“The rebels then built a new city.
Out of the fallen empire
they collected the thirteen clans
that had been scattered by the great war,
and brought them all together.”
The Book of Nod

Not all Kindred fall into neat lines and boxes. Some vampires keep their clan affiliation unknown; others hail from esoteric bloodlines with no clear relation to an Antediluvian progenitor. Such Kindred are a minority next to those who claim descent from the thirteen clans (it’s far more common for a vampire to simply lie about their lineage), but New Orleans has seen more more than many cities.

Also included here are independent ghouls bound to no one domitor, ghouls of deceased domitors, and the ghouls of the Krewe of Janus, who are bound to the entire krewe. The Kindred would like to believe that every ghoul serves a domitor, but given the fecundity with which vampires can spread their vitae, the reality is often far messier. It’s anyone’s guess just how many independent ghouls there are in the city, doing whatever it takes to score their next hit of the ultimate drug.

Kindred by Status

Kindred 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.

Kindred Status •••

The Kogaion

Lineage: Unknown
Embrace: Unknown
Status: Camarilla 0, Ordo Dracul •••
The mysterious leader of the Ordo Dracul since Hurricane Katrina, it’s anyone’s guess who leads New Orleans’ Dragons. The kogaion appears only at the Ordo’s gatherings to lead ceremonies, always masked and leaving via unseen routes. Only through the use of pass phrases, mystic scripture, and personal knowledge can the Dragons recognize their leader at all. It is unknown why he chooses to remain anonymous as he does, or if “he” is even a he at all. The Dragons presume their leader is male judging by his body shape, but even that could just be part of the disguise.

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.

Kindred 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.

Kindred Status 0

Doctor Dicentra

Lineage: Unknown
Embrace: Unknown
Status: Camarilla 0, Unaligned -
A night doctor of no small renown, Dicentra has been offering their services since their arrival to the Big Easy some years ago. They’re said to have friends in both high and low places and on all the different sides of this cold war, citing something about “doctors without borders.” Dicentra has been known to work out of the Garden District, the Quarter, the CBD, and Marigny and it makes no difference to them if their client is Kindred, thin-blood, or ghoul: they’ll work on anyone who pays the fee, and have even worked on the occasional kine for the right price. It’s said that even Dicentra’s lovers don’t know who they lie with, that they shift between male and female or old and young as easily as most people change clothes. They’re said to have had liaisons with faeries, werewolves, demons, and ghosts, offer their services to mages and warlocks and witches, and any who vex them are swiftly turned into humanoid-animal hybrids from the darkest recesses of the mind’s nightmares. They once pulled the spine clean out of a hated foe and gifted the resulting whip to their then lover, the prettiest lick in the city, and the ensuing catfight over Dicentra’s discerning eye made even the feud between the three harpies look tame. Popular rumor suggests that Dicentra is the Tremere Kyrstin Grey and that she learned the skill from her sire, but to date no one has seen beneath the mask to the lick within… or if they have, they’re not talking.

Ghouls by Status

Ghoul Status •••••

Filles à la Cassette

Ghouled: Mid 18th century
Status: Ghouls •••••
More commonly known as the casket girls or casquette girls, the filles à la casquette were brought from France to serve as wives for early Louisiana colonists and named for the small chests, known as casquettes, in which they carried their clothes. They were conspicuous by reason of their virtue, for women were normally supplied to colonists by raking the streets of Paris for prostitutes and undesirables. The casquette girls, however, were recruited from church charitable institutions, usually orphanages and convents, and practically guaranteed to be virgins. Though it later became a matter of pride in Louisiana to show descent from them, more sinister rumors claim the casket girls were literal casket-bearers and transported vampires from Paris to the New World.
Such rumors are true—at least in part. The filles à la casquette were seen as innocuous and morally upright, and consequently were not targets for suspicion by hunters and vampiric rivals. This made the young girls ideal ghouls to safeguard their domitors during the perilous journey across the Atlantic. Over the years, the surviving filles à la casquette have come to be regarded as living symbols of New Orleans’ history and have changed hands countless times. Indeed, it’s considered a mark of prestige to own a casquette girl, and this has granted the long-lived ghouls a peculiar immunity to the Jyhad. The city’s elders consider them “cultural artifacts” and do not wish to see them harmed. This protectiveness is not born out of mere sentimentality, for the casquette girls have served many important Kindred and know much of the city’s history and political workings… as well as their former masters’ minds. While it might be more convenient for those elders to simply slay the too-knowledgeable ghouls, doing so would be cause for great scandal. Instead, the elders consider it a game to compete for possession of the filles à la casquette. They semi-regularly challenge one another to games of chess, bridge, riddles, proxy-fought duels, and countless other contests of chance and skill whose prize is ownership of a casquette girl. Each of the centuries-old ghouls has changed domitors innumerable times. Even younger Kindred have occasionally come into possession of the filles à la casquette. The elders can’t win every contest and probability dictates it will happen eventually.

Ghoul Status •••

Maurice Garcou

Ghouled: 1919
Status: Ghouls •••
Originally ghouled by John Marrow at the height of the Spanish Influenza, the light-skinned quadroon has continued his mortal trade as the chief mortician of Metairie Cemetery. During the ‘70s, Maurice was “gifted” to the Krewe of Janus by the Nosferatu as part of the prolix diplomatic deal that ultimately lead to Vidal (begrudgingly) recognizing Miss Opal as the sewer rats’ official primogen. Since then, the schizotypal necrophiliac has used his position and skills to protect the Masquerade. Unlike the Krewe’s more physical Mardi Gras enforcers or secretive spies, Maurice puts on faux funerals for Kindred who need to publicly ‘die’; he also prepares and disposes of corpses created by Kindred excesses. Apart from his skills as a mortician and love of graveyard poets like Robert Blair, Thomas Gray, and Edward Young, Maurice is a virtuoso of wax modeling, and his eerily life-like (or corpse-like depending on one’s view) wax models populate many a local and foreign wax museum—as well as private collection of both kine and Kindred.

Mr. Hush

Ghouled: 1957
Status: Ghouls •••
Not many people take Mr. Hush for an assassin. He’s soft, mellow, and introverted. He’s sensitive, occasionally bashful around girls, and enjoys being read to. He dislikes noises and crowds. He can’t stand noise—which is why he kills. He knows peace in the quiet after death. Death is peace. He looks upon himself as a preserver and giver of peace. He’s more than a little touched, in his own way, and some Kindred speculate he had too many sips of Malkavian vitae in the mixed draughts the Krewe of Janus gives out to its ghouls. He’s one of the Krewe’s most lethal killers, but he doesn’t view himself in such terms. He just keeps things peaceful and quiet. That’s what the Masquerade is, if you ask him—peace and quiet. His name, Mr. Hush, derives from his “love” of silence and the fact he always speaks in a whisper. The city’s older Kindred call him Mr. Silencieux. Those who the Krewe marks for death never hear him coming, and he’ll genuinely believe he’s doing them a kindness as he ends their life. Outside of his duties to the Krewe, he’s known to spend time in the company of Elyse Benson. He appreciates how neat and quiet she keeps the Wedding Cake House.

The Monster Dolls

Ghouled: Varies
Status: Varies
A macabre dance performance troupe of ghouls. They use a combination of shadow dancing, prosthetics, makeup, and, in some cases, surgical alterations to obscure their identities, so that they might be kept separate from the feuds of their domitors. The identities of these Kindred remain unknown.

Theomule Grémillon

Ghouled: 1976
Status: Ghouls •••
The Krewe of Janus’ foremost ghoul stationed in Tulane Medical Center.

Ghoul Status ••

The Churchmice

Ghouled: 1965
Status: Ghouls ••
Originally ghouled by Clarice Barabet, the Churchmice are twins originally chosen for their slight frames and meek demeanor. Prior to their ghouling, their domitor had their tongues removed, holding that household ghouls should be seen and not heard. Spending most of their first decade trapped in the Malkavian’s home with her other house servants, they lived quiet, dull, uninteresting lives amid a household of similarly maimed servants, all of them terribly abused by the house’s sadistic butler—the sole member permitted the use of his tongue. When their domitor met her end in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina the Churchmice and most of their fellow ghouls were cast adrift, largely ignorant of the outside world and Kindred society as a whole. They paid a terrible price over the next several years as they collectively tried to secure steady supplies of vitae or new masters, knowing little else but servitude and abuse. The tight-knit half dozen ghouls bled members at a terrible rate, and typically to terrible fates. Some were casually murdered by Kindred for simple amusement, others were victims of frenzies, while others still were killed off as messages to their then-domitors.
Today only a pair of twins remain. They have acquired some status as knickknacks among the city’s neonates, given the novelty of their identical appearances and inability to speak. The pair have changed hands almost a dozen times in the last decade, as their relatively long lives and meek personas make them attractive servants for those wishing to impress elders. They’ve occasionally even been rented out for the night, depending on who their current domitor may be. The two have their own subtle language of hand signals and body language that they typically use to communicate, though they’ve had to learn American Sign Language in recent years as they’ve found it necessary to take on more active roles for younger, less established Kindred. Their real names (Margie and Audrey) are barely recalled by Kindred and even among ghouls they are better known simply as the Churchmice. One of the two is a talented (though not extraordinary) violin player, having been forced to learn by a Toreador domitor several years ago, while her sister is a painter often called on to decorate entire rooms with beautiful landscapes.

Ghoul Status 0

Agnes McPherson

Ghouled: 2014
Status: Ghouls 0
An elderly widow ghouled purely to serve as caretaker for Rocco Agnello’s backup haven. She’s been left adrift since his final death in the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel.

Alice Guillot

Ghouled: 2014
Status: Ghouls 0
Street artist and recent graduate from Tulane University. Independent ghoul discarded after her Toreador domitor grew bored with her in a typical example of his clan’s fickleness.

Dominique Lake

Ghouled: 2012
Status: Ghouls 0
A moody, opinionated punk who formerly served as Baptiste du Lac’s reluctant herald. She grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth, attended all the balls, dressed in all the right gowns to look every bit the lady. This was until her 21st birthday whereupon she suddenly came out as a lesbian and decided to give the finger to high society and labeled herself a free-thinking vegan with a giant chip on her shoulder. Dominique considered her domitor a chauvinistic pig and out of touch with contemporary society, but the blood bond and her own entirely natural fear of Baptiste made her less willing to share her opinion than she previously would have been. Her fate following her domitor’s final death is uncertain.

Holly Jefferson

Ghouled: 1985
Status: Ghouls 0
Well-known Toreador ghoul who has changed hands several times in the last three decades, Holly is something of a hand-me-down given to neonates stepping away from their sire for the first time. Originally a blues singer of moderate repute, her star faded after she was ghouled by Veronica Alsten-Pirrie, who eventually grew bored with her and traded her to Maxzille Babineaux, who in turn passed along the ghoul to her childe Anne as a tutor and instructor. After Anne met final death in Katrina, Holly was picked up by David Hansen, who traded her to Amaryllis DeCuir at Veronica’s “suggestion” after he felt he’d gotten everything he could from the ghoul. Amaryllis eventually felt the same way too and traded Holly to Arthur Duchamps, who let her go a few months later. Holly was seen six different domitors in total, some kind and others cruel, but was known to be a stabilizing force for all. She’s become fairly knowledgeable by necessity about how to set up one’s Requiem, including transferring assets, faking one’s death, and managing all manner of incidental problems that come up for newly-Embraced Kindred. She is growing increasingly tried of the regular hand-offs to new masters and mistresses, but would still prefer almost any domitor at this point to continuing as an independent ghoul.

Katherine “Kathy” Liauw

Ghouled: 2014
Status: Ghouls 0
A bartender at Manning’s, Kathy was ghouled by Rocco Agnello ostensibly to keep an eye on the restaurant near his domain, but more likely out of simple attraction. She’s been left adrift since his final death in the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel.

Larry Shazer

Ghouled: 1996
Status: Ghouls 0
Larry’s had a tough life as a ghoul. Once a successful accountant and financial planner in St. Louis, he was first ghouled by a Ventrue just stepping out of his sire’s shadow. He brought along Larry for his trip for 1999’s Mardi Gras, where he had the misfortune to met his final death as part of a Sabbat pack. Larry ended up adrift for almost a year until he was drawn into the orbit of Rayisa Kostenko, Katherine Beaumont’s second childe, who simply wanted someone else to manage her financial affairs while she contented herself with her own games. That relationship lasted nearly five years until she too met her final death, this time while trying to flee New Orleans amidst Hurricane Katrina’s chaos. That death shattered Larry in a way that the first did not, leaving him a neurotic mess. Clingy, paranoid, and protective of those around him, he’s found the wealth that he inherited by proxy upon his domitors’ final deaths of little comfort. Regarded as cursed by many other ghouls, Larry is known for his willingness to pay other ghouls for his fix and his painfully sad desire for a new domitor, though few are interested in taking on damaged goods. He’s missed his doses multiple times over the last ten years, aging painfully (and only increasing his neuroses).

Mary Phan

Ghouled: 2009
Status: Ghouls 0
An elderly Vietnamese woman who works at Opa Trading Post in Faubourg Marginy. Servant to Lavine before her domitor’s 2015 execution.

Snake-Eyes

Ghouled: Early 20th century
Status: Ghouls 0
New Orleans is a city of dark tales, of urban legends of the wickedest bent. Snake-Eyes is one such legend that dates to the turn of the century. The story goes that he was a respected Haitian houngan or bokor who fled the beleaguered island for New Orleans, only to be disgusted by the racism, discrimination, and disrespect he faced. Infuriated, he turned his wrath on the city’s indulgent and wealthy white youth, terrorizing them in a brutal killing spree that shocked the city until he was eventually cornered by the police and gunned down in a hail of bullets. The story doesn’t end there, however. According to legend he lived on, and continues to his murderous spree to this day, only more covertly. Snake-Eyes, so named for the dice tattoos on his eyelids that are “the last thing you ever see,” does indeed live on, and there is truth to his tale, as only the city’s Kindred know. Ghouled by a now-deceased follower of the Baron’s, the brutal killer became the Kindred’s pocket slave, used carefully through the following century only when he had a particularly filthy mess he needed cleaned up, and otherwise kept on a tight leash. That leash snapped during Hurricane Katrina when his domitor was slain in the ensuing chaos. For a time, many thought that Snake-Eyes had gone the way of his master, but scenes of horror discovered in the city’s crime-ridden slums, and missing white students found hacked apart, give lie to that belief. Where the ghoul gets his continued supply of vitae—if he still does—is unclear, but Snake-Eyes prowls the streets once more, and he does so with meat cleavers, claw hammers, and chainsaws.

La Blême Terreur

Ghouled: Unknown
Status: Ghouls 0
Amongst the kine, there is a centuries-old legend of an immense, man-sized bat with skin as hard and hoary as marble. They say that the creature, which is most commonly known as La Blême Terreur, or the Pale Terror, haunts the cemeteries of the Crescent City where it feeds off the blood of the dead—and occasionally the living. They say that the bat is a demon, a vampire, or ghost: an immortal horror whose gaze curses mortals with a wasting, nightmare-ridden sickness. They say that its flesh is impervious to both blade and bullet and can transform into mist or darkness. They say that it watches—that behind its coin-sized eyes is a malign intelligence, a hungry, inhuman will. The kine say many things. Sometimes, they even say the truth. In the case of La Blême Terreur, the Kindred know the all-too real basis of the urban legend: a centuries-old ghoul that spends its time wandering the Big Easy’s cemeteries, belfries, and nocturnal skies. Its domitor and purpose, however, are less known. Indeed, rampant, uneasy speculation exists amongst the city’s neonates and ancillae. Was it Pakachilu’s? He was both an animist and Gangrel. Is it Vidal’s? Another weapon to monitor and slay his enemies? All the more reason to stay on the prince’s good side. No, it’s a Malkavian’s—it’s just the sort of macabre theatric the clan is known for. Or is it Custance’s, a spy in the Big Easy for the bayou witch? Or is it a ghoul of an unknown, rogue elder—or said elder itself, guised to feast on neonate blood? Intriguingly, local elders seem disinterested in this guessing-game and simply refer to the creature as El Murciélago or Le Chauve-Souris (“The Bat”), though whether their disinterested mien indicates they know the domitor’s identity or they simply do not want to reveal their ignorance is a matter of equal speculation amongst the younger Kindred.

Qua

Ghouled: Unknown
Status: Ghouls 0
The last reported sighting of a wild jaguar near New Orleans was in 1886, after the Donaldsonville Chief newspaper reported that two men had killed a 200-pound animal that had killed several colts, cattle and dogs. Though the proud big cats have since gone extinct from Louisiana, one particular specimen has been sporadically sighted by the Big Easy’s Kindred in the 130 years since. The apparently ghouled jaguar (for what else would explain its longevity?) has not accumulated quite the same aura of mystique as La Blême Terreur, for it does little besides patiently watch the Kindred in that way only cats can. The jaguar shies from closer contact with vampires, but has proven itself quite capable of mauling foolhardy neonates into torpor when attacked. Who the animal belongs to remains a point of mild curiosity among the All-Night Society. The only name attached to the creature is “Qua.”