The Hardline Sanctified

Hardline Sanctified

“I am God’s holy monster. I drink from humanity.
I could not see what part I would play for such a long time, because I looked at it with human eyes, with eyes that would die.
So I put forth the truth in this book, for you who seek, just as I have sought.
For I am not some Godless beast who hunts beneath the grandeur of sanctity.
I am the grandeur; I am sanctified.”
The Malediction of Longinus

The Lancea et Sanctum is undeniably the single greatest Kindred power in New Orleans. In addition to claiming both the prince and his most potent political rival, a majority of New Orleans’ Damned population count themselves nominally among the Lancea et Sanctum. Because they believe in the same God, even if their views toward Him differ, members of the covenant often bear a resemblance to the faithful of the various Abrahamic faiths. This overlap is even more pronounced in New Orleans than in many other domains, as Prince Vidal is a devout and practicing Catholic and has been so for longer than he’s been a vampire (this is actually somewhat unusual, as the Lancea et Sanctum consider themselves a distinct branch of Christianity from Catholicism). The trappings of the Lancea et Sanctum in the Crescent City are thus even more heavily influenced by Catholicism than they are elsewhere.

It’s an unmistakable presence to any Kindred who have been in New Orleans for more than a few nights. Signs of such Sanctified Catholic ideology are everywhere, if one knows how to look. A great many Kindred offer regular prayers or devotionals, and it’s not even terribly uncommon (circumstances permitting) to see a vampire offer a prayer of thanks over a vessel. For those Kindred not averse to the symbols of the divine, churches and cathedrals are sources of many herds, contacts and retainers, as the Kindred feel most at home among those who share some aspects (if certainly not the specifics) of their faith. Many of New Orleans’ Kindred pride themselves on their knowledge of scripture, from The Testament of Longinus to the Bible. One’s familiarity with the tenets of those holy texts and the various interpretations of the Traditions is actually a mark of status in some of the diocese’s parishes. It surprises many Kindred visitors (and discomfits many secular or superstitious Kindred) to learn that crucifixes, rosaries and pendants with the faces of saints are not uncommon accouterments for many of the city’s vampires.

The religious influence is even more obvious in gatherings of the court and formal Elysium affairs. Vidal chose the secular title of prince, rather than archbishop as is common in Sanctified dioceses, because he did not feel he had earned the right to an ecclesiastical title. Nevertheless, every formal affair begins with a solemn religious ceremony. This is sometimes as simple as a brief prayer but more frequently involves a number of traditional Lancea et Sanctum rites performed by multiple priests and, on occasion, the prince himself. Any Kindred who attend are expected to participate in the rituals, as an enthusiastic audience if not as actual contributors. No exceptions are made for Kindred of differing beliefs. They participate or they depart. This is particularly true on Catholic holidays, which the prince insists be honored with both Latin mass and Kindred rites.

Perhaps the single largest sign of the Lancea et Sanctum’s dominance in New Orleans is the makeup of, for lack of a better term, the ruling class. Prince Vidal is fanatic about granting territories to only his allies. Doing so has always been a major concern with him, and he has grown more restrictive since the rise of Antoine Savoy. While it is not unheard of for him to grant a territory to an Invictus or even Anarch ally, a majority of regents in New Orleans are Sanctified Kindred in general, and loyal to Vidal specifically. Given that even the normally opposed followers of Vidal and Savoy often cooperate to make sure that a non-Sanctified Kindred fails to obtain any true authority, it seems unlikely that the balance of power will shift any time soon.

Divisions of Faith

Laity

The laity are the rank and file members of the Lancea et Sanctum, comparable to the congregants of a mortal church. They are the covenant’s most common members and have the fewest formal duties. Although they can perform valuable functions for the Church Eternal, they will always be less than its clergy, in much the same manner that an associate in the Mafia or an enlisted soldier in the military will always be less than a made man or a commissioned officer. Still, a century-old lay ancilla can command significant knowledge and power within the covenant. Only fools underestimate the laity.

Deacons

Deacons are technically lay members of the Sanctified who may perform a number of functions in assistive capacity to priests, or in place of a priest when one is not present (e.g., taking confession). Lay Sanctified look up to deacons as intermediary leaders within the covenant. Almost all Sanctified who become priests spend a period of time as deacons, although not all deacons go on to become priests. Most elders within the covenant who do not join the clergy are deacons.

Priests

Priests are the backbone of the Lancea et Sanctum in any city. They are empowered to perform the ritae during Midnight Masses, grant absolution for confessed sins, learn theban sorcery (deacons may typically only do this with special permission), and not least of all, provide spiritual guidance and direction to the laity. While most Sanctified are not priests, most of the covenant’s leaders are. Priests are ordained by bishops. The Sanctified ordain female as well as male clergy, although this is not as forward-thinking a policy as many neonates initially assume: in the covenant’s eyes, the Kindred are dead and damned things unable to perform the essential functions of a man or woman, and so are no longer truly male or female.

Bishops

A bishop is the spiritual leader of the Lancea et Sanctum in a city, serving in much the same role as a bishop in the Catholic Church. Some cities may have more than one bishop (known as a synod), but this is rare. A bishop who is also the prince of their city is known as an archbishop. Bishops are appointed (through a ceremony known as consecration) by cardinals.

Cardinals

Cardinals are bishops who oversee Sanctified interests across large geographic regions, such as a significant nation in Europe (e.g., France, Germany) or a collection of American states. Cardinals who also rule a city as prince often adopt the title of primate, although most are too occupied by their duties to the covenant to assume a prince’s additional responsibilities. All of the Sanctified cardinals across the world form a body known as the Crimson Curia. The Curia convenes councils on an as-needed basis to decide issues of faith and collectively steer the covenant’s direction.

Black Saints

Even devils have idols. The Black Saints are patrons of individual sins (cowardice, heresy, suicide, infanticide, usury, etc.) whom the Sanctified revere as paragons of their faith and pray to for guidance and intercession. Much like how mortal saints are presupposed to have entered Heaven, the Black Saints are guaranteed absolution after the Second Coming for having so perfectly fulfilled God’s will. Unlike mortal saints, who are canonized posthumously, Black Saints can be canonized while still “alive:” after all, the Kindred are immortal. Still-extant Black Saints enjoy a similar privilege to papal infallibility and their every word and deed is considered unchallangeable. To contradict one is blasphemy. Most Black Saints withdraw into secluded unlives of prayer and contemplation, but a few hold political office within the covenant. Cardinal-Saint Fabrizio Ulfilfa, the cardinal of Italy and patron saint of heresy, is one of the best-known Black Saints. The still-extant Black Saints form a body known as the Council of Thebes. The most revered of the Black Saints are the Dark Apostles, the original followers of Longinus’ first disciple, the Monachus.

Augusto Vidal’s Faction

Vidal and his court, known as the Hardline Sanctified or simply the Hardliners (in contrast to the Bourbon Sanctified who follow Antoine Savoy), still hold the largest amount of power in the city. The greater portion of New Orleans is Vidal’s domain. Certainly, he has divided the parishes up among his favored and most faithful vassals, but he exerts ultimate authority. Only in the French Quarter and the poor (and predominantly black) neighborhoods does the prince’s reach falter.

It certainly appears that Vidal has little to worry about, as his efforts to date have prevented both Antoine Savoy and Baron Cimitière from swiftly expanding their own territories. In recent years, however, Vidal has grown almost fanatical about retaking those portions of his city he has lost. As his attention focuses ever more closely on his rivals, much of the night-to-night duties of managing the archdiocese fall to his seneschal, Philip Maldonato, and the Cabildo. All efforts by his allies to encourage the prince to seek some sort of accommodation with Savoy and/or Baron Cimitière have been violently rebuffed. For whatever reasons, known perhaps only to him, Vidal has determined that Savoy and Baron Cimitière must be eliminated. He has put no specific plans in motion in recent years, but all who work with him know it is only a matter of time. If something isn’t done, the prince could plunge his own city into open Kindred war.

Augusto Vidal: The Prince

As a devout Catholic and a devout Sanctified, Vidal sees the maintenance and growth of the Lancea et Sanctum’s rule as one of his primary duties. He selects his vassals and grants territories based on personal allegiance, certainly, but also on covenant affiliation. Vidal is canny enough to elevate an allied member of the Invictus or Anarchs over a Sanctified loyal to Savoy, but this circumstance is practically the only one under which he would aid in the ascension of a non-Sanctified Kindred to a position of power.

Despite his claims of loyalty to the Lancea et Sanctum’s beliefs and ideals, Vidal is not above using his authority among the Kindred to further his personal goals and to execute his own vendettas. For decades, Vidal supported first the institution of slavery, and then the persecution of freed slaves in his diocese. This was due partly to his own archaic ideals regarding class and social status, but also due to his utter hatred for the religion of Vodoun, brought to America by Haitian and Caribbean slaves. Vidal considers the faith an abomination, not merely because of its “pagan” aspects, but because its practitioners often incorporate Catholic saints into the pantheon of loa.

The Lancea et Sanctum of New Orleans devotes substantial energy to maintaining its position of dominance. Members of other covenants are required to participate in the rites conducted at formal gatherings and to adhere to the laws and traditions of the covenant. Lancea et Sanctum Kindred often work together to harass non-Sanctified vampires who attempt to claim or enforce domain rights over parishes that were not formally granted them by Vidal (or, in some instances, Savoy). Vidal himself uses these activities as a cover for his own personal crusade against Baron Cimitière, his supporters and the Vodouisants community in general. Vidal is a great believer in letting the masses of the kine do his work for him. Through his ties to the Catholic Church, he spreads messages of intolerance toward Vodoun, denouncing the religion’s “usurpation” of the saints. Through subtle messages and willful ignorance of their parishioners’ actions, those priests over whom Vidal holds sway encourage harassment and even violence against Vodouisants.

The prince makes similar use of his influence in local government circles, a task made unfortunately all the easier by the fact that a majority of Vodoun practitioners—followers of Baron Cimitière or not—are among both the poor and minority populations of the city. Local police are encouraged to raid hounfours (Vodoun temples) and arrest practitioners on trumped-up drug, gang-related or even indecency charges. City funds for charitable and outreach programs and for urban repair are funneled elsewhere, leaving Vodouisant-heavy neighborhoods in poor condition or even without reliable utilities. Kindred newcomers to New Orleans involved either in Vodoun or in actual trafficking of narcotics are likely to find themselves swept up in the prince’s personal vendetta, one that a substantial portion of the city’s Sanctified aid in carrying out.

Since Hurricane Katrina, Vidal has stepped up his activities even further, to the point of foisting off many of his other responsibilities on his allies and advisers. Whatever he plans, many believe it most likely involves a major offensive against Baron Cimitière (and possibly Antoine Savoy) in the very near future.

Vidal is technically the covenant’s local archbishop—that is, he is a Camarilla prince who is also formally the leader of the Lancea et Sanctum in his city. Vidal, however, was never ordained as a priest and remains a lay member of the covenant. He consequently refuses to take on any ecclesiastical titles, and he objects strongly to anyone referring to him as “archbishop,” even when dealing with him in that capacity.

Kindred by Position

Bishop: -
Priests: Gus “Gutterball” Elgin (•••), Elyse Benson (•••), John Marrow (••)
Deacons: Augusto Vidal (•••••), Philip Maldonato (••••), Harlequin (•••), Slane Holland (•••), Gabriel Hurst (••), Deon LaCroix (•)
Laity: Caitlin Meadows (•••), Alexander Wright (••), Yi Huang (••), Charlie Harrison (••), Caroline Malveaux-Devillers (•), Catherine Ward (•), Gina Elsworth (•), Joshua Pacuad (•), June (•), Cleo (•), Warren Kontkowski (0)

Kindred by Hardline Sanctified Status

Hardline Sanctified Status •••••

Augusto Vidal

Lineage: 6th gen. childe of Urcalida
Embrace: 13th century
Status: Camarilla ••••• •, Hardline Sanctified •••••, Ventrue ••••• •
Coteries: Augusto Vidal’s inner circle, the Gerousia
The draconian and religiously fanatical prince of New Orleans, Vidal has ruled over the city for longer than most its Kindred denizens have even existed. He has withdrawn into solitude since Hurricane Katrina. Recent revelations claim he will soon enter torpor and that an end to his centuries-long reign finally draws nigh.

The Hussar

Ghouled: 1769
Status: Ghouls •••••
Augusto Vidal’s herald. A Spanish cavalryman brought over with Alexander O’Reilley’s forces in 1769, the Hussar is older than most of the Big Easy’s Kindred and has the scars to show for it: his face was horrifically burned in the Great Fire of 1788. He is a grim, dour, and humorless man like his domitor, and almost condescending in his dealings with lesser Kindred. Few would be so foolish as to lay hands on the prince’s own property, after all. His two sole joys in life consist of collecting antique weaponry and all things to do with horses. Chief among his equestrian treasures is his nearly three-century-old steed, Furia, whom he still has occasion to ride in public during the Mardi Gras parades. Vidal and his partisans refer to him as Capitán Gaultierrez, but most of New Orleans’ Kindred simply know him as the Hussar. His given name is long since forgotten by all.

Furia

Ghouled: 1769
Status: Ghouls 0
The Hussar’s ghouled steed, a coal-black Andalusian thoroughbred mare. Before crossing the Atlantic in 1769 alongside her equestrian, she was already a blooded veteran of the Guerra del Asiento, the War of the Austrian Succession, and Seven Year’s War. The past centuries have done little to diminish her mad temper or bloodlust—and it is said that she will bear none beside the prince and the Hussar to touch, much less ride, her.

The Crescent Brotherhood

Ghouled: Mid 19th century to early 21st century
Status: Ghouls •• to ••••
Vidal’s collection of former veteran police.

Hardline Sanctified Status ••••

Philip Maldonato

Lineage: 7th gen. childe of Shu’ayb al-Mohager
Embrace: Many centuries ago
Status: Camarilla •••••, Hardline Sanctified ••••, Lasombra ••••
Coteries: Augusto Vidal’s inner circle, Cabildo ••••
Philip Maldonato has been the seneschal of New Orleans for as long as Vidal has ruled the city, but he was the Ventrue’s confidante, lover, and right hand for centuries even before then. He enjoys a more even-handed and sagacious reputation than the prince, and most Kindred would consider him the perfect choice to succeed Vidal—were it not for the recent disclosure of his Lasombra blood. The clan isn’t yet that high in the Camarilla’s esteem. Nevertheless, Maldonato remains one of Clan Lasombra’s most respected elders in the United States and a vital facilitator for the Night Clan’s entry into the Camarilla. He assumed the role as primogen for his clan in New Orleans to no one’s surprise.

Robert Congo

Ghouled: Late 18th century
Status: Ghouls •••••
The herald and majordomo of Philip Maldonato, Robert was once a slave of Congolese origin who was “freed” by Maldonato and subsequently educated in both scholarship and politesse. He is responsible for many of the (literal) day-to-day details of Perdido House’s administration.

Annabelle “Bella” Bellerose

Ghouled: 1883
Status: Ghouls ••••
Rocco Agnello’s former herald, following her domitor’s final death in the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel, she’s found her way to the seneschal’s service. This svelte, morose beauty haunts the dimmer parts of Elysium. She says she doesn’t like the limelight. Notable for her dry sense of humor, superficial banter, gloomy quips, and enduring look of boredom. She is the seneschal’s eyes and ears, and occassionally subtle hand.

Kâmil

Ghouled: Mid 19th century or prior
Status: Ghouls ••••
A former eunuch soldier-slave in the Ottoman Empire, it’s a question of some uncertainty how old Kâmil is and how he found his way into Maldonato’s service half a world away. He first appeared by his domitor’s side in the mid-19th century and has served him as a bodyguard and driver ever since. Although his primary function remains martial in nature, Kâmil holds postgraduate degrees in a number of fields and just as often serves his domitor as an investigator and general problem-solver. He is one of the few ghoul survivors of the Battle of Mt. Carmel.

Hardline Sanctified Status •••

Caitlin Meadows

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1863
Status: Camarilla •••, Gangrel ••••, 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.

Elyse Benson

Lineage: 10th gen. childe of Harlequin
Embrace: 1957
Status: Camarilla ••, Hardline Sanctified •••, Invictus ••, Malkavian •••
Purity-obsessed dollmaker. Harlequin and Katherine Beaumont were both attracted to the mentally unstable young artist and played a game of chess for the right to Embrace her. Katherine learned to her chagrin that few Kindred can predict a Malkavian’s moves. Elyse and her sire serve as their clan’s de facto face to other Kindred, but where Harlequin is mirthful and whimsical, Elyse is always calm, collected, and deadly serious. She is zealously fixated with the concepts of “purity” and “perfection”, which she considers dolls to be peerless epitomes of. She disdains overt displays of emotion and (especially) sexuality: rumor holds that she forces all of her ghouls to submit to castration or female genital mutilation. Milder rumors claim that she merely makes them wear chastity belts. She has remained an avid dollmaker into her Requiem and her work adorns the havens of many Toreador. An anorexic in life, her Embrace has only made her even more doll-like and she resembles nothing so much as an animate, life-sized version of her own creations.

Elyse Benson’s “Dolls”

Ghouled: Varies
Status: Ghouls • to ••

Key

Ghouled: 2007
Status: Ghouls ••
Majordomo to Elyse Benson who manages the servants, upkeep, and assorted daily (and nightly) business at the Wedding Cake House. Believed to have been a valet or hotel manager in his mortal life, Key is a consummate host and seems to derive genuine pleasure from making others happy. Rumor holds that his sexuality-despising mistress has either castrated him or forces him to wear a chastity belt at all times to “control his urges.” He is also an enthusiastic crossdresser and quite adept at turning himself into one of the “dolls” who make up Benson’s stable of beauteous, rigidly controlled ghouls. Further rumors hold that he seeks to become female, not because he is “genuinely” transgender, but because he thinks his domitor will love him more if he’s a woman. He is sometimes allowed to participate in drag shows at Faubourg Marigny as a reward for good behavior.

Gus “Gutterball” Elgin

Lineage: 10th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1859
Status: Camarilla •••, Hardline Sanctified •••, Nosferatu ••••
Coterie: The Anointed
A former streetcar operator, Gus Elgin earns his nickname of “gutterball” from a grotesquely crushed-in head that was caused by an accident with his own streetcar. Well-versed in scripture, history, and etiquette, Elgin serves as one of the Sanctified’s priests, Vidal’s quietly unobtrusive master of Elysium, and regent of the equally quiet parish of Bywater. He’s also a fixture in Antoine Savoy’s court due to the sheer number of sites in the French Quarter that are declared Elysia. Since the Toreador would-be prince wants to be seen respecting the tradition of Elysium, he reluctantly allows Elgin freedom of movement. Although he almost certainly tries to limit what Elgin can see, the Nosferatu priest is an observant creature who takes full advantage of his free access to Savoy’s territory. As a result, he may well be the most informed Kindred in the city about both factions’ nightly social activities. He’s not without enemies, though, as Caitlin Meadows savagely attacked him several months ago for reasons known only to herself. The Nosferatu barley survived and remains quite paranoid of her.

Harlequin

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Clarice Barabet
Embrace: 1910
Status: Bourbon Sanctified •••, Camarilla •••, Hardline Sanctified •••, Malkavian ••••
Coteries: Harpies •••, Krewe of Janus ••••
No one knows Harlequin’s real name or face. Every night is Mardi Gras to this Malkavian, who is never seen wearing anything besides a face-concealing domino mask and changing rotation of ostentatious costumes. Harlequin is famous for leading the Krewe of Janus, a bogeyman-like coterie of anonymous Kindred that maintains the Masquerade (“that greatest of all masks”) by stalking, harassing, and eventually slaying violators. The Krewe is Big Brother to the city’s neonates and seems to have eyes everywhere, always watching for indiscretions. Elders are fond of the Krewe, which has secured Harlequin a place among the city’s harpies. Harlequin himself was a member of the Mistick Krewe of Comus in his mortal life and loves few things more than a good party—and no party more than Mardi Gras.

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.

Slane Holland

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Dominique Toutain
Embrace: 1876
Status: Camarilla •••, Hardline Sanctified •••, Ventrue •••
Coteries: The Gerousia, Guard de Ville •••
A former hound on the Guard de Ville, Holland left New Orleans after Robert Bastien’s final death in 1915 to instead serve Vidal as a lictor. These roving troubleshooters for the Ventrue clan move between cities, dealing with problems as they arise and shoring up local clan power structures. Holland spent most of the past century traveling throughout the American South, but was an occasional visitor to New Orleans over the years, as it remained the home of much of his bloodline. In 2016, he relocated to the city and was appointed its new sheriff after Donovan’s final death. A former major in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, he still has his ghouls address him by his old military rank.

Hardline Sanctified Status ••

Alexander Wright

Lineage: 11th gen. childe of Doc Xola
Embrace: 1984
Status: Brujah •••, Camarilla •, Hardline Sanctified ••
Coterie: Guard de Ville ••
Vidal’s enforcers aren’t all humorless automatons. One need look no further than the sarcastic-tempered Alexander Wright as an example. To the Sanctified, he’s one of the hounds loyally serving under Sheriff Donovan, and to the Anarchs and Crones he’s an unfortunate mistake. In life, Wright was a gangbanger Embraced by Doc Xola for reasons he can’t begin to guess. Wright’s sire blood bound the young Brujah and forced him to commit (and endure) all manner of heinous acts. The Sanctified earned his loyalty after they broke his blood bond to Xola and offered him a new place, even if it was no small irony for the mortal gangbanger to become a Kindred cop. Still, he’s taken to the job with gusto, and is happy to take his trademark titanium bat to the skull of anyone who calls him a sellout. He controls one of the larger gangs in Central City. Wright was a survivor of the Battle of Mt. Carmel, and briefly served as interim sheriff in the aftermath until the arrival of Slane Holland.

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.

Gabriel Hurst

Lineage: gen. unknown, childe of John Harley Matheon
Embrace: 1957
Status: Camarilla ••, Hardline Sanctified ••, Ventrue ••
Coterie: Cabildo ••
Gabriel Hurst is the city’s youngest primogen and was appointed to his seat by Prince Vidal after his predecessor met final death during Hurricane Katrina. Hurst isn’t anywhere close to the age or status of the Cabildo’s other elders, and most Kindred presume him to be little more than a yes-man to the prince. For his part, Hurst has a reputation for being a tradition-abiding Southern gentleman and appears genuinely honored to serve the interests of his vastly older clanmate.

Clifton Manning

Ghouled: 1885
Status: Ghouls •••
Francesca Dumont’s former and Gabriel Hurst’s current herald.

John McCullem

Ghouled: 1958
Status: Ghouls •••
Gabriel Hurst’s majordomo. Owner of the Magazine Street barber shop Cullem’s Cuts.

Terrence Blevins

Ghouled: 1994
Status: Ghouls ••
Gabriel Hurst’s chief of security.

John Marrow

Lineage: 11th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 1887
Status: Camarilla ••, Hardline Sanctified ••, Nosferatu •••
Coterie: The Anointed
Sanctified and Catholic priest who runs a church in the Tremé District. He still performs mass and takes confession from his congregants, even if his undead state precludes him from doing so during the day. The nondenominational Sanctified consider his mortal identity unusual but largely harmless: Vidal, who remains a staunch Catholic, considers him heretical. Marrow evades the brunt of the prince’s displeasure through his residence in Tremé. He professes neutrality in the conflict between the Acolytes and the Sanctified, but for all this, many do not find it a satisfactory explanation for Baron Cimitière’s apparent acceptance of a Sanctified priest in the heart of his territory. Marrow has never shown his true form outside of Obfuscate to anyone who’s talking, claiming it as God’s punishment for an iniquitous mortal life.

Yi Huang

Lineage: 9th gen. childe of Miss Opal
Embrace: 1927
Status: Camarilla •, Hardline Sanctified ••, Nosferatu ••
A Chinese immigrant and former laundromat owner in New Orleans’ long-since-vanished Chinatown, Huang was a heartless man who grew wealthy by abusing and exploiting his own people. Miss Opal was reminded of her own life as a slave and decided the laundromat owner required a lesson in humility. Huang changed dramatically following his Embrace and renounced his former ways, vowing to make amends to the “common man” he’d exploited for so long. He just as avidly hunts those who would exploit them. His take on Sanctified dogma is somewhat unorthodox, but there’s little denying the zeal with which he plays the avenging angel. Huang hasn’t fully kept up with the times and remains a devout adherent of Marxism as well as Maoism, which even many Anarchs now roll their eyes at.

Hardline Sanctified Status •

Caroline Malveaux-Devillers

Lineage: 7th gen. childe of Augusto Vidal
Embrace: 2015
Status: Camarilla •, Hardline Sanctified •, Ventrue •
Coteries: Augusto Vidal’s inner circle, Guard de Ville ••, Low Table •••, Leviathan Committee •••, Red Right Hand •••
For two hundred years, the Kindred of New Orleans thought that their prince would never Embrace again. They thought wrong. Tonight Caroline Malveaux-Devillers stalks the Crescent City with the blood of the prince running through her veins—and all the associated ambition and expectations that such lineage entails. Though only a neonate, her accomplishments to date—including allegedly slaying Sheriff Donovan—and growing influence in the city have led many to speculate she will not idly abdicate her sire’s throne upon his torpor.

Autumn Rabinowitz

Ghouled: 2011
Status: Ghouls •
Originally a cleaner from the Krewe of Janus, Autumn came into Caroline’s service following her dismissal from the Krewe for unspecified reasons. She initially functioned as an adviser to the young Ventrue in matters of the Masquerade. She’s since transitioned to her current role as manager of many of Caroline’s areas of influence among the kine world while working at Monument Law.

Brian Fuller

Ghouled: 2015
Status: Ghouls •
Prior to his ghouling, Brian was a retired Corpsman with a largely redacted past indicative of those with special operations experience. He appears to handle most matters of personal security for Caroline and was ghouled shortly after her release. In the years since, he has also adopted a role as the lead on all security operations she manages.

Kimberly “Kim” Carson

Ghouled: 2017
Status: Ghouls •
Kimberly appears to have been recruited by Caroline after her involvement in a Masquerade breach by Tobias Harrison, a now-destroyed Caitiff and Quarter rat caught poaching in Tulane. She serves Caroline as a researcher, investigator, and occasional assistant. She’s finishing her master’s degree at Tulane and is currently employed at Monument Law.

Sabirah Hakimi

Ghouled: Unknown
Status: Ghouls •
Little is known about Sabirah Hakimi. The ghoul appeared with no notice or existing record following the 2016 Battle of the Arts District in Caroline’s company and has not since been seen parted from her domitor’s side. Rumors abound that she is an elder ghoul brought to the city to serve as a bodyguard to the prince’s childe, or that she is secretly a Kindred herself employed towards some similar purpose: she’s never been seen out during the day. Whatever the truth, she has become a permanent fixture with the prince’s childe, and is thought to be high in her favor.

Catherine Ward

Lineage: 12th gen. childe of Alonzo Collazo
Embrace: 2016
Status: Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified •, Lasombra •
Coterie: Red Right Hand •••

Hector Lowe

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls •
Catherine’s near-constant companion, Hector’s life trajectory largely mirrored Catherine’s. Born to immigrant parents and immersed in the Catholic Church from a young age, Hector’s early years were spent on the straight and narrow, even serving as an alter boy. That came to an end when his father was deported in in Hector’s teens and he was drawn into increasingly unsavory work to ‘support’ his mother and sister. By 2016 he was a fully initiated member of a criminal gang, the Cottonmouths, in Algiers. When most of the gang vanished in 2016 he found himself the inheritor of portions their ill-gotten wealth—that good fortune was not to last however as months later Catherine Ward came calling on him at the Ventrue’s prompting.
Originally planning to kill him as both a sinner and loose end, Catherine found him repentant in the face of the combination of overt demonstration of the supernatural and religiously inspired reckoning visited upon him. Hector threw himself on Catherine’s untender mercies, seeking to save not his life, but his soul. The rest is, as they say, history.
Years in service to Catherine has served to break down any remaining loyalty or attachments to Hector’s past life. These nights he is entirely his domitor’s agent, a repentant and masochistic servant of the damned. Those same years have hardened the street brute, under the watchful gaze of the many more professional former service members he was surrounded by, into a genuinely skilled fighter, marksman, and foot soldier to the Sanctified.
His relationship with Catherine is uncomplicated: she is the savior of his immortal soul even as she remains a tormentor of his mortal body, regularly torturing him at his own insistence to help ‘purge’ his more impure desires. As nights have gone on the Lasombra has had to develop increasingly cruel and creative tortures for him—not that she objects.

Sarah Anne Widney

Ghouled: 2015
Status: Ghouls •
Once the ghoul of Caroline Malveaux-Devillers, Ms. Widney was one of the early ‘gifts’ given to Catherine in her role as the ‘leader’ of the Red Right Hand, there to support their transition into the All-Night Society and handle many of the day-to-day administrative requirements that the krewe required to take their lives public and private across the veil. These nights she serves as a capable day-to-day administrator that handles finances and many other more mundane requires for the krewe. That role has gradually expanded into assisting with all manner of Masquerade-related matters (including inconvenient bodies). The irony of her growth into that role is not lost on Widney. Catherine has tended to take a much firmer hand with the once-butler, though whether to her pleasure or chagrin is less clear from the famously taciturn ghoul.

Timothy Jackson

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls 0
Father Jackson was once a merely covetous priest, perhaps beneath the attentions of the Sanctified as he quietly supplemented his income with money from the church’s coffers. That changed when he found himself how lucrative extorting his fellow corrupted members of the clergy—child molesters and simple fornicators both—could be. For his part, Father Jackson found his own vices mild. Catherine disagreed. Though initially inclined to see him slain for his intransigence, his ‘reform’ and subjugation presented a lever window into the church without perverting a ‘genuine’ man of God.

Furnie Jacobs

Lineage: 12th gen. childe of Alexander Wright
Embrace: 2016
Status: Brujah •, Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified •
Coterie: Guard de Ville ••
A former street kid turned U.S. Marine and the “youngest” member of the Guard de Ville, Furnie cut his teeth as a ghoul for Alexander Wright for several years before dying in the 2016 Battle of Mt. Carmel on the end of Caroline Malveaux-Devillers’ sword—a fact he never lets his fellow hound forget. He subsequently arose as a postmortem Embrace and survived the brutal fighting during the Battle of the Arts District, which earned him a place on the Guard. He shores up the prince’s “northern front” by making his domain along the borders of the Baron’s recently expanded territory.

Willy Deshommes

Ghouled: 2018
Status: Ghouls •
Willy has had Furnie’s back almost since his Embrace. The huge Haitian ghoul is a magnificent physical specimen, standing almost 7’ tall and built like a tank, with arms larger than most men’s thighs. He considers Furnie to be his savior, having brought him to Christianity in life, and would happily lay down his life for the Brujah. Not that dying is in the plan.
His faith is a deep and abiding well that exceeds even that of his domitor, and on more than one occasion he’s stepped in on his domitor’s behalf to restrain him from choices he might regret. For all his physical might and barely contained violence, he’s a moral man who favors talking to fighting, much like his domitor. He piously attends church every Sunday.

Genevieve “Gina” Elsworth

Lineage: 13th gen. childe of unknown sire
Embrace: 2015
Status: Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified •, Toreador 0
Coterie: Red Right Hand ••
Gina was a teenage graffiti artist Embraced in the heat of passion by her sire after he nearly killed her. Picked up by servants of the prince only nights into her Requiem, virtually all Gina has ever known about the All-Night Society is her membership in the Red Right Hand. Quiet, almost meek, she’s the most withdrawn of the group, rarely seen alone and preferring to shadow her fellows, especially Kenneth.

Jimmy Watt

Ghouled: 2017
Status: Ghouls •
Gina’s designated ‘security’ ghoul, Jimmy was one of a number of individual’s ‘auditioned’ to the Red Right Hand by Caroline Malveaux-Devillers’ through her own head of security, Brian Fuller. A prior Navy corpsman, he was more quiet, reserved, and introspective than many of the others when introduced. Gina was drawn to Jimmy when she saw him with a sketchbook. In his spare time (especially when waiting around) he’s often found with a pencil in hand sketching whatever strikes his fancy. Though less stocky than many of the security ghouls utilized by the group, Jimmy, like the others, saw actual combat in Afghanistan and is no pushover. Less well-known and advertised is that Jimmy regards himself as well and truly damned, deserving of his fate as a servant to Kindred masters, due to an firefight in which he shot and killed a woman and her infant child by mistake in Afghanistan—a split-second decision that has haunted him ever since. Jimmy’s frame is all wiry muscle built over a marathon runner’s long legs and lanky arms. His blonde hair is sharply offset by a patchy mustache he’s cultivated since his first days in the navy that Gina has coined ‘endearing’. Other opinions are more mixed, ranging from ‘you should shave that shit off your face’ to ‘you look like the child of a porn star and a child molester’.

Kathleen “Kitty” Palmer

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls •
Kathleen is the most recent building manager for the Giani Building. Smiling and motherly (at least around Gina), she presents a welcoming image for the building and prospective tenants utterly at odds with her existence as the ghouled servant of unholy monsters. A divorcée with no children, Kathleen was rendered sterile in a botched abortion that also destroyed her marriage. What even her husband didn’t know was that it wasn’t his child, and that the abortion was an attempt to hide that fact and save her marriage after her infidelity. In her own way, Kitty views Gina as the daughter she never had, the bond warping into a twisted maternal affection for her. The vampire’s failure to reciprocate any similar affection—and attempts to avoid her—no doubt contributes to her spending most nights with a bottle of wine. Kathleen provides most of Gina’s clothing—and other needs for that matter—frequently showing up at night with wrapped ‘presents’ for Gina. She tells the Toreador that they’re things she saw that she thought would look good on her, but the truth is her shopping is much more deliberate, and she feels a surge of pride on the rare occasions when Gina deigns to wear the outfits she’s provided. Kathleen looks like a woman past her prime—but only just. Her skin hangs a little too loosely on her arms and legs, her face has just the beginnings of wrinkles, her dark hair has just begun to thin, and there’s the slightest hint of a paunch at her stomach. She’s not ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s the type of woman that young men have only recently stopped chasing, no matter how many cosmetics she dolled herself up with. At least that was true until the blood gave her just a bit of an edge on the average woman at a bar—enough to help her satisfy her growing and shameful appetite that Gina has privately used to help justify the woman’s damnation, citing, ‘she can serve until she learns the lesson she didn’t the first time’.

Gideon “Deon” LaCroix

Lineage: 12th gen. childe of Trevon LaCroix
Embrace: 2005
Status: Brujah •, Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified •
Deon grew up in the Upper Ninth and became sucked into the Bloodhound Gangstaz on Eastside and the life of a gangbanger by his older brother. Inter-gang violence spilled into a drive-by shooting that killed his brother and some “innocents” caught in the crossfire. Gideon spent about a decade in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, during which he became skilled at Jailhouse Rock (“52 blocks”) and had a religious awakening. He left gang life when he got out and became a deacon in the local Baptist church, where he tried to set kids straight and help out with community anti-gang initiatives.
That lasted until his brother returned and Embraced him. A childe of the infamous Smiling Jack, Trevon wanted nothing more than to raise hell on behalf of his sire, and thought nothing of turning more kids to gang life as his pawns. With a heavy heart, Deon slew his brother during Katrina and pledged his loyalties to Vidal, still with the goal of turning away youth from gang life. Lidia Kendall and other Kindred with gang ties view him as a persistent nuisance, and it is for that same reason he enjoys the prince’s protection. Deon, for his part, has a distinctly pacifistic outlook for a Brujah and doesn’t want to fight Vidal’s battles, just stop the gangs from destroying communities.

Jack McCandles

Lineage: 12th gen. childe of Mary Allen
Embrace: 2004
Status: Anarch Status •, Camarilla •, Hardline Sanctified •, Malkavian ••
Coterie: Armstrong Five ••

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.

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.

Kenneth “Ken” Sanders

Lineage: 12th gen. childe of Janaya Barnes
Embrace: 2016
Status: Brujah 0, Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified •
Coterie: Red Right Hand ••
Kenneth is the most devout of the Red Right Hand and a fiercely religious lick who aspires to become a priest. A devout Catholic in life, Ken strayed from his idyllic middle-class life and wife during his midlife crisis, falling in with a teenage girl who kept him out at all hours and increasingly consumed his life right up until she took it. He murdered his wife and son hours after his Embrace in a frenzy. He views himself as truly damned, but is grateful that he may continue to serve God’s will.

Betty Mitchell

Ghouled: 2018
Status: Ghouls 0
Betty was a fifty-ish-year old county clerk approaching a comfortable government retirement when breast cancer came calling for her life. She caught it late—not shocking for the overweight woman who’d spent the last ten years resigned to her solitary existence. She was bitter, but more than anything else, she wasn’t surprised: of course that’d be how she went, on the verge of reaping the rewards of her hard work. She’d spent most of her life preparing for her retirement, only to have it all for nothing.
Ken found her at a support group—she’d declined treatment but still wanted someone to talk to about her rapidly approaching end of life. She liked his laugh: he liked her stoic resignation. He also appreciated her administrative know-how and believed his patron would appreciate someone in her office. Today Betty is happy enough to continue her life, and grateful to Ken for the opportunity. The demands placed on her are comparatively mild—and even when they aren’t she find them to be a far better option than death.
On the other side of her brush with death, Betty has worked to enjoy more of the life she deferred—improving her physical fitness and taking a greater appreciation in the moment.

Rudy Brown

Ghouled: 2018
Status: Ghouls •
A former New Orleans Saint’s defensive linemen, Rudy was out of the league before thirty, having squandered most of his career earnings and suffering the rapid onset of chronic traumatic brain injury from his time in the league. Ken found him selling used cars—a gimmick for the dealership that subsidized his meager savings. He found Rudy the second time with a gun in his mouth, considering ending it all rather than continuing his bleak and increasingly painful existence. Ken offered him another, less bleak, way to end his life as he knew it.
The brush with abject failure and death did wonders for Rudy’s outlook. He came through the other side with a great appreciation for life as a whole, and the need for a purpose in it. He quit the job in the used car lot and now mostly does outreach with local youth programs while quietly trying to finish the college degree he never finished at Xavier—at his domitor’s urging.
Today Rudy feels better than he has since he was in his teens—stronger, faster, tougher, and more alive. He knows he has Ken to thank for that, and doesn’t hesitate to unleash all the strength of his more than 300 lb frame on anyone Ken thinks deserves it. Regularly works out with Brian Dunlap Fuller, who he readily admits is in better shape—while also joking about how he has ‘little man’ syndrome.

Hardline Sanctified Status 0

Warren Kontkowski

Lineage: 13th gen. childe of Maurice Wheeler
Embrace: 2016
Status: Caitiff -, Camarilla 0, Hardline Sanctified 0
Coteries: Guard de Ville •, Red Right Hand ••, Snake Hunters •
Warren was an army infantry officer before his horrific Embrace at the hands of a Setite that corrupted his sister. The Blood stuck, but the clan didn’t, and he has become a brutal and savage foe of his “parent” clan and all of their supporters ever since, working with the Snake Hunters while also continuing to serve as the mailed right hand behind the Red Right Hand’s member. He despises moral corruption in all of its forms, and supports the prince and his loyalists less out of deep faith than out of absolute hatred for the other pretenders.

Isaac Snyder

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls •
Isaac will proudly tell you that he spent more than ten years of his life ‘in the sandbox’ to keep barbarism from the shores of the US. He’ll also tell you how much of a kick in the teeth it was then to hear about the kinds of ‘fucked up shit’ going on across the country, and maybe right in his own back yard, at the hands of more depraved Kindred. In another life he might have become a hunter when confronted with that: instead he answered his old company officer’s call and became a ghoul. He’d never been much good at anything other than soldiering anyway. The chain smoking, dipping, hard drinking Texas native was loyal to Warren long before the blood bond reinforced it. His time as an NCO—including three years at Fort Bragg—has made him an ideal ‘trainer’ for other ghouls brought into the fold in service to younger Sanctified, but Isaac’s real passion is being in the churn. Thrice divorced with two kids he hasn’t seen in years.

Randal Little

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls •
Randal grew up in a small time in Iowa, the kind with three churches and only one general store. He joined the army out of high school in 2010—hoping to both serve his country honorably and to earn his GI Bill. He found the military different than he’d imagined—a cross section of parts of America he’d never visited—and hadn’t even been certain were real. The reserved and conservative young man had some difficult adjusting to army life—especially the macabre humor and sexual jokes he was surrounded by. His fellow soldiers were (largely) far from the ‘Christian Soldiers’ he’d expected and held in esteem his in entire life when he imagined ‘veteran’. Matters came to a head in 2012 when on watch he caught a group of his fellows using fake penises with attached bladders to fool their regular drug tests. Unwilling to ignore the frank dishonesty—and to his mind endangering of fellow soldiers through their use of illegal substances—he brought the matter to his non-commissioned officer and through him his company officer—and suffered the beating of a lifetime when those he’d dimed out found out and assaulted him in the barracks a few nights later.
The experience could have soured him on service entirely, but instead strengthened the Iowa farm boy’s resolve to be a force for good. It also earned him the respect of his NCO and platoon officer, who leaned heavily on him during the unit’s Afghanistan deployment. It was there that Warren earned Randal’s enduring respect in turn when the then still green 1st Lieutenant dragged him out of a burning Humvee after an ambush. Though his service in the army ended in 2015 as a corporal, his relationship with his once and future bosses didn’t, and he answered his call from across the country following Warren’s Embrace.
Though far from ‘ok’ with his boss’ monstrous nature, Randal has been largely able to push aside his misgivings when set alongside some of the things he’s seen since his ghouling in the fetid dens of other vampires and the fact that Warren is still Captain Kontkowski in his eyes. There are worse people he could be working for, and worse things he could be spending his life on. Besides, he owes Warren.

Jessica Kontkowski

Ghouled: 2016
Status: Ghouls 0
The younger ‘baby’ sister of Warren, Jessica is a broken woman that despite the Kindred’s best efforts he has been unable to put back together. Several attempts were made in the months following her ‘rescue’ from the clutches of Warren’s sire to return her to something resembling a normal high schooler’s life—with no success. The trauma’s she endured while serving as a ghouled sex slave (and worse) were too persistent, too deep, for those memories to simply be replaced, especially combined with the poignant physical need for something she couldn’t quite put to words. Twice she turned first to recreational drugs trying to take the edge off, but the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the feeling associated with those experiences inevitably brought up more and more repressed memories.
In the end, after months of trying, Warren was presented with an uncomfortable choice, for the acute and growing danger to the Masquerade she presented could not be ignored: kill her, or ghoul her. He chose the latter—a choice she’s seemed determined to make him regret every night since as the lesser of two evils. Despite attempts to help return her to something approaching decency (as decent as a ghoul can be) she remains a wanton thing, constant in her desire for vitae, for drugs, and even for sex. He’s caught her several times sleeping with other ghouls in the service of the Red Right Hand—and is quite certain that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
There are several other more extreme options he’s considered—including sending her to a Kindred groom or even Else Benson at an attempt at greater ‘reeducation’ but he has always blanched at the more extreme descriptions of their methods.
Today she ‘serves’ her brother mostly running errands, taking care of day-to-day tasks, and working in the office of the Giani Building—mostly so that other more reliable ghouls can keep an eye on her. They regularly drag her along to church services and have been actively working to keep her clean of drugs (other than vitae)—but it’s a constant effort. Despite all professions to the contrary, she doesn’t appear to want to change.