---

History

Life

The Kindred who now calls himself Harlequin was born the youngest son of a successful doctor. His family was old money and its heirs wanted for nothing except productive ways to spend with their time. The young man’s youth was an endless procession of balls and parties, and he developed into quite the charming young rake by the time he was twenty. His father passed away the same year, leaving the young man to inherit a sizable portion of the estate and a membership in the Mistick Krewe of Comus, the city’s oldest Mardi Gras krewe.

The next year and a half were a whirlwind of balls, cocktails, and theater engagements. The young man never stopped to think about his dead father, though he dimly felt like he should. He obeyed his mother’s wishes when he was around her and promptly forgot them when he wasn’t. He had a gaggle of pretty female admirers, each of whom he professed to love with all his soul, and none of whom knew about the others—or his male lovers. He frantically prepared for each Mardi Gras with his krewe and delighted in the spectacle and prestige of belonging to the secret fraternity.

Embrace

The young man had never met a woman so enchanting as the one he danced with at a 1909 yuletide ball. He plied her with compliments and flattery like any of his other conquests, and their liaisons were the sweetest he’d ever experienced, even if they left him feeling oddly fatigued for days afterwards. He became so obviously smitten with her that his other lovers found out. Then his family did. Rather than beg their forgiveness, the young man refused to recant his ways. His male liaisons and other indiscretions came out. He was disowned and expelled from his krewe. He swiftly frittered away his remaining inheritance on a newfound love for cocaine, Storyville prostitutes, and satisfying the expensive tastes of his increasingly bored-seeming lover. When she tiredly asked how he would even get them into the Harlequin’s carnival ball now that his name was mud, the young man answered they would simply attend in costume. After all, the guests weren’t supposed to recognize one another. His lover assented with some amusement. Several nights later, he was just getting into costume when she pounced upon him with bared fangs. The startled socialite’s last sight was of his spattered lifeblood dripping off the edge of a domino mask.

The young man’s Embrace shattered his self-delusions. When he demanded to know what he’d done to deserve this, his sire Clarice laughingly answered that she had seen in him “talent ignored, intelligence wasted, and spirituality denied, all crammed down and festering behind a facade of glittering idiocy.” She tore off his mask and revealed his true self for all to see, yet the callous socialite refused to change his ways. Truly, the Sanctified vampire proclaimed, he had earned his damnation.

Early Requiem

The fledgling Malkavian came to bitterly regret his misspent youth and treatment of his mortal family. He grew obsessed with masks and illusions and took to calling himself “Harlequin” to honor his change. He was a wretched, pitiful thing for the next five years, and his sire angrily wrote him off as a waste of the Blood. He found surprising kindness from Robert Bastien, the city’s then-sheriff, who helped him to understand what he had become. Bastien also encouraged to him join a coterie of other Sanctified misfits known as Sol’s Grief, whose members included Rocco Agnello, René Baristheaut, the future Father Malveaux, and later Pablo Gallegro. Harlequin found some solace in their company, but it was not until Bastien was destroyed by hunters during 1915’s Mardi Gras that Harlequin experienced an epiphany.

The massive influx of visiting Kindred meant that Carnival was always a busy time for New Orleans’ Camarilla. Vidal, Savoy, and the Baron were doing the best they could to maintain the Masquerade, but the three elders refused to work together and the city was suffering for this lack of coordination. Furthermore, given Bastien’s destruction, their “joint” efforts were obviously no longer enough. It made the Crescent City look bad to visiting Kindred, too. Harlequin took to his clan’s notorious tradition of “pranking:” those who violated the Masquerade found their havens’ furniture rearranged and disturbing messages left behind, warning against future violations on pain of terrible consequences. Mortal witnesses had their memories erased, played off, or were simply made to disappear. Harlequin left the more martial task of dealing with Sabbat incursions and vampire hunters to visiting archons and the three elders’ enforcers. He would ensure the hunters starved for targets to go after, the Sword of Caine left behind smaller messes, and the city’s defenders would not have to spend their efforts cleaning up other Kindreds’ Masquerade breaches.

It was the one endeavor seemingly every vampire in the fractious city could agree was necessary, and no one could dispute that Harlequin knew the ins and outs of Mardi Gras and the city’s krewe culture better than anyone else. He started out on his own with a retinue of ghouls. His efforts were lauded and soon drew other Kindred. Harlequin declared them a new krewe: the Krewe of Janus, named for a Greco-Roman deity just like all the others. In keeping with tradition, of course, all of the members had to go masked and keep their identities strictly secret. This was ostensibly to make their task easier, for the Krewe’s actions won them no friends among the Kindred guilty of Masquerade violations, although it also had the effect of sole credit for the entire endeavor falling upon Harlequin. Some Kindred wondered if he’d intended it that way from the start, but no one could deny the mask-obsessed Malkavian’s sincerity of purpose. He had discovered his calling, his entire reason for being.

He would maintain the Mask.

The Unmasking of the Krewes

The next eight decades were good ones for Harlequin. His reputation rose with the Krewe’s success, and even his sire Clarice considered it a sufficiently productive endeavor to grant him a place at her side. He was careful to maintain neutrality in the conflicts between the city’s elders, all of whom sought to draw the Krewe into their own orbit, and all of whom would have jeopardized its mission. Harlequin claimed his sole interest lay in upholding the Mask.

It would take a threat to another one of Harlequin’s “masks” to draw the Malkavian into taking any overtly political actions. Harlequin had long considered the old line Mardi Gras krewes to be his domain and relished the secrecy with which they concealed their members’ identities. In 1992, a crusading African-American city councilwoman named Esther Sue Parker accused the old line krewes of discriminating based on race and authored an ordinance insisting that all krewes institute an open admission policy for anyone seeking to join their organizations, if they chose to use publicly funded city services to hold their parades.

While few people doubted the semi-secret societies largely restricted their memberships to wealthy white men, this attempted “unmasking” enraged Harlequin as few things had. Kindred close to him reported several highly disturbing frenzies. The normally apolitical Malkavian began pledging or calling in boons from politically connected Kindred like there was no tomorrow to defeat Parker’s ordinance in city hall while smearing her name with manufactured scandals. In truth, Harlequin perhaps needn’t have bothered: the public reaction to Parker’s ordinance was as swift as it was vicious. Old-line kre­wes threatened to end Mardi Gras by refusing to parade if this ordinance was enforced. The media maligned her as the “Grinch who Stole Mardi Gras.” When Parker still moved ahead with public hearings that forced the club members to answer questions they didn’t even ask in private (and which confirmed them to be “all-male and all-white”), Harlequin secured Vidal’s permission to go after the at-large city councilwoman personally.

The Malkavian became a phantom who haunted Parker’s every step. He killed her dogs and left their severed paws inside her shoes. After she found these, he left the first of their heads inside her refrigerator and the second one under a toilet seat. He broke into her house and rearranged her furniture while she slept. He moved her bed as she lay resting. He spiked her food with psychoactive substances. He invaded her mind directly with his powers, unlocking her worst fears and most paranoid delusions. He filled her nights with sleepless terror and her days with building dread. All of the attacks were seamlessly carried out from behind the Masquerade and blamed upon overzealous members of the old line krewes (a story Harlequin considered deliciously true). A few mailed death threats and paid-off thugs who vandalized Parker’s house and car gave those individuals a mundane face to blame, but none of the city councilwoman’s 911 calls ever seemed to avail her.

Harlequin was unpleasantly surprised by the councilwoman’s temerity when she continued with the public hearings, exposing a number of further members’ identities. The mortal woman had little hope against the equally determined Malkavian, but she made him bleed for his victory by forcing him to resort to gross supernatural tampering of her mind to put an immediate end to the hearings. Harlequin quickly arranged a cover-up with his usual seamless aplomb, but Elysium still wheedled the “master of the Masquerade” for his “slipping standards,” “recourse to such crude measures,” and “lack of foresight.” Incensed to have been embarrassed by a mere kine, Harlequin did not relent in his “pranking” until Parker lost her council seat and was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. A week later, news reports declared that the “Mari Gras Grinch” had hanged herself.

Her Embrace by Miss Opal made her a thorn in his side for some time.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was a dreadful time for Harlequin. The great Mask came perilously close to slipping completely off. No one was surprised when the distressed Malkavian remained behind in the city: though his help in maintaining the Masquerade was invaluable, the larger Krewe of Janus’ efforts seemed less than they normally were. Many of its members were believed to have fled. The Malkavian clan was left in tatters from so many final deaths, and even Harlequin’s sire Clarice was ash when the floodwaters receded. When survivors expressed doubts over even holding Mardi Gras in 2006, it was too much for Harlequin. He left the city for greener pastures.

Since the Storm

Harlequin journeyed to San Francisco, where he is believed to have enjoyed the hospitality of the Vampire Club and its proprietor Sebastian Melmoth. New Orleans heard little from him until 2010 when Vidal lifted the moratorium on new Embraces. The prince may have been too proud to ask Harlequin to come back, for his feelings towards the Krewe had always been lukewarm. Antoine Savoy’s were not, and he wasn’t too proud either. 2006’s Mardi Gras had been a humble enough affair and manageable without the Krewe of Janus, but Harlequin’s absence had been sorely felt over the last three years. Masked Kindred had continued to carry on the Krewe’s traditions, but everyone had to admit that none of them lived for “the Mask” like Harlequin had. No one knows exactly what appeal Savoy made when other attempts to sway the reportedly morose Malkavian had failed, but the results spoke for themselves. On 2010’s Fat Tuesday, Harlequin dramatically “unmasked” his presence at Elysium in one of his most outrageous costumes yet. The Krewe of Janus was back.

After that year’s Mardi Gras was declared a resounding success, the Krewe’s founder swiftly fell back into his old role and more besides. He took his sire’s place among the harpies, who had suffered a near-total decimation of their membership during Katrina. Vidal was thought to feel even more lukewarm about the Krewe’s activities, given the circumstances of Harlequin’s return. No one could deny the city benefited from his presence after three Fat Tuesdays without him, though. Antoine Savoy received no small praise for his efforts in bringing the Krewe’s leader “back home,” but Harlequin has declined to further tie himself to Savoy’s fortunes despite obviously preferring the French Quarter lord’s affable personality over Vidal’s tedium.

His first, highest, and sole concern remains the Mask.

Influence

Domain

Harlequin makes his domain in Faubourg Marigny. The parish’s politically neutral status has allowed him to better maintain the Krewe of Janus’ similarly nonpartisan role. He is otherwise thought to be relatively unvinvolved in Marigny’s affairs. Sundown, for his part, takes his fellow harpy’s association with his already prestigious regency as a win.

Ghouls

Harlequin’s “Masks”
Ghouled: Varies
Status: Ghouls ••
These four masked ghouls accompany Harlequin at all times, endlessly parroting their domitor’s speech and mannerisms. None of the ghouls have ever revealed their faces. It’s anyone’s guess whether they are the same four who first appeared at Harlequin’s side a century ago—he never refers to them by name and the masks they wear change constantly. There have always seemed to be two male and two female ones, judging by the shape of their bodies, but this could easily be faked. The ghouls appear to have no duties beyond mimicking their master, fawning over him, and serving as impromptu furniture. It is unclear what practical function, if any, they actually serve.

Pawns

• Mardi Gras: It’s a running joke that Mardi Gras is Harlequin’s domain. After all, there’s no Kindred who knows Carnival’s history and customs better than him, who’s more involved in the festivities, or who loves the holiday as dearly. He is unfailingly present for the yearly meeting of the courts for the Rex Ball, in attire ostentatious enough to rival a Mardi Gras Indian.

• The Old Line Krewes: Harlequin has claimed domain over the old line krewes since the affair with Esther Sue Parker and zealously guards them against attempts to expose their members’ identities. The old line krewes are powerful social clubs, some hundreds of years old, and steeped in secrecy and tradition. Many men (and fewer women) from the city’s most prominent families are members and use the krewes as venues to conduct out-of-sight business dealings with one another. Whether or not Harlequin takes advantage of this (it’s uncertain whether he even does), he considers the krewes to be cultural treasures and guards their secrecy with the single-minded fixation that only a Malkavian can have.

Status

Everyone knows Harlequin for his founding and leadership of the Krewe of Janus. No one (or at least no one who’s telling) is certain of the Krewe’s exact size, membership, or resources. To newcomers, the Krewe seems like an omniscient bogeyman with eyes, ears, and knives everywhere. Harlequin does little to dissuade anyone of this impression. Indeed, the Krewe is quite possibly the most powerful coterie in New Orleans—arguably more so than the primogen, which is less less relevant as an institution than in any other cities. Because of the Krewe’s self- proclaimed mission of protecting the Masquerade, most Kindred leave them be, and the city’s elders generally support them. (Krewe of Janus Status •••••)

When Harlequin’s sire was on the Cabildo, he served as her right hand and the clan’s whip. The title doesn’t have much official worth since her final death, but Harlequin is still the closest thing the Moon Clan has to a primogen. Many of his clanmates look to him for direction and leadership—at least insofar as it exists among the lunatics. (Malkavian Status ••••)

For his work with the Krewe of Janus, Vidal has recognized Harlequin (if somewhat reluctantly) as regent of the Masquerade. It’s a somewhat unusual exception given the prince’s normal preference for assigning regencies by geographical areas.

Harlequin’s regency gives him considerable if narrow authority pertaining to enforcement of the First Tradition. Through him, the Krewe of Janus is allowed to apprehend Masquerade violators (what some Kindred have equivocated to as “making arrests”) and bring them before the prince or (more typically) officers of his court to face punishment. They’re also permitted to pass lesser sentence themselves. The Krewe is well-known for its “three strikes” rule of issuing warnings (often disturbing) upon a first offense, slaying a violator’s loved one upon the second, and turning them over to the sheriff for the third. After two prior violations, the usual result is final death.

What’s less spoken of is that Harlequin and the Krewe sometimes pass that third sentence themselves. This is technically a usurpation of the Sixth Tradition, but it’s a dirty secret that many regents engage in similar practices where troublesome enough Tradition-breakers in their domains are concerned. So long as the perpetrator isn’t anyone important, the sheriff usually has more important things to worry about than if a repeat offender finally stops causing problems. (Camarilla Status •••)

As a member of these social judges, jury, and executioners, Harlequin’s opinion carries no small weight in Elysium. He isn’t thought to be particularly invested in the ongoing feud between Marguerite, Katherine, and Veronica, and is known to play the three Toreador against one another. (Harpy Status •••)

Harlequin’s efforts to preserve the Masquerade, one of Longinus’ foremost commandments to the Sanctified, have won him great acclaim among the Church Eternal. He is also a deacon, like most senior members who aren’t already clergy are. (Lancea et Sanctum Status •••, Bourbon Sanctified Status •••)

Recent Events

Genealogy

Lineage

Harlequin is the childe of Clarice Barabet, the Lancea et Sanctum’s third bishop in New Orleans and Clan Malkavian’s former primogen. The lunatics refuse to speak the name of Clarice’s sire, but she is believed to be the grandchilde of an enigmatic elder known only as the Mother.

Broodmates

Harlequin’s broodmate King Bolden is a cornetist beloved by the city’s Toreador.

Childer

Harlequin’s first childe Marceline Duval is a surrealist painter of some standing within the Invictus. His second childe Elyse Benson is a frosty-tempered but seemingly rational dollmaker who serves as a de facto public face for their clan. Benson’s only childe was destroyed during Katrina, but through Marceline, Harlequin is ancestor to a line of Kindred stretching down to the thirteenth generation.