Ecaterina

Ecaterina the Wise, the Agitator of Prague, later known as Katherine Weise, is a notorious Brujah rabble-rouser. She has spread false rumours that she is a survivor of Carthage. She was originally an eighth generation vampire, but committed diablerie in the late 20th century.

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Ecaterina the Wise

Biography[]

Over eight centuries ago, Ecaterina was Embraced in Prague, following her near-rape at the hands of a pair of Ventrue-paid mercenaries. The mercenaries both met their just ends, but not before shattering Ecaterina's jaw as she tried to resist them. Marhuel did what he could to repair the damage, but medicine at the time was spotty at best. Childe of Marhuel and grandchilde of Dominic, she was active among the Prometheans of Transylvania during the Dark Ages.

From Prague, she led the Promethians and the local Brujah, along with her lieutenant Cosmas. In 1194 AD, she Embraced the crusader Christof Romuald and helped him defeat the Tzimisce in the city.

After Prague[]

By the time of the Anarch Revolt, she joined with the Anarchs and later the Sabbat.

As the Old World became more and more hostile to the presence of the Black Hand, Ecaterina was among the first of the immigrant Kindred to the New World. She stayed in New York, helping to establish the growing community as a haven for Sabbat strength^[1]. She eventually became the first Bishop of New York City, although she later fell under the authority of Archbishop Francisco Domingo de Polonia.

To Ecaterina's growing disappointment, the Sabbat seem to become more of a vehicle for clan politics than ideological revolution, and too often the ages-old foe of elder oppression fell by the wayside for sect's elders to push their own agendas.

Ecaterina's ultimate disillusionment with the sect came at the latter half of the twentieth century. A raw fledgling challenged her for the title of bishop at the Palla Grande of 1969^[2]. She accepted the challenge and killed the challenger. Then the Black Hand struck. A pack of Assamite antitribu, led by a Lasombra, poured out of the shadows behind Ecaterina and struck her down with darkness, poisoned vitae and brutish Roman swords. In the chaos her body disappeared^[1].

She was driven into torpor and awakened in 1996^[3]. She has no idea who saved her (it was Yvette Krupinski^[4]).

In recent nights she is known as Katherine Weise, and had done much to mask her true identity and history from her new Camarilla sectmates.^[5] Her childe Christof Romuald and his coterie mate Wilhelm Streicher are among the few most privy to her deception.

Under the moniker Katherine Weise, Ecaterina is the proprietor of the Art Hole Art Gallery in New York. Sometime in the 2010s, she began to experience the Beckoning, a phenomenon virtually unknown among other Kindred at that time. She attracted the attention of Beckett, seeking to enlist his help to discover its source by meeting with her and Christof in Tunis.

These plans were complicated by a series of events: an outbreak of violence in the city; Albertus Magnus outing her true identity in an e-mail to Beckett carbon-copied to Aisling Sturbridge (whose sire Magus conspicuously alleged Ecaterina of murdering, and possibly diablerizing)^[6], resulting in a Blood Hunt being called against her; the occasion to capture and interrogate Marcus Verus; and a surprise attack on the group by Sylvester Marlowe.

Ecaterina's Calling led her, Christof, and Beckett to the Carthage National Museum, where they encountered Al-Muntathir in a backroom containing the entrance to the Carthage Necropolis, who provided them with some answers before his childe Marlowe arrived to slay him. Ecaterina fled into the Necropolis, with Marlowe and Beckett respectively in pursuit. Eventually, the subsequent battle between Ecaterina and Marlowe broke after an apparent stalemate, a likely result of the necropolis's defenses becoming an active threat to all four.

V5 Timeline[]

With Aisling Sturbridge's attempt at placing a Blood Hunt on her having failed, Ecaterina continues to maintain her mask as Weiss, and remains in good standing with the sect as New York's Keeper of Elysium.

In Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York it was revealed that she's not really Ecaterina the Wise, Agitator of Prague, Brujah elder and former Promethean. Julia Sowinski discovers that this imposter's real name is Hana Urbanova. She was caught by Christof Romuald and forced by the true Ecaterina to assume the public mantle of "Katherine Wiese" so that the real one could continue to play her own game. Julia compares the relationship between the real and the fake to Batman and Bruce Wayne.

Description[]

During the Medieval era, Ecaterina is regarded as a scholar not a warrior born and she would keep her fledglings studying vampire lore in her nest eternally. Wilhem Streicher refuses to spend hours debating Cainite wisdom in her University and preferred to learn by combat, a thought shared by the fledgling Christof.

Trivia[]

Ecaterina first appeared in the game Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption as the sire of Christof Romuald. On that occasion, her character was voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. She appears again in the game Shadows of New York as Katherine Weise.
Ecaterina uses what looks like Movement of the Mind to overpower and immobilize Christof before she Embraces him during Redemption.^[7] This is the only time she is shown possessing Thaumaturgy, as neither of her character sheets in Transylvania by Night nor New York by Night list this Discipline.
Her tendency to cover her disfigured jaw when not feeding is very similar to Raziel from the Legacy of Kain games.