broke her painful silence by discussing them with Jutta, who told Volmar

• Jutta was a severe practitioner of asceticism, including penitential self-flagellation. She wore a chain under her clothes, prayed barefoot in the extreme cold of a German winter, and refused the allowed (and even encouraged) modifications to the Benedictine diet for those who were sick

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Rikkardis of Gandersheim

Malkavian Elder

God has given all creatures a part to play upon his Earth - whether they realise this or not. To you, the world is a stage of innumerable players, one that you tread with the conniving mind of a playwright, shaping the paths of those around them to God's plan - or occasionally to stray from it.

As a mortal, much of your life was spent as a nun in Gandersheim abbey during the mid 10th century. Whilst you lived as a devout woman having taken vows of obedience and chastity, your life was forever changed when you became the tutor of the noblewoman, Hrotsvitha. You were younger than your student, and immediately became infatuated with the older woman's talent as a writer, drawn out under your careful words. Hrotsvitha became a pre-eminent playwright, creating works of literary genius, extolling the virtues of a godly life and the empowerment of women through the Lord's influence. 

So inspiring were your student’s works, that many came to regard her as a saint-like figure. You became deeply obsessed with your student's ideas - an accomplished poet yourself now fully overcome with the power of theatre to influence and enlighten the populace. The Theatre, however, would not be the same without tragedy. Hrotsvitha died young - struck down by an unknown, wasting illness. You were absolutely heartbroken - your faith in your Lord shaken to its core by the loss of someone so pure and dedicated to spreading His word to the people - particularly to women. As you wept amid the works your friend and student had left in your care, you received a visitor. Many eyes had watched the young playwright, including those of a Malkavian, who had planned to embrace your student so that her works might always be preserved; they could not bear the thought that such a holy paragon would be snuffed out so soon. They were too late, and distraught they made their way to the Abbey of Gandersheim in search of Hrotsvitha's works.

The visitor recognised you to be their muse's young mentor, and impulsively embraced you in a fit of desperation and desire not to lose that spark they had seen in the original artist.

Now, you attend the German Cainite courts. Your obsession with your late friend's work has only grown, and you are an artist in their own right. There is a bitterness to your knowledge that everything happens as a part of God's plan - the greatest play of all. You know you will never be Hrotsvitha, and prefer to slip in and out of masks to direct the stories of others from the shadows, now that  you know yourself to be amongst the damned. Sometimes, you are gripped by visions of scenes yet to transpire - you believe this is granted to you by the spirit of your old student, showing you the next few pages of the divine script. It is then left to you to play your preordained part, or… improvise. 

Motivation

The Day of the Black Dawn may have been an event of twisted interest for you, and in the crevices of your mind you foresaw omens of such a thing, carried as if on the echo of another’s thoughts, a draft left open in your head. If the Lord is displeased, it means that things have strayed too far from His path, and something will appear to rebalance the world and see it safely back on track. Whether you wish to further that imbalance or follow the tale that is being written by God, this Auction provides the perfect opportunity for both.

A master of masks, you are no stranger to intense social events, and you delight in the opportunity to influence the paths of so many important Cainites. Perhaps, you might even see something in one of these mortals that reminds you of Hrotsvitha's talent and spark of truth, and such a thing might spark your obsession all over again.

(Looking at you Apprentice.)

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Šarlota

Ventrue Neonate

(This is her full brief.)

People have long been willing to transgress, break, redefine, or ignore gendered boundaries - and to punish one another for doing so. You were convicted of heresy, not for your political activism, nor your religious beliefs, not even for the people you killed, but because you wore male clothing. In your trial, you were accused of wearing your hair “like a young coxcomb” and, by wearing “the garments of a man, short, tight, dissolute”, you defied “Divine Law”. You carried and used weapons, something that wasn’t socially acceptable for women, and in doing these things, according to the church, you committed blasphemy.

You feel disillusioned and lost. There was no heaven on that bright tunnel's end. Just dark.

You died at dusk. Disgraced, humiliated, and alone. The only mercy was that the faggots of wood were so wet and the wind so high that you partly asphyxiated before the flames touched you. The reek of burnt flesh hooked into your nostrils and rolled you back up into the last seconds of your consciousness, but you were already choking on black air. The last thought you would ever have, was one of pain.

Or so you thought. When you opened your eyes to a lazy expression of impatience, a stranger's gaze was on your melted, raw flesh. It was cracked and hard now in places, but the skin, impossibly, was healing. Under your armpits you could feel it knit closed. The tissue was traumatised - made tender by the heat - but whole. For a moment everything stood still. Then you dragged in a lungful of air, and another, and heard someone retch - only it was your own muted sound of shock and revulsion. Every muscle ached, every cell quivered. There was a gnawing sense of need in the back of your throat, needling at your teeth and skewering your salivary glands, but it was fading now, as if sated. You could taste blood around the top of your gums.

"I am not dead," you manage.

It comes out a raspy, dry croak. Your lips felt cracked, stretched too wide.

"A questionable statement," said the stranger. He raised the flat of his thumb to his mouth, where you glimpsed - with a dizzying start - the wet edge of a hellish canine, too thick and too long to be real. Before your eyes it extended past his lips, and the tip punctured his thumb with an intimate pop, the sound loud in the hush of the room. You were on a hard cot in a stone turret, starlight visible through an arrow slit hole.

"You are not exactly living, either," he said. You could have missed the amusement, barely there under the low vibration of his voice. "Not by any sane estimate, though there is some debate this century. Can you hear me - clearly?"

You tried to form the words but the damaged web-stretch of your lips cracked open. It was strange; you knew it should be agony, but even that pain was muted, as were so many of the blaring alarms in your body as it cooled, and grew quiet. 

A hand grasped your jaw with a sure hold. He removed his thumb from the edge of his relaxed mouth, away from his teeth, and a long, ropey cord of something followed. It was too bloody to be saliva, a glutinous and heavy trail. A note escaped you, of revulsion, you almost lurched back in your attempt to escape it but the hand at your jaw tightened in ownership, and besides, your head hit the cot.

"Did I not burn?" you said instead, between your clenched teeth, your chest heaving, the words strained.

The lights in his eyes were steady. "Just a little tenderising.”

His attention moved from your wide gaze to your mouth. He pressed that bloodied thumb there, against your upper lip. The puncture in his thumb was deep, cut surely to the bone; it oozed eagerly.

You could taste his blood as it coloured your teeth. Indignation clawed its way and you jerked with a snap, but the vice-grip on you remained, bruising in its force. 

He drew the blood along your upper lip, and then onto your lower, and you thought of all the women with their strangely painted mouths. Blood smeared possessively along the broken seam, but mended the skin instantly.

He let you go. "A few minutes more, then yes, it would have caught your hair. Come, lean here."

He dropped his shoulder and slid an arm securely around your waist.

It was a strange night.

*

"I would have been proud to have you in my army."

The words of your sire echo in your memory.

You were born in Bohemia (now modern Czech republic) as Šarlota, a girl who masqueraded as a man to join the Hussite Revolution (1419 - 1434) wherein you took the name Samuel. The Hussites were a proto-protestant Christian movement led by Jan Hus, in the days before the Protestant movement gained momentum - before even it was called Protestantism. The Hussites attempted to make reforms to Catholicism, seeing it corrupt.

You believed that anyone should have the freedom to preach the word of God to another - that anyone should be allowed to read scripture to another person, not just the priests. You believed that punishment for mortal sins should be doled out regardless of stature; you hated that rich people could just buy their way out of it with silver. Like the Hussites, who followed these values, you believed that people could have a personal connection with God, devoid of a middleman.

The Catholic Church was not very keen on this; it was named heresy.

The combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope and fellow European Catholic Monarchs all fought the Hussites. You, yourself, were very passionate about Jan Hus’ cause and very moved by the Hussite principles. You wanted to fight the Catholics, who were in your eyes corrupt oppressors. You gave your life for the Hussites and their cause but your female gender was discovered, and they didn’t care how good a soldier you were – they burned you. After everything, they burned you.

It happened at camp, just after nightfall - all the better that the flames would reach the clear stars. You were to be made a spectacle. There was bitterness in you, but grim amusement, for it was overcast and you could barely see past the turret. After you lost consciousness, you would learn that the camp was trampled over by the soldiers of another, much deadlier force.

Hardestadt told you that the Hussites were ignorant and closed minded - that he would have been proud to have you fight openly in his vampiric army, where being a woman was no sin and where you could dress how you pleased.

Your own people burned you for dressing as a man, and though you hold no illusions that Hardestadt cares for the plight of your sex, he had no problem installing you in a new position of vampiric power, into a space amusingly vacated by one Lucretia von Hardtz, defector. Perhaps it was an idle jab at her, should she ever discover: for him to replace her with a woman.

Within five years of your sire’s tutelage and territorial protection, you were given the Order of the Black Cross, to lead. Hardestadt has favoured you ever since; compared to peers of your age you have vastly more power and opportunities, but under a very close leash.

The Order of the Black Cross is a classic “order within an order,” a circle of vampiric knights under Hardestadt, whose company reins now belong to you. Your quest is to expand their number and consolidate their power, a challenging task given the state of the Order when he handed it to you. Ever since their original figurehead was killed (by Hardestadt no less) the Order has been remotely managed by your sire, and then very remotely, given his attention elsewhere. It had all but dissolved.

The members were once all part of the human Teutonic Order who would come to understand (or, more precisely, be brainwashed to understand) that the secret Black Cross subdivision was the real heart of their brotherhood. Over time, Hardestadt worked his claws into the burgeoning Teutonic Order through this idea, but especially through the actions of his childe, Lord Jürgen, who was closer to the knights and spent much of his time organising them.

Jürgen performed or authorized the Embrace of a few selected knights and priests in the early days of the Order. Later, it was Jürgen's own childe - Lucretia von Hardtz - who took her sire's ambitions a step further. As Hardestadt’s grandchild, she was the real creator behind the secret division within the Order, the force which became known as the Order of the Black Cross, and subtly corrupted the crusader ideal into service to Jürgen’s cause. Where Jürgen manipulated the original Teutonic Order, she created the beast beneath it - the vampiric side of the Order, and the very one that you would come to control.

No matter if it belonged informally to Lucretia or to her sire, it should have been to Hardestadt's cause above all. As you understand it, Hardestadt embraced Jürgen, who himself embraced Lucretia. They were all under his banner. Jürgen's quest to assume the status as his sire’s pre-eminent vassal (and his dangerous ambition to replace Hardestadt himself) became his undoing. As far as you know it, Jürgen reached too high too quickly, he became too presumptuous, and Hardestadt slew him. A quick, cold kill. And what’s wrong with that? Your sire does not wait around for spies to form and resentments to grow, not like Mithras. He doesn’t monologue until the victim gets up for a last jab. He is a swift executioner, and he is certainly not shy of executing. Your sire does not wait around for a court to turn against him. He does not even keep his home in a single court, but travels between all of his domains, each with a different resident Prince taking power in the Black Fiefs,  and Hardestadt lord to them all. It is why they call him The Black King. 

Certainly, it keeps you on your toes. You’ve never feared death, you entered war from a  very young age. You aren’t stupid; if the other childer hadn’t given him reason to slaughter them, your sire wouldn’t absent himself of an ally in blood. He likes your blunt affect, your dry humour. The hearts among the Toreador claim he has no heart. But he’s a brilliant strategist, and a cunning leader. 

"Keep it," he'd said to you, of the Order. “A pet project, should it please.”

His breath did not fog up the night as he spoke, it did not cloud the air around his dark smile, though your horse's flank was steaming hot.

You'd surprised him, happily so; the Black Cross was growing each year, though it would take time to return it to its former glory. You were nothing if not persistent. Hardestadt began to train you formally, and you flourished. 

Motivations

You are your sire's childe, his loyal vassal and a strategic military supporter of his regime. He wishes you at this auction, and so it shall be.

You are aware that Lucretia is invited too, by the Giovanni. You are effectively her replacement in the very Order that her sire cherished and lead, the Order that she ran with, and you do not know now how she would view its continuing existance under Hardestadt, by rights the murderer of her sire. However you view his execution, as a just act or a necessary evil, Lucretia made her thoughts clear when she broke away and moved against Hardestadt, and continues to move against him; this will be the first time you will ever meet her, should she actually appear.

How do you feel about her? Is there any empathy for a strikingly similar shared part of your history: You both masked as men for years, she successfully to the very end, but you to your death. Is there resentment here? Are you the kind to play cruel sport and humour at another’s expense? Do you feel genuine anger at her defecting, or do you wave it off as a tiring knightly loyalty on her part - given she was a Teutonic knight? At least by her actions, her loyalty was to the sire and lord, Jürgen, not to her grandsire. How much, if anything, do you care about this? Should she have been less knightly, less blinkered with this devotion? Is it a terribly unVentrue conceit to betray the greater power in a blood lineage, only to show loyalty to someone lower down the chain? Do you ever wonder about your own grandsire, and what you would do in the same situation? Could your loyalty ever be to anyone above your sire?

There will be a great number of Cainites at this Auction, and amongst them such august company indeed. It’s fertile grounds for recruitment into your Order, there will be promising young neonates to make knights of, and rally to Hardestadt’s cause, directly into your hands. You represent something your sire cannot - youth - and with it, there might be an anglerfish of a hook you can dangle. You’re here also to act as a protective soldier to your clan, to keep the peace (and to ensure the Giovanni do too). You’re too young to throw weight around yet, at least publicly, but no one said you couldn’t learn how to navigate the shadows, too. When’s a better time than the present to start? You’ll practice on the idiots first, and the Gangrel.

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Richardis von Stade

Toreador Ancilla/Elder

Born c. ~1124

This character is based on the historical figure of the same name 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardis_von_Stade

This character can be portrayed as Hildegard’s lover or as her favourite. Modern historians have written about their relationship from a queer perspective but it is the choice of the two players how to wish to roleplay the connection. You have agency in how the character was embraced and can choose the level of antagonism/friendship that you have with Hildegard’s older childe - Jutta.

Character Summary

You are Hildegard von Bingen’s younger childe and muse, a constant inspiration to her soul as well as the only individual that she trusts to write down the contents of her visions in their immediate aftermath.

As a mortal, you were a young novice at the Disibodenberg Monastery where Hildegard was Magistra. At a young age, you left a droll and predictable life in the German nobility to join her nuns and learn from the famous polymath - but it was her visionary Christian mysticism and her beautiful music that drew you to her with the strongest pull. Hildegard became so attached to her muse and scribe that she took great measures to avoid losing you when your talent was recognised by the Church and you were elected to be the Abbess of your own congregation. When she was unsuccessful in preventing your departure from her abbey, she went even further - retrieving you from your seat within a year and eventually revealing her true nature to you in all it’s terrible and miraculous glory.

Hildegard kept you as her only ghoul for many years before gifting you with the Embrace. Your dedication to writing, composing and singing plainchant and the pursuit of divine beauty in everything you see has only grown over the years. You are now an accomplished composer and musician in your own right and you occupy the role of the quintissential host to Eibingen Abbey’s vampiric pilgrims - offering Hildegard’s visitors spiritual stimulation and support as well as providing them with appropriately heavenly artistic distraction to soothe their burning souls. 

You and Jutta do not always see eye-to-eye as you occupy very different roles in your sire’s service, but you are still sisters ‘in the blood’ and you are both devoted to keeping your sire calm and content. There should be no quarrel in the house of God. Volmar is your close friend and an admirer of your works - you feel closer to him than Jutta in many ways as you both act as spiritual advisers to Hildegard in different capacities. Between the three of you, you keep the hidden Cainite establishment behind Eibingen Abbey running as smoothly and evenly as possible - loathe to inspire the ire of your attentive but perfectionist Magistra. 

Early Life

You were born in 1124 into high nobility, your family occupying the prosperous seat of Stade in the north of the Holy Roman Empire. Although all of the powerful familial and diplomatic  influences in your life urged you towards a life of marriage and heir-bearing, some deep conviction in your soul had whispered to you from a young age - reassuring you that your fate lay beyond the realms of worldly politics and noble lineage. While your elder brothers ruled in succession as the Counts of Stade and your younger sister would go on to marry and become Queen of Denmark for a time - you heeded the call of the Lord and beg to be permitted to pledge yourself as a novice nun as soon as your family would let you.

However, your pleas were not founded on religious fervor alone. Though it is true that you had a genuine wish to live out your life as a devout nun - it was not just any house of worship or abbey that called out to your heart. As your siblings worked away at courtly intrigue, you listened to the stories of the well travelled courtiers around you and soon heard of the famous mystic and visionary - Hildegard of Bingen. The descriptions of her devotion, principles and works captured your imagination and from then on - you knew that your soul would not be at rest until you could be a part of the Magistra’s community of nuns at Disibodenberg.

Once you were pledged as an oblate to the monastery so far from your home, you dedicated yourself to your tasks and studies with an unmatched passion and zeal. Your youth and fervour as well as your sharp mind and eye for divine beauty soon held the observant Magistra’s attention. You spent long evenings in conversation with the nocturnal Hildegard and the rapt attention and absolute wonder with which you listened to her account of her visions moved even the Magistra’s composed emotions. Your heartfelt talks soon inspired Hildegard to put the details of her visions to parchment and your own gifts with the written word were an indispensable boon to her work.

It was your role to translate, edit and compile Hildegard’s writings until they formed into their beautiful and cohesive whole - Hildegard’s first collection of her visionary writings. Together, you would name the work Scivias or from Sci Vias Domini - ‘know the ways of the Lord’. Your clerical, emotional and spiritual support of Hildegard was instrumental in motivating her to continue to contribute to her own collection of works - spreading her name and fame around Europe. Behind closed doors, you were perhaps her closest confidant and friend. You were never obliged to take on any of her arduous administrative work or correspondence, which was always eagerly completed by her confessor - Volmar - and her hidden childe Jutta. 

When you were not acting as a muse for Hildegard’s writings or aiding her in compiling them, you practiced your own skills of musical composition and plainchant. Your Magistra always insisted that you wear the white and gold raiment of her most treasured nuns - with a halo befitting of your angelic voice and countenance. You basked in the light of her love and teaching and thrived under her mentorship, so much so that your spiritual talents and commitment were soon recognised by the local Bishop.

To Hildegard’s horror, you were elected Abbess of Bassum Abbey at the age of 27. This move would take you many day’s ride north - closer to your home but unacceptably far away from Hildegard. Your mentor first wrote to your mother, claiming that this decision was ‘certainly not God’s will’ and beseeching your family not to encourage the move (despite the fact the move would take you closer to your family home). These pleas were unsuccessful, as were the following trail of letters to increasingly more powerful officials. Although the thought of being separated from your beloved Magistra tore your heart in two, you could not resist the summons of the bishop and were obliged to accept the position as Abbess of Bassum Abbey.

You made the best of your lot and presided over the nuns of Bassum with a kind and open authority -  finding your feet sooner than you could have imagined. You missed Hildegard terribly but were hurt to find that she did not return your correspondence nearly as often as you desired, and when she did the tone of her letters was cool and distant. You threw yourself into your work and Bassum began to feel like home. However, your role as Abbess would be cut prematurely short by forces that you couldn't have imagined even  in your strangest, darkest dreams. 

Less than a year into your tenure at Bassum, just such a dream would be interrupted by a nocturnal visitor to your simple rooms. To this night, you remember the swell of love and longing in your chest as you opened your bleary eyes to see the familiar form of your Magistra standing at the foot of your bed. Without thought, you cast aside your dignity and decorum and threw yourself into her arms and sobbed as though you were the young novice at the gates of Disidenberg all over again.

Hildegard soothed you with her prayers and with the words that you had longed to read in her letters - that she could not bear to have her favourite ripped from her care, let alone by a pompous Bishop who could not begin to understand the depth of the connection between you both.

The method by which Hildegard convinces Richardis to leave Bassum is up to the players of these characters but we would like you to select from the below suggestions. Richardis would be reluctant to leave Bassume despite loving Hildegard, as she has independence and authority there which were very rare experiences for a woman of this era. You may combine ideas! Toreador are infamously jealous and possessive of the people that they love and their love can manifest in twisted and controlling ways. We encourage you to calibrate the intensity of these themes with Hildegard’s player.

1. Presence only: Hildegard could have professed her love to Richardis and used her discipline of Presence to convince her to go with her - this is a manipulation of Richardis’ will but a more gentle option than the ones below.

2. Will of God: Hildehard could have done as above but also revealed she was a vampire at this stage, using the explanation of  receiving ‘Christ’s eternal blood’ to explain her state. She would have implied that it was God’s will that Richardis leave her mortal life and join her again at Eibingen - eventually to become a vampire like herself. This is the same story she used with Volmar and Jutta to convince them this change wasn’t evil. She would then ghoul Richardis later down the line as below.

3. Blood-binding: Hildehard could have simply bloodbound Richardis there and then, taking her back to Disibodenberg as a ghoul. This would prevent Richardis from leaving her again, and may be a good option for players who would like a darker aspect to their relationship earlier on. 

In any event, Hildegard would convince Richardis that the only way to leave Bassum and be with her would be to leave her mortal life behind - faking Richardis’ death. This would have caused Richardis grief as her youngest brother and sister are still living and would be pained by this news. This is another reason why Hildegard would have to be at least a little manipulative in her persuasion of Richardis. 

Although your heart was heavy with the knowledge of your family’s grief, your return to the Rhine was glorious. You threw yourself back into your work with Hildegard with renewed vigor, donning your raiment with joy and marvelling in the prosperity of the new abbeys of Eibingen and Rupertberg. The only dampener on the flame of your fervor was the presence of a new figure - one who’s existence Hildegard explained to you had always been present at Disibodenberg, but hidden from your sight. You did not like how similar the story of Jutta of Sponheim’s ‘death’ was to your own and found yourself experiencing jealousy for the first time in your life. 

This woman was never cruel or unkind to you, but you sensed a certain resentment of your position in Hildegard’s life. Jutta did not have time for your passionate views on visions and mysticism, nor your love of art and music. Thankfully, Volmar always seemed enchanted by your words and demonstrations - even if you did find the monk’s demeanour a little unsettling. You resented that Jutta had been so close to Hildegard since your Magistra’s own childhood and could not quite shake the notion  that Jutta knew her in a way that you never would. You distracted yourself by advancing your knowledge of theology and mastery of your own voice, thrilling Hildegard even when she should be engaging with Jutta’s advice about the importance of correspondence and diplomatic connections. Hildegard was enthralled with your presence in her abbey again and wished to delay taking the glow of your humanity from you as long as possible

After you were given the gift of Hildegard’s Embrace, you stayed on at Eibingen along with Jutta and Volmar. Your duties never shifted towards the dull and arduous tasks of vampiric politics and you were required instead only to provide spiritual stimulation and support to the Cainite pilgrims to Eibingen. Many vampiric visitors - who came to the abbey questioning their purpose on the earth and the state of their immortal soul - found that their hearts and souls were soothed by your serene company and the beauty of your voice and words. Within the limits of the simplicity required of a place of dedication and worship, you made the Abbey of Eibingen into a little piece of heaven on the Rhine for all of its inhabitants and visitors. Even the stoic Jutta could not deny your gifts where hospitality and the domestic arts were concerned!

Although most of your life as Hildegard’s childer at Eibingen would be described as idyllic by many less fortunate vampires, it has not been without its challenges. As you grow older in the blood, you often find yourself pining for the independence that you barely tasted as the Abbess of Bassum. You long for more frequent visits to Prince Julia Antasia’s court, but even Frankfurt is only a day’s ride away. As loving and attentive as Hildegard can be, your sire’s love for you often manifests through her exertion of control over your nightly activities and an overly protective nature that prevents you from travelling on your own. You know that Jutta - Hildegard’s elder childe and your sister in the blood - has also never travelled far from the Rhine valley and you are beginning to wonder if your sire expects you all to live out the rest of your eternal days and nights within the walls of Eibingen Abbey. Hilde is as ever protective as she is possessive. 

Motivation

You found Hildegard’s vision of the Auction just as frightening as Volmar did in the immediate aftermath, but your fear was soon followed by a keen and mounting excitement. You are an expert in the content of Hildegard’s visions - having documented so many of them alongside her - and you cannot recall a single one of this ilk. Dark and disturbing, yes - but never quite so prophetic. The arrival of Claudius Giovanni’s invitation even provided recordable providence to Hildegard’s vision - is your beloved sire becoming not only a mystic but a seer as well? No matter what Volmar says! You are eager to attend the auction, to document what occurs there and to follow God’s guidance that he has clearly shown to you through Hildegard.

When you were told that the auction will be in Florence, you felt as though your stagnant heart might explode inside your chest. Just as you listened to the stories of courtiers when you were a little girl, you are always hungry to hear the travelling tales of the pilgrims that visit Eibingen and the most exciting of late have often come from Italian Cainites. The more detailed descriptions of Florence’s art and architecture have often left you close to tears and full longing to visit a true, modern city of the world. Now, not only do you have the chance to visit Florence and to see its religious art and hear its famous choirs - you will finally be able to immerse yourself in a wide cross-section of Cainite society. Julia Antasia’s court is more exciting than your life in the abbey but her subjects are quite homogenous to say the least. You are more than a little apprehensive about being in such close quarters with such a wide range of vampiric moralities and clans but your excitement outweighs your fear by far. Perhaps you will finally have the opportunity to prove your worth as an independent force to both your sire and your Prince alike? It wouldn’t hurt for Jutta and Volmar to see your social skills at worth either - as both are prone to infantilising you in different but equally irritating ways

You are quite reluctant to consider the realities of attending an event solely designed for the purchase and embrace of potentially unwilling humans, but perhaps not for the same reasons as the rest of your group. You already feel that you live under the shadow of your older sister and Hildegard’s first childe, Jutta. She may not hold Hildegard’s attention like you can, but she certainly fills a role in your sire’s life that you have never even been permitted to attempt. Deep down, you feel a coil of jealousy stirring in your belly when you consider that Hildegard may be intensely drawn to one of these unique mortals, and that her embrace of them may drive a wedge between yourself and your beloved Magistra. You will certainly endeavour to keep a close eye on all of the humans and their effects on your sire, but you have not truly considered that one of these mortals may in fact have a profound effect on you.

You have heard of the children born of the Black Sun, have sung of them in plainsong, have written your mentor’s words and meditated on their meaning. The winds of change are all about you, and you could not be more excited.

Of them all you cannot help but notice The Voice, the mortal so claimed to move the heart and soul with their song, a calling close to your own form of prayer. The Cleric is an obvious choice of interest for any of you, but the Apprentice too would be such a beautiful addition to a polymath’s coterie, to live under you as a true apprentice in kind. The Prophet, of course, could help stimulate and perhaps even amplify the visions Hilde gains from the Lord - might even offer a conduit for you to see finally what your sire sees, might provide an eye into this queer world beyond the abbey. What still, of the Ghost, and the Leper, such forgotten, poor souls? You have studied them all and are spoilt for choice for where to look. One thing' is certain: Things are about to change, and you are already crashing through the open door in relief.

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The Illicit Correspondent

Toreador Ancilla (or Neonate, you can choose)

Controlling sire, wants better education for herself, sneakily attending auction against sire’s wishes

You learned your words and numbers far later than many would consider desirable, but you came from a background unaccustomed to literacy and mathematics. As the daughter of a miller in Tuscany (outer Florence countryside, Italy), you had no need for education, at least as far as your parents were concerned. Your fate would be to grow on the mill, work alongside your siblings, eventually marry, and die after producing a few healthy children of your own. Reading and writing barely formed a part of such an equation.

But you were curious and resourceful. Once, when you were young, you and your sister sneaked into the nearest monastery in the hope of stealing some wine or ale. Instead of the storeroom you found a small but well-stocked library, filled with illuminated texts of wondrous pedigree. Gold leaf coated the page edges, rich, vivid paints surrounded and filled the letters, illustrations of angels, pilgrims, and devils practically popped from the page… You didn’t know what it all meant, but catching sight of these amazing books spurred an insatiable lust for words. Against your sister’s protestations, you stole a book and brought it home, sneaking it beneath the floor of the donkey’s shed. You knew the value of such an item and had no desire to see it discovered.

Every night, you would rise from your bedchamber and visit the shed, sitting among the hay and the muck with your prize in hand, tracing your fingers along the beautifully curved letters and mimicking them, using whatever substitutes you could find for ink and paint to write out your own words. They rarely made sense, but you found yourself quite the natural talent.

As you grew in confidence, and ultimately, literacy through repetition and rote, you started encouraging your family and friends to push harder against the strictures society had placed upon them. There was more to life than being a miller’s daughter.

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The Philosopher

Gangrel Ancilla

Scholarly, ill treated by family, joined Priesthood to get away, Embraced and travelled with sire preaching philosophy

You are known throughout Europe as a wise and erudite scholar, rare for the Gangrel. You’re also known as a rogue and talespinner, with some Princes (especially those on the Roads of Sin and Kings) as a charlatan attempting to manipulate others. You are a philosopher, teacher and a theologian all rolled into one, and take not the words of these angrier Princes to heart — their Beasts are made insecure and stressed by your ethic. Your view remains that the vampiric condition is an elevated form of humanity, spiritually one step closer to leaving to the purity of god and one step away from the base, sinful, existence of mortal humans. It therefore brings you significant despair to witness time and time again your vampire kin faltering on this, first, step; falling back into the depravities of mortal wants, giving in to the longings for power dreamt of by their former selves.

You attend the auction to learn more of Cainite society in this age, and also to spread the good word of Cainite destiny — to reach ever closer to God through the purification of the soul through good deeds and the avoidance of sin. You’re cautious you might cross paths with vampires who despise you, but you are confident you can win anyone over with your words.

And should you be in a position to save one or more of these poor childer-to-be from the clutches of dark, outdated teaching and from a Sire keen only to degrade their path onto Heaven… all the better. You feel you were Embraced into the world at perfect time to be here for this action, and that it is a sign you must attend; you are not so young anymore, and your voice carries weight as an ancilla that it never could as a neonate, but you are not so old yet as to have lost yourself to innui and the plots of the Beast. You understand the two worlds like no one else, and as a Gangrel, know what it means to be used for the beck and call of High Clan Princes and elders. You can help educate these mortals, and forewarn them both.

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The Scribe Seer

Malkavian Neonate

Heavily spiritual, meta-plot, long brief

Due to your family’s relative isolation, and lack of any political involvement, the early manifestations of your power went almost… unnoticed. Until the migraines interrupted your study so much that doctors were called — and they reported to your father the strange “visions” you seemed to mumble during them, tossing and turning in fever fits. Light hurt your eyes, and you took to vomiting occasionally. Visual hallucinations were not abnormal with terrible headaches, but yours seemed… well, frankly, too vivid and too detailed to be a common migraine with an aural distortion alone.

Whole scenes would play out behind your eyes as you scrunched them shut and cried out in pain, before taking to a dark, cool room, sweating away and shaking.

The moral and social code of the Frisians was much looser and freer than the rest of the Low Countries - and Mediaeval Europe as a whole - but your home was still within the Holy Roman Empire. People lived according to Catholic morals. Catholics, fortunately, took quite well to visions of this kind, especially when you described seeing Jehovah and “angels” aloft in great skies.

There was a nearby monastery that persisted through the regional, more distant war. In reputation it had always been helpful and kind to wayward souls. A peaceful and relatively non-judgmental community of monks, they focused mainly on tending their own lands and providing for poor people and victims of war. Since they had never heard any strong moral rhetoric from the monks even with the social discord of the current times, your parents decided to go to the Prior of the Monastery to seek help and advice for their son’s abnormality.

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Volmar 

Malkavian Elder

Born c. 1090~

Derangement TBC

This character is based on the historical figure of the same name: Volmar.

(This is the full brief.)

You are the quiet but essential hand behind the day-to-day running of the famous Eibingen Abbey. Once a monk of Saint Disibod and still a man of the cloth to this day, you are Hildegard von Bingen’s lifelong scribe and a close friend and ally to both her and Jutta von Spondheim. Alongside the gentle encouragement of Jutta, it was you who first gave Hildegard the support and spiritual encouragement to realise that her frightening visions truly were direct messages from God. 

You were the Prior and confessor to both Jutta von Sponheim and Hildegard von Bingen when all three of you were mortal, and your role as spiritual advisor and confidant to these powerful women has carried over to your life as a vampire. You were the first to write down the details of Hildegard’s powerful visions and you were instrumental in helping the polymath to compile and publish her many works. You also had a role in the construction and performance of Hildegard’s ground-breaking allegorical musical, Ordo Virtutum, in which the Devil pursues, seduces, and eventually loses the Soul. In some performances of this musical, you played the role of the Devil - showing a theatrical streak underneath your quiet and unassuming demeanor.

Neither you nor Jutta questioned Hildegard when she became more distant and insisted on sleeping in private during the day and tending to her works strictly in nighttime hours. She had long suffered terrible headaches with her visions, so you assumed that her nocturnal habits were related to controlling her pain and did not question them. She had always been eccentric, after all. Gradually, Hildegard began to tell both you and Jutta of how the Lord had blessed her with the most exquisite gift - the gift of his eternal blood. She introduced both of you to the truth of the vampire condition slowly and gently, so as not to shock your minds and souls. 

Jutta was embraced soon after this revelation but you struggled with the concept of the Embrace and asked to remain in your role as a retainer for a longer period of time - preferring your position as a ghoul to the idea of vampirism. After many happy years in this role, God’s plan made it clear that it was not your fate to remain a ghoul for the rest of your existence. One evening, as you were travelling to deliver important letters to a messenger, your path was interrupted by another denizen of the night. This creature was not kind and patient like your beloved Abbess, but dark and disturbed in a manner that you had never encountered - even in Hildegard’s sickest patients at the Abbey. 

This vampire stole you away from Eibingen for a long period of time, during which neither Hildegard nor Jutta were able to find you no matter how frantically they searched. You came to learn that your vampire captor was also privy to a strange sort of sight - nothing like the Light of the Living Lord that Hildegard experiences but certainly something connected to the esoteric. The vampire had heard of Hildegard and her visions but had no interest in being a simple pilgrim. Instead, they wanted to give the famous Abbess a gift by granting an ‘Embrace of the Moon’ to her trusted scribe and confessor before returning you to her doorstep - forever changed by the lunatics blood coursing through your veins.

With the support of Hildegard, Jutta and your Prince - Julia Anatasia - you would come to understand that you had been embraced into Clan Malkavian but that knowledge was anything but a comfort in those first feverish nights. You struggle deeply with the divide that your strange and unstable blood creates between you and your Toreador sisters, but you thank the Lord every day for their unwavering support. 

As the years progressed, it was necessary for all three of you to stage your ‘human deaths’ but you still govern and watch over the abbey at Eibingen. Hildegard gained much fame among humans as a spiritual leader during her ‘natural’ years before her death, but she gained even more as a seer and great intellect in vampire society. Eibingen remains an important place of pilgrimage for vampires and mortals alike - Cainite pilgrims are received by yourself and Jutta in your haven not far from the Abbey and you are in charge of who gets to speak directly with the Abbess herself. 

When the three of you were still mortal, it was your role to help Hildegard with the overwhelming administrative and clerical burden of becoming a famous spiritual leader and respected mystic - aiding her in responding to the reams of letters she would receive from European Monarchs begging her for spiritual advice or for her to reveal the meaning behind a troublesome dream or portent. Although Hildegard is no longer a part of the mortal world, the demand for her spiritual and visionary opinions from religious Cainites across Europe is even greater than what she received at the height of her human fame. Thankfully, Hildegard has her loyal scribe at her side to support her in forming responses to vampire Princes and Lords across the continent - trusting you yourself to formulate many replies of a less pressing nature on her behalf.

Motivations

You were deeply disturbed by the dark and violent vision that Hildegard received a year before Claudius Giovanni’s auction was to take place and you initially cautioned Hildegard against accepting the invitation that Claudius sent her in response to her letter. Hildegard was quick to explain to you that a message from the Lord cannot be ignored - especially since her visitations from the Light have been so rare since her Embrace. You acquiesced to her wishes but you still hold serious reservations about the provenance of her vision - so macabre and so different from the Light of the Living Lord she so often described to you.

You are no stranger to visions and voices of a much darker nature and you know that your Toreador sisters are less likely to be critical of this ‘message’ - as they have always associated Hildegard’s visions with beauty and light before this recent visitation. You will be on your guard at the auction, ready to defend Hildegard and her bright soul from adversaries who may wish her harm. Jutta may be a good judge of superficial character and political actions but she tends to underestimate the advantages of your empathy and your ability to read the deeper intentions underneath a person’s facade.

Other than protecting Hildegard and Jutta, you do have your own reasons for wanting to attend the auction. You have never travelled far from where you were born and bred, even in your centuries living as a vampire you have only visited Prince Antasia’s Court in Frankfurt on very rare occasions. You have great respect for the Antasians and their principles but they can be a little… overwhelming, at times. You are keen to meet other Cainites at the auction, and are equally frightened and excited to make the acquaintance of more members of your clan.

And what of your thoughts of the poor mortals at this auction you are to attend? You do not know enough about your blood or your clan to have ever considered embracing a childe of your own, and your brief and estranged relationship with your own sire did not exactly instil you with a desire to reproduce. Besides, you are much too busy managing Hildegard’s affairs to consider the rearing of a malkavian fledgling. However, you have heard that some of these gifted mortals have powers relating to visions and extrasensory perception, and you are very curious as to whether their powers can be utilised to better understand Hildegard’s mystical sight - or indeed to spread light on your own strange state of existence as a Malkavian.

Off-Game Crib Notes

Volmar was the emotional and spiritual support for her who helped Hilde to become less afraid of her visions and understand they were direct messages from God. He helped with the day-to-day running of the abbey and helped her to write her many letter responses to European leaders’ spiritual questions. He would have been ghouled by her but mysteriously vanished at some point, returned after being embraced by a Malkavian. The Malkavian probably embraced him to ‘help’ Hildegard to be closer to her grace (thanks-I-hate-it). Volmar has very deep concerns about Hildegard attending the auction, as the vision she had about the auction was the most violent he remembers. He wants to attend to be a spiritual and emotional support to her and maybe to the humans and other Cainites attending - also to keep record.

* * * * *

Hildegard on Volmar from her Book of Divine Works:

‘While working on this book, I was much encouraged and assisted by Volmar, a monk who truly followed St. Benedict’s Rule. I was grief-stricken when he died. He was a happy man, and he helped me in so many ways. He served God by listening to every word of this vision, and he corrected them all and made them more orderly. He always kept me going.

He cautioned me never to stop writing because of my physical weaknesses and illnesses, but to persevere in setting down this vision. He served God until the day he died, always supporting me. I mourned him, saying: “Your will has now been done with this man, your servant, whom You gave me to help with these visions. Show me how to carry on!”

Abbot Ludwig of St. Eucharius in Trier stepped up next. He’s a wise man, and it proved valuable that he was familiar with Volmar and my visions. Provost Wezelin of St. Andrew’s in Cologne also came to my aid. His main desire was to do good works for God. These and other perspicacious men both consoled me and offered practical help with this book. Wezelin listened to the words of this vision without getting weary, finding them sweeter than honey.

That’s how this book came to be—through God’s grace and the help of many holy men. And I heard the living Light (Author of these visions) say, “I’ll also reward Volmar and these other monks who helped in the making of this book."'

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