Shattered Masquerade

The Maneaters are the youngest Gang in the city of New Orleans. One could say its origin wasn't even in New Orleans, but in the Court of Houston. The first time any of the Maneaters traveled together was the night when Gabriella Rosario Frenzied at Elysium. When Gabriella's own sire called for her head, Vivian Black took up with her and fled the scene with the Malkavian in tow. The two spent some time in New Orleans before linking up with the Anarch Movement at Baron Richard's memorial. It was there that they met Catherine Chevalier, the newly-Embraced childe of Sheldon Carter. Catherine's own life had ended in Houston's assault on the city, taken as a random act of violence against the Warlock the Camarilla despised. The Gang itself wouldn't be formed until after the assault on the Elysium and the fall of New Orleans to the Movement. Recognizing their shared interests, Vivian, Gabriella, and Catherine formed the Maneaters to safeguard the city they had taken.

The Maneaters are the most inward-facing of the Gangs, focusing their efforts primarily on securing resources in New Orleans. Catherine Chevalier worked through her former Ghoul, Michelle DuBois, to found the Circle - called a community organization by some and a cult by others. The Circle allowed the Anarchs to ply into the halls of power and listen to the conversations there. Gabriella Rosario, meanwhile, turned to what she knew and secured the Anarchs' presence in the city's medical system. Vivian Black, as well, stuck to her people, becoming an information broker and favor trader in the city's impoverished western fringe. In recent nights as war has approached, the Maneaters have continued to lead the war at home. Be it Catherine's perch as an Angel of Perdition or Gabriella's grooming of the leader of the Caiman Gang, the Maneaters are arming themselves for when the war comes home.

Name: Gabriella Rosario
Apparent Age: Mid-20s
Actual Age: ~90
Clan: Malkavian

There remains a whole lot that even Gabriella's fellow gang members don't know about her, much less the rest of the Anarchs. Her mortal life isn't really a known commodity; she was born around 1980 in Houston, has alluded to growing up without much in the way of money or possessions, and has hinted to an unhappy family life, but that's about it. As a young adult in the early 2000s, she was a nursing student with a passion for trying to help the underprivileged.

It was during a hospital residency that she crossed paths with Dr. Oliver Klein. She's still not entirely sure what he saw in her above everyone else, but the Malkavian saw fit to take her into the night as a prestige childe. She was almost immediately pitted against Luma Romano, the childe of Henry Mitchell, Klein's chief rival in the Court of Houston. Luma was a gifted performer who seemed very comfortable in the limelight. Gabriella was...a nurse, not a natural performer, and Klein's methods of teaching -- and coercion -- didn't really help her get any better.

Plus there was the whole derangement thing. Whether she was skittish in life or not, no one knows, but her Embrace saddled her with paranoia that was severe at the best of times and downright crippling at the worst of them. In Court, she was a shrinking violet who avoided attention and kept to herself -- a far cry from what Klein wanted. Things got worse for her when her exacting sire took out his frustrations on her emotionally when he was angry or embarrassed -- by a story about pig shit, for instance.

After 15 miserable years of trying and failing to achieve Klein's idea of perfection, she finally snapped one night in Formal Court when Klein, without a hint of forewarning, volunteered her to join him in the bid to claim New Orleans. For the infamously risk-averse Gabriella, Klein playing dumb before drafting her into a war she didn't want was too much to bear, and she went into full Frenzy in the heart of Elysium, attacking Klein with the intent to kill. She was unsuccessful, but Vivian Black essentially saved her from execution by grabbing the catatonic Malkavian, dragging her out, and escaping in a chase that saw Gabriella steal Klein's car and run over Edward Fontaine with it while fleeing.

Gabriella would have been happy to lay low, but the Camarilla weren't going to let her -- if only to try to save their own faces. Propaganda quickly spread of an "Ella the Ripper" who had tried to slay her sire after bellowing the Anarch war cry at Elysium. Initially alarmed and displeased, Gabriella decided to just lean into it, and at Vivian's suggestion, they trekked to New Orleans to try to seek protection and refuge among the city's Anarchs. At first, she sort of kept to herself there. She participated in the raid on Elysium in New Orleans, once again going after her sire, but Klein managed to escape -- to her eternal regret. She was, however, responsible for the Final Death of her other old rival, Henry Mitchell.

Otherwise skittish and clearly uncomfortable with meaningful social interaction, she kept to herself and threw herself into her work -- going back to basics as an ER nurse. For the last 50 years, she has been building up serious influence in the medical community, first at the University Medical Center in the French Quarter and then at a private clinic in the city's slums under the alias Lola Martinez (Mask 2, False ID 1). She's hands-on, too, and has been known to take an active role in treating patients on overnight shifts on a regular basis. It means she has a lot of access and connections to help her stay a step ahead of anything she may perceive as a threat to her safety, which is...pretty much everyone and everything to a certain degree.

The Anarchs would know she's gotten a bit more outgoing in recent decades. She seems to get along fine and have a degree of trust with her gang, the Maneaters, and she and Luma Romano can essentially communicate through a series of wordless facial expressions by this point. She and Andre La Voix have been relentlessly flirting with each other for 50 years (Mawla 1), and she has forged some sort of professional relationship with her former Camarilla colleague Arthur Beauregard (Mawla 1). Still, she's definitely a naturally nervous person who often does not like to be touched and is uncomfortable being the center of attention, at least in public. Even in her more lucid moments, she can be triggered into intense paranoia by any number of things, and whoever or whatever does trigger it probably doesn't even realize what they did.

Notable Traits

• In stark contrast with her more general demeanor, she's a proper Siren when she hunts. She's one of the most attractive Anarchs in town (Beautiful) and isn't afraid to flaunt it when she's looking for blood, and she brings men home with her on a regular basis.
• The nature of her departure from the Camarilla -- and her willingness to nurture the reputation in years since -- has made her fairly well-known in the Anarch world as Ella the Ripper (Status 2, Fame 2) and quite infamous in Cam circles (Infamy 1).
• She's a big deal at University Medical Center, where she has regularly used her feminine wiles to make friends with the male doctors and keep her favorites quite close (even if the nurses detest her). She essentially grooms and picks chiefs of medicine or surgery at will, and she's made Dr. David Bloom her current paramour, guiding him from little-known ER doctor to Chief of Surgery (Contact 3). She's also pulled strings to get entrenched on the administrative side, meaning she can drift in and out of sight and exert her influence over the place without having to disappear for a while until everyone forgets her.
• She has one ghoul, Bomi Kwan, who owns and operates an urgent care center in the slums on Gabriella's behalf. It's also inadvertently granted Gabriella access to the local gang leader (Contact 2), whom she does her best to keep onside. Between the hospital and the private clinic, she has access to basically every medical and death record she could want, as well as drugs and medicine, plus a steady Herd of patients if she's too busy or otherwise disinclined to Siren it up (Medical Influence 4, Herd 2).
• She's known to be a skilled practitioner of both Auspex and Obfuscate, and has really advanced on the latter -- she's been known to use both Unseen Passage and Mask of a Thousand Faces even in the presence of polite company just to avoid being focused on.
• She's generally perfectly happy to go along with Anarch ideals, though she's not at all a zealot like some of her colleagues are. She is, however, a steadfast, devout advocate of the Masquerade. She considers it unfathomable that anyone would want to get rid of it, and has spent the last 50 years going aggressively out of her way to prevent her true state from being revealed to anyone other than her fellow Anarchs, even in environments where she doesn't actually need to.
• Occasionally communicates by hissing. Is not feral, though, we promise.

Name: Vivian Black
Apparent Age: Late Teens/Early 20's
Years Undead: 63
Clan: Brujah

Vivian Black came into the night as many Brujah do - a specious Embrace by a small-minded thug. Vivian's sire was her boyfriend at the time, Thaddeus Rucker. The Scourge of Houston was so smitten with her that he secured the right to bring her into the night, allowing him to both enjoy her carnal company and draft him into his posse. For her early existence Vivian did little aside from help her sire bully the Anarchs of Houston, keeping an eye on them despite their toleration by the Prince. The Anarch she knew most was Austin Spencer. The Caitiff had earned her sire's ire with his amorous looks, and Vivian knew little better than to help Thaddeus beat the poor boy for having the gall to be gay. Vivian likely would have taken a similar roll in New Orleans had Gabriella Rosario not Frenzied at Elysium and attacked her sire on the eve of the Camarilla's offensive into the Anarch-held city. After years of quietly accepting Thad's violent nature, Vivian refused to allow the Malkavian to be executed. Instead she struck her sire and fled with Gabriella, bringing both of them to New Orleans to join with the Anarch Movement.

After the Camarilla Court of New Orleans fell, Vivian became one of the founders of a new Gang called the Maneaters. Her new allegiance took her to the edge of downtown New Orleans where she fell in with the urban working class. Vivian is her Gang's boots on the grounds, using her strength and street smarts to connect with humans living at the edge of society. While these mortals' fashions, their jobs, and the specifics of their struggles have changed, those struggles haven't. Vivian is stubborn in a great many ways, but she's kept up with the mortals she blends in with. At this point Vivian is one of the many Vampires whose existence is an open secret - there was no way the loudmouthed Brujah was ever going to be kept quiet with the Masquerade in tatters. She's a regular fixture in the smoky quasi-legal bars and definitely-illegal card tables in the underbelly of the Business District, where 20 years of involvement has made her something of a dealer between employers and their quasi-legal workforces.

But as of late, Vivian has sought bigger things. Secure in her holdings in the Business District, Vivian's interests have begun to shift towards Southside along with her Gang's haunts. Vivian is currently angling for perhaps the biggest prize south of the Mississippi - Club Perdition, with its open floors, lucrative card tables, and its beautiful Angels that light up the night. For a woman born into poverty, it would be the ultimate status symbol. She just needs to find out who owns it first.

Notable Traits (Talents, Assets, Merits, etc.):

• Is known to the Camarilla and Anarchs outside of New Orleans as Black Vivian, a fugitive Diablerist
• Is a broker and fixer among the Business District's lower class mortals, and wields much influence among them
• Is seeking to become the owner, or at least primary influencer, behind Club Perdition.

Soundtrack
Homies (Main Theme)
Kyoto (Fight Theme)
How Many Times? (Herd Theme)

Name: Catherine Chevalier
Apparent Age: Late 20s-Early 30s (b. March 16, 1990)
Years Undead: 50 (emb. May 28, 2020)
Clan: Temere

Once, a typical affluent overachiever, mortal Catherine's life fell apart as her stockbroker father's happy family facade fell apart, emotionally damaging both Catherine and her mother. Catherine's disgust with powerful men like her father led the Tulane graduate to drift New Orleans, trying cults, jobs and religions to find meaning. In each, she resisted demands of obedience. After a few years of turbulence, Catherine found some stability as a house flipper and witch, taking it upon herself to seek truth and protect other women from charming and powerful men. Her occult interests let her to Sheldon Carter, a seemingly burnout hippie and a rare good-natured man. She look a part time job with Sheldon, using it as an excuse to develop her magic hobbies. This job placed her in Sheldon's occult shop on May 28th, 2020, where she was violently introduced to vampires. After being briefly killed by Carmilla scourge Thad, Sheldon brought Catherine into unlife and the anarch wars. Vampire Catherine was first fueled by revenge and soon found it, killing her first murderer alongside other young kindred at the Cajun Ball just days after her embrace. After this trial of fire,, Catherine moved back to the occult to find meaning and order in her unlife. Explaining herself as a spiritual guide, Catherine founded the Circle of Truthseekers, an egalitarian coven for empowerment. The Circle became a haven for other frustrated affluent women (and some men), especially those hitting their head on the corporate glass ceiling. Under her guidance, the Circle became a study group and a sorority of sorts, its members helping guide each other through modern life under Catherine's guidance. And later, with the help of her friend/ghoul Michelle DuBois, the circle became New Orlean's premiere occult society, with events scattered throughout the city and literature in most New Age stores. And, of course, learned blood sorcery like any good Tremere.

Displaying unusual dramatic flair for a Tremere, Catherine has spent her time developing her legend. To mortals, save a few trusted lieutenants, she is the mythical Traiteur guide of the Circle of Truthseekers. To kindred, she is Bloody Catherine, a force of vengeance against the Carmilla a symbol of Tremere liberation. Her command of blood sorcery is rumored assecond only to her sire, in addition to talent for Auspex. Such powers have proved vital to her status, as she used ritual flight to perform the "Flight of Devon Champlange", complete with powdered wig, under Alain's Jeannet's Toreador direction. Yet despite the stories, has made limited personal contacts outside New Orleans, preferring instead to spend time with with her sire Sheldon, her gang of Black Viv and Ella the Ripper and to a lesser extent other New Orleans Anarchs. It is only in recent years she has spread attention beyond New Orleans and exploring connections with the remaining Tremere and wider vampiric world. Now, as the masqerade shatters, Catherine seeks to maintain the mystique of vampirism and protect both sympathetic mortals and kindred. The writings and rituals of the her Circle allow Catherine to push her philosophy in New Orleans, as she develops them from the shadows alongside her mortal "keepers". Amongst vampires themselves, Catherine tries to protect and assist kindred she believes are a positive force in the world. She taken particular, god-motherly interest in Bailey Spencer and her guardians. To Catherine, vampires should be seen as a mysterious, powerful but positive force in the world, much like other occult forces These forces must be used to protect the innocent and curious from the powerful, domineering and decpetive. And as she did mortally, Bloody Catherine seeks to be that protection.

NOTABLE TRAITS

• As she was crafting a wiccan protection charm at the time of her embrace, she subconsciously believes the charm saved her from full death. As such, she believes in the power of wiccan and voodoo charms and is reluctant to break them (Folkloric Block, Voodoo Charms)
• The Circle provides her a reliable herd as well as mythic status amongst New Orleans occultist (Herd 4, Fame(Occult) 1, Influence(Occult) 3)
• Known amongst the anarchs as "Bloody Catherine", one of the maneaters (Fame 3)
• Maintains close connection and support with her sire, Sheldon Carter (Malwa 1)
• The Circle also has a notable media presence through New Orleans, offering wellness and spiritual advice. This gives Catherine a reliable news audience when eeded (Influence(Media) 1)
• While Catherine doesnt openly admit herself, it is an open secret amongst New Orleans anarch she has a mask- Isabelle LeBlanc, stage name Belle Sparks, a burlesque dancer and "angel" at perdition (mask 2)
• Her Ghoul, Michelle DuBois, has become a powerful presence in New Orleans in her own right, serving as the head of the Circle's business arm (Retainer 3)
• Between the circles income and her own mortal property investments, controls independent if not substantial wealth (resources 2)

Soundtrack/Tropes/Etc.
Make Me Wanna Die (Main Theme)
Bella Belle (Perdition Theme)