Campaign of the Month: October 2017
Blood & Bourbon
The Gangrel
“Never abide weakness.
Keep your children loyal.
Walk with your head high.
Let the Beast rule you.”
Gangrel’s words to her childer
Many Kindred discount Clan Gangrel’s presence in New Orleans. The clan’s most prominent elder, Roger Halliburton, once challenged Vidal for the princedom but was destroyed over a century ago. Their primogen Pakachilu was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, depriving the clan of both a regency and Cabildo seat. In these elders’ absence, the clan’s most prominent members are Caitlin Meadows and Lidia Kendall, who respectively serve as the city’s (rogue) scourge and one of the Baron’s lieutenants. By most metrics, the ferals have little political influence.
The Gangrel don’t seem to particularly care. Where East Coast cities stretch along one great megalopolis, and the West Coast’s cities converge into regional clusters like Puget Sound and the Bay Area, New Orleans is a geographically isolated city surrounded by miles of swamp. Most of Louisiana consists of insular small towns, rural countryside, and untouched wilderness. The Beast Clan are some of the only Kindred to know these wilds—and their dangers.
Gangrel roam far and wide throughout Louisiana, but meet semi-periodically in City Park for their gatherings, which are known as things. Things that sufficiently stretch the Masquerade are held in the bayous. These raucous gatherings consist of boasting, tale-telling, contests of skill, and frequently, fighting. Other Kindred can even attend, though whether they leave is another matter. The bayous are not subject to Vidal’s laws. The Gangrel are quite willing to destroy uninvited Kindred who irritate them outside of the safety of Elysium.
Indeed, Vidal has little authority over the clan’s activities beyond his city, or even its members’ comings and goings. Any Gangrel who tires of city life can vanish into the swamps, confident that few Kindred will pursue them. These savage and Loup-Garoux-infested lands are their home.
What most distinguishes the Gangrel from the other clans is that New Orleans is not their gilded cage. They can travel outside the city in comparative safety and are in semi-frequent contact with clanmates who dwell there permanently. It’s anyone’s guess how many Gangrel there are throughout greater Louisiana. Some Kindred believe the ferals could marshal a much larger force of clanmates if sufficiently roused. So far, other Kindred haven’t been eager to find out. As Pakachilu sometimes remarked, “You would do well to remember that our home surrounds yours.”
Genealogy
e. = Embraced |
• 8. Roger Halliburton (e. mid 17th century, a. mid 19th century, d. late 19th century)
• 9. Richard Dahl (e. late 18th century, a. mid 19th century, l. late 19th century)
• 9. Jared Buckner (e. early 19th century, a. mid 19th century, d. 2005)
• 10. Roxandra “Roxy” Adrieux (e. mid 20th century)
• 11. Shaun McClain (e. early 21st century, l. 2005)
• 9. Lidia Kendall (e. mid 19th century)
• 10. Ulysses Brown (e. early 20th century, d. 2005)
• 11. Ann Long (e. late 20th century, d. 2005)
• 8. Nyamekye (e. 18th century, l. mid 19th century, d. ?)
• 9. Wilbur O’Donnell (e. early 19th century, d. early 20th century)
• 8. Pakachilu (e. 18th century, d. 2005)
• 9. Lavine (e. mid 19th century, d. 2015)
• 9. Mitchell Thurmond (e. early 20th century, d. late 20th century)
• 10. Charles “Charlie” Harrison (e. mid 20th century)
• 11. Nathaniel Swain (e. late 20th century, d. 2005)
• 9. Caitlin Meadows (e. mid 19th century)
• 10. Rocco Agnello (e. late 19th century, d. 2016)
• 11. Dahlia-Fleur Guidry (e. mid 20th century)
• 11. Andrew Phillips (e. early 21st century)
• 11. Guilo “Black-Match” Matranga (e. 2016, d. 2016)
• 10. June (e. late 20th century)
• 10. Cleo (e. late 20th century)
• 10. Terrence Oswald (e. mid 19th century, a. early 20th century, d. 2005)
• 10. Joshua Pacuad (e. early 21st century, a. early 21st century)
• 11. Fayde (e. mid 20th century, a. early 21st century)
• 11. Jordan Petrowski (e. late 20th century, a. early 21st century)
• 12. Andrea Oulette (e. late 20th century, a. early 21st century, l. 2005)
• 13. Edward “Ed” Zuric (e. early 21st century)
• 12. Pearlina Shaw (e. late 19th century, d. late 19th century)
• 12. Laura Melton (e. mid 20th century)
• 13. Cherry Nines (e. mid 20th century, d. 2015)
Local Clanmates by Status
Gangrel gain Status from one another through the things, and by having word of their deeds and actions spread by other Gangrel. Status bestowed by members of other clans is generally worthless to the Gangrel, unless the outsider in question has done something to earn Gangrel respect.
Things: While not formal in the sense that a Ventrue or Toreador would understand, Gangrel customs have a strict ritualization to them that the Tremere would be hard-pressed to emulate. Much of what has survived as modern Gangrel culture had come from the clan’s concentration in Scandinavia during the past two millennia. Gatherings of Gangrel are called althings (or things, if they’re on a smaller scale), and the recounting of deeds and tales that occurs at such gatherings is reminiscent of the Viking brag. Althings occur on the equinoxes, while May 8th often hosts smaller gatherings.
Precedence at a gathering of Gangrel is determined by a series of individual contests of dominance. Most such challenges are just staredowns, but a few graduate to brawl status. Such combats are vicious but rarely fatal; there aren’t enough Gangrel for them to go around killing each other at meetings. Such duels for primacy occur whenever Gangrel meet on their own and for the first time, even if it’s just two clanmates coming across each other in the woods.
Once precedence is established, the pecking order is fixed and there’s no need to repeat the process every time the same Gangrel meet. The only exceptions come when someone on the losing end of a prior encounter decides they’re in line for a promotion, and tries again. The winners of such combats gain prestige within the clan, while the losers are reduced in standing (and usually beaten to a pulp as well), which does keep the number of frivolous challenges down.
Once precedence has been established, the leader begins the recitation of names and deeds, plus whatever other information they feel needs to be passed along. If there’s no discussion, the floor is then yielded to the second in command, and so on. All in attendance, regardless of whether it’s a frill allthing or just two clanmates, are expected to remember what they are told, and to pass on the important and particularly interesting tales to other Gangrel not in attendance. Thus heroes are made of some Gangrel and laughingstocks of others, but the news that needs to travel somehow gets spread.
Gangrel Status ••••
Caitlin Meadows
Lineage: 9th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1863
Status: Camarilla •••, Gangrel Status ••••, Hardline Sanctified •••
Caitlin Meadows is one of the most feared vampires in New Orleans. A former insane asylum orderly who specialized in tracking down and subduing escaped patients, Meadows transferred those talents to serving as Vidal’s scourge and has spent over a century destroying whatever Kindred her master deems unworthy of existence. Meadows disappeared for four months in early 2015 and destroyed several neonates affiliated with Antoine Savoy and Baron Cimitière upon her return. These murders were not officially sanctioned: Meadows appears to have gone rogue and made it her personal mission to destroy perceived enemies of the Lancea et Sanctum. Further Kindred disappearances have been blamed on her. Rumor holds Vidal is close to calling a blood hunt and has only refrained because none of his errant scourge’s targets (with the exception of an abortive attack on Gus “Gutterball” Elgin, who survived) were his supporters. Meadows still occasionally appears at Elysium to participate in Sanctified rites before disappearing into the night well ahead of pursuers.
Gangrel Status •••
Lidia Kendall
Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Roger Halliburton
Embrace: 1864
Status: Camarilla •••, Circle of the Crone •••, Gangrel Status •••, 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.
Charles “Charlie” Harrison
Lineage: 10th gen. childe of Mitchell Thurmond
Embrace: 1972
Status: Camarilla •, Gangrel Status •••, Hardline Sanctified ••
Coterie: Snake Hunters •••
Korean War veteran who found it difficult to reintegrate into domestic life and spent much of his time roughing it in the bayous. His sire was impressed by his survival skills and Embraced him after a prolonged game of cat and mouse. Harrison never paid much mind to political concerns, but after his sire (a Sanctified priest) met final death in the 1960s, he claimed Followers of Set were responsible. He and the Brujah Emily Thurmon jointly formed the Snake Hunters, a krewe devoted to combating Setite influence and driving them from New Orleans. Vidal granted Harrison official dispensation in these duties, as he had long held the Setite clan in repugnance and sought to keep them from his city. Harrison accepted induction into the Lancea et Sanctum as a prerequisite for the prince’s support, but remains quite vocal that Kindred politics are a “stupid waste of time.” Vengeance for his long-destroyed sire appears to be a distant concern for him too: what he truly seems to live for is the thrill of the hunt. The Setites are good enough targets and he also boasts of having fought Loup-Garoux and darker creatures in the bayous. Mere mortals, in his eyes, are “unsporting” prey to pursue.
Gangrel Status ••
Fayde
Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Joseph O’Connell
Embrace: 1959
Status: Camarilla •, Circle of the Crone ••, Gangrel Status ••
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.
Joshua Pacuad
Lineage: 10th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 2007
Status: Camarilla 0, Gangrel Status ••, Hardline Sanctified •
A rural Cajun from an impoverished family of duck hunters, Joshua was the first of his kin to go to college and turned their small hunting equipment business into a multimillion dollar empire. Money corrupted him: following several stints in rehab, several soliciting prostitution charges settled out of court, and finally a divorce that saw him lose custody of his children, he was Embraced and abandoned by an unknown sire who he came to believe was God’s just punishment visited upon him. Rediscovering his evangelical faith, he moved to the big city with the intention of visiting God’s wrath upon other deserving sinners like himself, and took to the Sanctified creed like a fish to water. He still enjoys hunting in the bayous (though more than just ducks now) and his prowess has seen him courted by Charlie Harrison to join the Snake Hunters. He’s surprisingly popular among the Toreador, who adore the “folkish authenticity” of his hand-crafted decoys and find his mannerisms so rustic as to be almost charming. Though he still owns his hunting equipment business, he’s long since donated his personal wealth to assorted churches and fervently believes one cannot serve both God and Mammon. He particularly enjoys preying upon rich victims and divesting them of their wealth.
Roxandra “Roxy” Adrieux
Lineage: 10th gen. childe of Jared Buckner
Embrace: 1956
Status: Bourbon Sanctified •, Camarilla •, Gangrel Status ••, Invictus •
Coterie: OXR •••
Roxy was brought into her Requiem by Jared Buckner when she caught his eye on her frequent trips outside the city, running from a home she didn’t feel welcome in. She was still a teenager when he Embraced her, but her quick wits and survival instincts lent well to unlife as a Gangrel, and she spent her formative years as her sire’s childe and lover at his side in the French Quarter where he served as warden to Antoine Savoy. When he was executed in 2006 under the allegation that he had slain Pakachilu, the clan’s former primogen, Roxy made the foray back into Kindred politics to dig up the truth. Friendly with a variety of animals, including the local Loup-Garoux packs, she’s made a name for herself as an investigator by frequently employing animal spies and her own beastly shape to overhear the choicest bits of gossip. Leader of the OXR krewe.
Gangrel Status •
Dahlia-Fleur Guidry
Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Rocco Agnello
Embrace: 1953
Status: Camarilla 0, Circle of the Crone •, Gangrel Status ••
An unfaithful pastor’s wife Embraced by Rocco Agnello in punishment for her sinful ways. Dahlia-Fleur loathed her sire and joined the Circle of the Crone partly to spite him and partly because the covenant’s transgressive, anti-patriarchal Lilith worship resonated with her. She is largely indifferent to the Vodouisant bloc of the covenant and to most other Kindred affairs besides: as far as her sire knows, she spends much of her time haunting the depths of Lake Pontchartrain and surfacing to hunt mortals unfortunate enough to be proximate to the lake at night. This antisocial existence has not been conductive to her humanity, and those comparatively few Kindred aware she still exists wonder how long she has left before she degenerates into a wight.
Jordan Petrowski
Lineage: 11th. gen childe of Gabriel Hutchins
Embrace: 1996
Status: Anarch •, Camarilla •, Gangrel •
Coterie: Kindred Liberation Front ••
An environmental studies professor originally from Baton Rouge, Dr. Petrwoski came to New Orleans after the 2010 Gulf Oil spill to assist in the cleanup and activist (as well as ecotage) efforts against Endron and Malveaux Oil. He fell in with the Anarchs by dint of them being the only covenant to care about his cause. Though he spends long stretches of time in the wilds, he remains an academic at heart and teaches classes (evening ones only) at Tulane University and ceaselessly exhorts his students towards greater environmental activism. Some of the Anarchs deride him for being cozy with Donovan, whose territory includes Tulane, but the professor likes to retort that his “first allegiances lie with the planet that sustains us all.” He appears close to the Caitiff Laura Ravenwood, who came to New Orleans at the same time as him and whose character he vouched for.
June & Cleo
Lineage: 10th gen. childe of Caitlin Meadows
Embrace: 1985
Status: Camarilla 0, Gangrel Status •, Hardline Sanctified •
Coterie: “Snake Hunters”: https://blood-and-bourbon.obsidianportal.com/wikis/krewes-and-coteries#The_Snake_Hunters ••
Caitlin Meadows’ younger two childer are members of the Snake Hunter krewe she Embraced in the mid-‘80s to combat the Setites, whose influence greatly benefited from the crack cocaine epidemic. They have had little contact with the Kindred of New Orleans and are known to spend much of their time in the bayous, hunting for Setites that might have slipped out of the city. They only seem to come into the city when Charlie and Emily Thurmon find evidence of Setite activity. June is more outspoken and is the leader of the pair, while Cleo is more reserved. Neither associates very much with the city’s Camarilla.
Edward “Ed” Zuric
Lineage: 13th gen. childe of Andrea Oulette
Embrace: 2004
Status: Anarch •, Bourbon Sanctified 0, Camarilla •, Gangrel •
Coterie: Armstrong Five •
An itinerant guitarist and country/blues musician, Zuric made his living as a busker across the country before 2004’s Mardi Gras, where he was Embraced and abandoned alongside several other fledglings in Louis Armstrong Park for reasons unknown. Zuric and his fellows made a minor name for themselves tracking down their sires and bringing most to justice, and the bonds of friendship Zuric established with the coterie (who came to be known as the Armstrong Five) convinced him New Orleans was a good place to settle down—until Katrina. Already used to life as a drifter, he weathered the storm’s aftermath and was back by the 2010s. He’s largely content to spend his Requiem busking in the Quarter, picking up girls, and sometimes hitting the road to play in other cities as the mood strikes him.
Zuric was largely content to stay out of politics until the 2015 Anarch split. He sided with Antoine Savoy out of disgust after John Harley Matheson’s then-agent George Smith allegedly attempted to trick him into serving as one of the banished elder’s vessels. His feelings towards his former coterie-mate Becky Lynne remain unknown.
Laura Melton
Lineage: 12th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1973
Status: Bourbon Sanctified 0, Camarilla 0, Gangrel Status •
Coterie: Levee Hepcats ••
Driven from her native Canada by the Sabbat, Laura fled south to New Orleans and was given shelter by Pakachilu, who sponsored her acceptance into the city. After he was destroyed during Katrina and Jared Buckner was executed for his murder, Laura joined Roxandra Adrieux in speaking out that he was not responsible. This stance drove her into Savoy’s arms, though she and Roxandra have butted heads a few times, as Laura insists the Baron was to blame. She’s in and out of the city less often than other Gangrel, but disappeared for a notable stretch several months ago.
Gangrel Status 0
Andrew Philips
Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Rocco Agnello
Embrace: 2011
Status: Anarch Movement •, Camarilla 0, Gangrel Status 0
Coterie: Twenty-Twenties ••
A fat, grotesque creature that looks more rat than man. Rocco Agnello believed Andrew was a budding computer genius and Embraced him to keep up with the rapidly evolving field. Knowing little of modern technology, he did not realize that his new childe was a simple slob and social recluse who spent all of his time on computers while lacking significant actual technical knowledge of the field. Andrew now spends most of his time playing video games, trolling people, and commenting on conspiracy theories. Sire and childe are still on amicable enough terms, but Rocco remains disappointed that Andrew is in no way the IT savant he originally presumed his childe to be.
Devon Pierce
Ghouled: 2011
Status: Ghouls •
Rocco’s younger childe is too ugly to seduce victims and lacks sufficient upper body strength to take them by force (at least without expending precious blood). That left taking them unwittingly. While his Nosferatu krewemates Gerald and Arzilla were freely willing to teach him obfuscate, Andrew still complained to his sire that feeding was hard unless the victim was already sleeping. Breaking into homes, however, was also hard: it was noisy and forced the now-eternally out of shape neonate to expend precious blood. After enough wheedling, Rocco turned to Donovan, who turned over a youth arrested by the NOPD who’d been busted on multiple counts of breaking and entering. That was all Andrew needed.
In exchange for immortality, Devon Pierce spends his nights covertly breaking into homes so that his domitor (who shows little interest in learning how to do so himself) may feed upon the sleeping occupants with less chance of disturbance. Devon considers it a good deal. He gets to live forever, and the tricks he’s learned (his domitor has passed on obfuscate to him) make robbing homes easier than ever. The mob fences associated with his domitor’s sire ask even fewer questions than his old ones. Devon is greedy for a plusher lifestyle, however (Andrew has neither the funds nor the inclination to financially support him), and Rocco has cautioned his childe more than once that a pattern of robbed homes linked to locations where he’s fed may eventually attract the wrong kind of scrutiny. Andrew has halfheartedly told Devon to “take less stuff” a few times, but doesn’t have it in him to discipline the ghoul more seriously.
Stacy Daniels
Ghouled: 2011
Status: Ghoul Status 0
Stacy used to have dreams and ambitions. She used to have a family, boyfriend, and good looks. She used to have a future. It was her bad luck to take the same Sociology 101 class with Andrew Philips as a mortal.
Ren Zahrah
Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Michael Dupont
Embrace: 1997
Status: Anarch •, Camarilla 0, Gangrel 0
Coterie: OXR ••
Ren Zahrah arrived in the city shortly a few years after Katrina. She says she visited with her sire once in the late 20th century for Mardi Gras and found the city “delightful.” When her sire was slain by a roaming Sabbat pack during a visit to New Mexico Ren barely escaped with her unlife, and it was only the actions of Dupont’s ghoul that allowed her to slip free and get out of the city before the pack could track her down. She said she’d heard of the prowess of Prince Vidal even as far as Vegas and wanted a home where she could feel safe from the godless cretins that had taken her sire from her. She presented herself before the seneschal upon her arrival and was accepted into the city. Her “experience” fighting off Sabbat packs saw her courted by a number of licks (mostly neonates) who sought opinions on how to keep themselves safe during Mardi Gras, and she was well-received by the Lord of the French Quarter, whose territory sees the worst of the invasion during the yearly celebration. She was approached by OXR almost immediately after her arrival and joined their numbers without a second thought.
Fallen Gangrel by Status
Gangrel Status ••••
Pakachilu
Lineage: 8th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: Early 18th century
Final Death: 2005 (~300 years undead)
Status: Camarilla ••••, Circle of the Crone ••••, Gangrel ••••
Coterie: Cabildo ••••
Clan Gangrel’s former primogen, Pakachilu was the son of a Natchez chief’s sister (making him next in line to become chief) captured by French colonists and forced to build early New Orleans’ walls. The Native Americans, however, made far less passive labor than the Africans and revolted against their would-be enslavers. Pakachilu’s sire admired his unyielding spirit and Embraced him as he lay dying from a bullet wound. Unfortunately, the Natchez (to the Gangrel’s ignorance) practiced an extreme form of sun worship and Pakachilu was horrified by what he’d become. He disappeared from the region and took years to come to terms with his state. He finally returned out of duty towards his Natchez kin only to find them all but gone. In the centuries since, Pakachilu became a self-appointed protector of all the region’s Native American peoples, though he long begrudged the Choctaw for their collusion with Europeans and disliked the extent to which they had become synonymous with Native culture. He joined the Cabildo after Reconstruction at Vidal’s invitation. He held a bizarre fixation with the sun and proudly bore scars from his repeated attempts to daywalk, which other Kindred find extremely unnerving. His deformities and steadfast adherence to anachronistic Native dress made him stand out and he was destroyed by government-affiliated hunters during Hurricane Katrina.
Roger Halliburton
Lineage: 8th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: Early 17th century
Final Death: 1894 (~300 years undead)
Status: Camarilla ••••, Gangrel ••••, Invictus ••••
An archon who arrived in the city with Justicar Baylor during the American Civil War and the Camarilla’s secret war against the Southron Lords, Halliburton proved the greatest threat Vidal faced to his rule before the rise of Antoine Savoy and the end of Baron Cimitière’s attempts at peace. Halliburton opted to stay in New Orleans after the Civil War’s conclusion and amassed substantial power over the Reconstruction-era government. Unusually charming and well-spoken for one of his clan, he connived Baylor into letting him retain his position as archon and brokered alliances with a number of Kindred growing tired of Vidal’s rule. The prince, however, recovered much of his mortal influence with the departure of Union soldiers from the city, while Philip Maldonato is credited with the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that stopped another justicar from taking on Halliburton as an archon following Baylor’s retirement. What proved his final undoing was his penchant for feeding (and worse) on underage girls, prompting an enraged mob to storm his haven during the day and beat him to death. His destruction is held as a cautionary tale against abusing the kine too far to this night.
Gangrel Status •••
Jared Buckner
Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Roger Halliburton
Embrace: 1836
Final Death: 2005 (169 years undead)
Status: Bourbon Sanctified •, Camarilla •••, Gangrel •••
Jared was a Camarilla servire under Roger Halliburton who arrived in the city during the Civil War, then served as his sire’s right-hand man for the better part of 20 years. Although he didn’t share Halliburton’s perverse tastes, he also did nothing to stop them—some say out of cowardice, others simple indifference. Jared promptly abandoned his sire following Halliburton’s loss of power at the end of Reconstruction and found a new patron in the Gangrel primogen Pakachilu, whom he bonded with over his non-Choctaw indigenous heritage (he was originally from Tennessee and half Cherokee on his mother’s side). Halliburton cursed Jared for his disloyalty, but that timely defection seemed to spare his unlife, as Vidal never got around to executing or banishing the former servire over trumped-up charges. That inaction would be to the prince’s later chagrin, as Jared became one of Antoine Savoy’s first and most devoted supporters upon the Toreador elder’s rise to power. He served as Gangrel clan whip and warden of the French Quarter (essentially Savoy’s localized sheriff) before Peter Lebeaux got the job. That lasted 100 years until Hurricane Katrina. He tried to flee the city when the storm hit, but was staked by the visiting archons and dragged before Vidal, who accused him of slaying the recently-destroyed Pakachilu in a bid to assume his elder clanmate’s seat on the primogen. Jared protested his innocence, but the ongoing crisis and visiting justicar gave the prince more leeway to sentence Jared to destruction under fairly flimsy grounds (at least, in the opinion of his childe Roxanne). He was ultimately staked and left for the sun.
Wilbur O’Donnell
Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Nyamekye
Embrace: 1831
Final Death: 1949 (118 years undead)
Status: Camarilla ••, Gangrel •••, Invictus ••
An Antebellum steamboat captain, Wilbur loved nothing more than the feel of a ship’s wheel between his hands. Ugly, boisterous, and hot-tempered enough to rival any Brujah, no one knew the Mississippi or the tricks of the river trade like he did. Wilbur couldn’t fit in among the more refined Creoles and never tried: the Mississippi was the basis for much of their wealth, and his peerless knowledge of it always kept them coming back to him. He was semi-famous for having developed a unique Protean Devotion that let him physically merge with his steamboat.
The Civil War spelled an end to those halcyon nights, and Wilbur was topored when his boat was sunk by the Union blockade. He awoke several decades later into a world where the railroad had supplanted the steamboat. Wilbur made do as best he could, but it wasn’t the same. The World Wars saw a resurgence of steamboat activity, but by the postwar era, the diesel engine and automobile had made the steamboat obsolete and most were retired and scrapped. Wilbur’s stubborn refusal to retire his boat made him an anachronism. When hunters came for him, he realized his time was truly done, and stayed up to greet the dawn.
Gangrel Status ••
Lavine
Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Pakachilu
Embrace: 1860
Final Death: 2015 (155 years undead)
Status: Camarilla ••, Circle of the Crone ••, Gangrel ••
Dispossessed Choctaw occultist.
Mary Phan
Ghouled: 2007
Status: Ghouls 0
An elderly Vietnamese woman who works at Opa Trading Post in Faubourg Marginy. Servant to Lavine. Her fate following her domitor’s execution is unknown.
Rocco Agnello
Lineage: 10th gen. childe of Caitlin Meadows
Embrace: 1899
Final Death: 2016 (117 years undead)
Status: Camarilla •, Gangrel ••, Hardline Sanctified ••
Coterie: Guard de Ville ••
The senior-most hound under Sheriff Donovan, Rocco has served on the Guard de Ville for well over 100 years but appears content to continue enforcing Vidal’s laws at the end of his fists. His detractors see him as a cruel-tempered bully, but he’s just as liable to be smiling and gracious around those who haven’t incurred the prince’s displeasure. Also a member of the Mafia, he controls a crew of wiseguys involved in Harrah’s, Louisiana’s only land-based casino, where he makes his domain. He met final death during the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel.
Pablo “The Giant” Colombo
Ghouled: 1951
Deceased: 2016 (65 years ghouled)
Status: Ghouls ••
A large-framed and somewhat dim-witted man with a copious appetite for Italian food, Pablo was a gentle giant by nature who likely wouldn’t have wound up breaking legs for the Mafia on his own. His family’s influence ensured that he did, and Rocco’s vitae ensured he’d stay in that life forever. The Gangrel was known to hold genuine fondness for his long-time ghoul, however, and would task Corbin “Spook” MacCready or Guilo “Black-Match” Matranga with carrying out hit jobs to spare the softer-hearted Pablo, who primarily served as his bodyguard. Pablo’s swordarm was no weaker for his softness, but still not strong enough. He was slain during the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel while defending his domitor.
Simon “The Finch” Colombo
Ghouled: 1951
Deceased: 2016 (65 years ghouled)
Status: Ghouls ••
Finch is the younger mortal brother to Rocco’s long-time bodyguard, Pablo “Giant” Colombo. His nickname comes from the finches he keeps as pets and regularly communicates to in avian chirps. He’s known for being Rocco’s “other” herald after Annabelle Bellerose; where she visits other Kindred in their domains and maintains the hound’s presence in Elysium, Simon mostly confines himself to Rocco’s domain and handles introductions and interactions with Kindred who come calling there. He’s also known for delivering handwritten messages via a novel finch “carrier service." He was slain by Roberto “Gamberro” Vaccaro in the 2016 Battle of the Arts District.
Gangrel Status 0
Guilo “Blackmatch” Matranga
Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Rocco Agnello
Embrace: 2016
Final Death: 2016 (one night undead)
Status: Camarilla 0, Gangrel 0, Hardline Sanctified 0
Decade-long ghoul to Rocco and newly appointed capo in the Mafia. Previously served in the Afghanistan War as a demolitions expert. His soldiers joke, darkly, that “if some fellas gots a ‘short-fuse’, Guilo’s gots a ‘no-fuse’.” He was Embraced in the aftermath of the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel and slain in the subsequent Battle of the Arts District.
Other Fallen Gangrel
• Cherry Nines (13th gen. childe of unknown sire, Anarch Movement, e. mid 20th century, d. 2015)
• Ann Long (11th gen. childe of Ulysses Brown, Circle of the Crone, e. late 20th century, d. 2005)
• Nathaniel Swain (11th gen. childe of Charlie Harrison, Hardline Sanctified, e. late 20th century, d. 2005)
• Terrence Oswald (10th gen. childe of unknown sire, Unaligned, e. mid 19th century, a. early 20th century, d. 2005)
• Ulysses Brown (10th gen. childe of Lidia Kendall, Circle of the Crone, e. early 20th century, d. 2005)
• Mitchell Thurmond (9th gen. childe of Pakachilu, Hardline Sanctified, e. early 20th century, d. late 20th century)
• Pearlina Shaw (12th gen. childe of unknown sire, Circle of the Crone, e. late 19th century, d. late 19th century)
Extralocal Gangrel
Houston, Texas (348 miles to New Orleans)
• Andrea Oulette (12th gen. childe of unknown sire, Unaligned, e. late 20th century, a. early 21st century, l. 2005)
• Shaun McClain (11th gen. childe of Roxandra “Roxy” Adrieux, Anarch Movement, e. early 21st century, l. 2005)
Nomads
• Richard Dahl (9th gen. childe of Roger Halliburton, Invictus, e. late 18th century, a. mid 19th century, l. late 19th century)