Circle Status of the Crone Status •••••

Baron Cimitière

Lineage: Unknown
Embrace: Unknown
Status: Camarilla •••••, Circle of the Crone •••••, Hecata •••••
Coterie: The Baron’s inner circle
The inscrutable Baron Cimitière is Augusto Vidal’s second great rival and a houngan in Baron Samedi’s service who leads an enormous flock among the city’s Vodouisants—Kindred and mortal. He seems to have minimal interest in becoming prince himself, yet remains steadfast in his opposition to the throne’s other two contenders.

Des Jumeaux

Ghouled: 1839 and 2008
Status: Ghouls •••• and ••
True to their joint moniker, Baron Cimitiere’s heralds are twins known as powerful houngans, collectively possessing the authority of both a houngan asogwe (high priest) and houngan sur pwen (junior priest), although amongst other circles they are regarded as fell bokor—whose sorcerous power is allegedly amplified or weakened depending upon whether the pair are close or distant, respectively. Ascertaining the truth of this rumor, is all but impossible though, as the Jumeaux (whose individual names were reputedly sacrificed to loa) are seemingly always together. Indeed, the pair have only been known to be separated once: when one of the Jumeaux vanished during the ‘40s, allegedly killed by Vidal’s agents. Although the survivor was devastated, his loss was tempered by the fact his brother reappeared in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The two claim the lost brother’s soul was reincarnated in a new body and subsequently ghouled by the Baron once he was of age to match his twin.

Circle Status of the Crone Status •••

Doc Xola

Lineage: 10th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1953
Status: Brujah ••, Camarilla ••, Circle of the Crone •••
Coterie: The Baron’s inner circle
One of the most feared Kindred in the city by neonates, Doc Xola is a hulkingly muscled bokor who serves as Baron Cimitière’s chief enforcer. Utterly without conscience or scruples, his penchant for going after his targets’ families is just one of the factors that keeps direct attacks on the Baron’s people to a minimum. In addition to these duties, Xola carries “doctor” as a medical as well as Vodoun title. He operates a back alley clinic that performs no-questions-asked surgeries and abortions, deals drugs, and (to Kindred customers) sells the blood Xola collects from operations. The only thing he doesn’t sell are aborted fetuses, which he enjoys feeding from.

Lidia Kendall

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Roger Halliburton
Embrace: 1864
Status: Camarilla •••, Circle of the Crone •••, Gangrel •••, Ordo Dracul •••
Coterie: The Baron’s inner circle
Baron Cimitière’s long-serving lieutenant and the former leader of the Ordo Dracul, Lidia was born to a white woman raped by a black slave who treated her as a mark of shame. Embraced at the age of sixteen by Roger Halliburton, Kendall served her archon sire as a servire until his destruction in the 1890s. Her simultaneous fascination and repulsion with slaves and her culture led her to the Ordo Dracul’s transcendental philosophies, whose members in turn introduced her to the Baron, and who Kendall came to regard as a surrogate sire and parental figure. She eventually rose to leadership of the Dragons and operated them as largely an extension of the Baron’s power. After Hurricane Katrina and the Kogaion’s assumption of power, she uneasily finds herself serving two masters. She also has significant influence over gangs in the Ninth Ward and provides much of the Baron’s mortal street muscle.

The Redcaps

Ghouled: Varies
Status: Ghouls •
Lidia Kendall’s gang of ghouls.

Malia Eliza Curry

Lineage: Unknown
Embrace: Unknown
Status: Camarilla ••, Circle of the Crone •••, Hecata •••
Coterie: The Baron’s inner circle
Among all the Baron’s followers, Malia is the the greatest servant of the loa and the most potent blood sorcerer after the Samedi houngan himself. Where Lidia Kendall serves as the Baron’s right hand in his control over the city’s gangs and criminal elements, Malia serves as the Baron’s left hand in matters of faith. She is a mambo in her own right and leads his congregations (mortal and vampiric) alongside him and sometimes in place of him. Little is known of her origins. She appeared out of nowhere during the early 20th century, some say as an immigrant from Haiti, but she has answered no questions as to her past. Her own self matters but little next to the will of Les Invisibles. She has given herself over to possession by the loa on countless occasions and sometimes there seems to be little of her original personality left. She is given frequently to trances and strange behaviors that make little sense to her covenant members: only the Baron’s presence seems able to compel her to complete lucidity. For many years, she was presumed to be a Malkavian, but she never seemed especially close to her alleged clanmates. It only recently came to light that she hailed from the same bloodline as her patron. Most presume her appearance to be a product of Obfuscate, for none have ever seen her as the rotting corpse she is underneath.

Circle Status of the Crone Status ••

Amandine

Lineage: Unknown
Embrace: 2011
Status: Camarilla •, Circle of the Crone ••
A Cajun from a self-described “backwoods middle of nowhere town,” Amandine hasn’t spoken of who granted her the Embrace or what clan she hails from. Most Kindred assume she’s Caitiff, like they do for any neonate of indeterminate lineage, but the Baron’s faction doesn’t treat her the same way they do Josue Vendredi. They’ve been equally taciturn on the subject of her bloodline.
Amandine specializes in Acadian folk magic, but has expanded her repertoire to hoodoo and Vodoun since coming to New Orleans (she’s one-fourth black on her mother’s side). She’s shown herself to be a remarkably fast learner and might well be the covenant’s most knowledgeable blood sorcerer, after Malia Eliza Curry and the Baron himself.
But where outsiders can find her elders inscrutably esoteric and lost in mysticism (not to mention creepy), Amandine seems determined to put her knowledge to practical use. Her pet cause is the Strix. She won some measure of acclaim in the Camarilla several years ago after seeking out a wilderness-dwelling Southron Lord and saving her from possession by one of the owls.
Amandine ventures beyond the city semi-periodically and claims that signs of Strix have grown increasingly frequent in recent years. She’s been equally vocal that local Kindred need to prepare against them. Most Kindred consider her warnings through an inevitably partisan lens, though, and supporters of Vidal and Savoy claim she’s trying to distract them by diverting attention to a nonexistent (or at least overstated) threat. Amandine remains as fiercely devoted to the Baron as any of his followers, but has expressed frustration that petty factional games are keeping the Kindred from uniting against a common enemy. Her detractors say that’s all part of her ploy.

Fayde

Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Joseph O’Connell
Embrace: 1959
Status: Camarilla •, Circle of the Crone ••, Gangrel ••
Fayde is old. Not in Kindred years, but in human years, and she lets no one forget it. She frequently grouses that Kindred society would have fewer problems if they Embraced more people who’d “lived a while before they died.” A rootworker and practitioner of Hoodoo, she’s equally quick to point out the differences between her beliefs and Vodoun, and in fact strongly identifies as Protestant. (Vodouisants who also identify as Christian are almost exclusively Catholic.) She still remains on good terms with the Baron’s people and considers them the best Kindred champions for the city’s black community. What truly captures Fayde’s attention, though, are mortals who have “the gift.” She knows a great deal about kine who exhibit supernatural powers of all varieties and believes that vampires are permanently stunted beings in comparison. It’s unclear exactly why such mortals interest her (she claims to have had “the gift” herself before her Embrace), but vampires who threaten them draw her ire as do few other things.

Circle Status of the Crone Status •

Aniyah Bailey

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Marguerite Defallier
Embrace: 2010
Status: Camarilla 0, Circle of the Crone •, Toreador •
A prepubescent aspiring poet-rapper Embraced by Marguerite Defallier for reasons not entirely clear, Aniyah grew up surrounded by Vodoun but wasn’t a believer until the Embrace tore all doubts from her eyes. Her newfound faith in the ancestor spirits led her to join the Acolytes—as well as her dislike of the Invictus, since in her eyes the pursuit of power and money is what created slavery and maintains the economic impoverishment and racial oppression of NOLA and her people. Since she’s too young to perform much of her work publicly, she creates poems, has others perform them, then makes mixing tapes as sacrifices for the loa. She’s on good terms with a number of Anarchs, especially Jonah Freeman, but is too lukewarm over the fact that a white Frenchwoman friendly towards Vidal co-leads the covenant to want to join them. Marguerite has found her childe’s beliefs and political affiliation to be a source of some embarrassment, but remains on speaking terms with her.

Catarina Glapion

Lineage: 13th gen. childe of Janine Clairmont
Embrace: 2014
Status: Camarilla 0, Circle of the Crone •, Malkavian •••
　

Jonah Freeman

Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Foxfire
Embrace: 1963
Status: Anarch •••, Brujah ••, Camarilla •, Circle of the Crone •
Coterie: Kindred Liberation Front •••
Civil Rights activist and Black Panther Embraced during the ‘60s. Jonah was an Anarch who spent most of his Requiem in Atlanta before before moving to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: he’d learned his mortal grandmother was a follower of the religion and found that its African roots greatly appealed to him. He is interested in establishing closer ties between the Anarchs and the Acolytes, but has been frustrated by Coco’s and Miss Opal’s support of Vidal. He avoids carrying around the trappings of Vodoun, still considering himself only a beginner in the religion despite close to a decade of study. Since 2013, he’s transferred his passion for racial justice to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Josue Vendredi

Lineage: 10th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1963
Status: Caitiff -, Camarilla 0, Circle of the Crone •
Teenage Vodouisant who regularly attended Baron Cimitière gatherings and never knew his sire. The Baron took the boy under his wing out of pity, believing his obligation to his followers extended even to Caitiff, but nevertheless treats him with cold aloofness. For his own part, Josue is desperate to win his idol and benefactor’s approval and show that he is more than his clanless blood.