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Normandy (WOD)

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Normandie, or Normandy in English, is a northern region of France and a former duchy. It is historically related to the Vikings and England. Its name means Land of the Northmen.

Overview[]

Normandie is on located on the north-west coastline of France. It is known for its apple orchards, its horse breeders, its cereals and iron production, and its vast forest. The climate is mostly oceanic and the rain is an important feature of the area. Which led to a very green country.

Rouen, on the Seine river, is a major city of France and is directly linked to Paris.

Normandie was an important Duchy of France, created in 911 when the king of France made an alliance with the viking warchief Rollon. By giving this land to him, the king of France stopped the raid of the warchief on his own possessions.

For long years Normandie was a battlefield for men, as for supernatural forces. Celts came with Gangrel, Gauls with Ventrue and Silver Fangs, raids of viking with Get of Fenris, Brujah and Gangrel.

Most importantly, in 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England, making himself and his heirs French dukes as well as English kings. This led to many more confusing territory conflicts among men and supernatural beings.

In 1242, the Duchy is part of the Royal Domain, even if England's King Henry III is still officially Duke of Normandy (until 1259).

Real History[]

Early History[]

Initially inhabited by Celtic tribes, Armorican in its western reaches around 2300 BCE, and Belgian in the eastern around 600 BCE, the area was conquered in 56 BCE by the Roman legions, becoming part of the Gallia Lugdunensis. This conquest started a period of construction of roads and cities. Rouen, known as Rotomagus, is considered the second city after Lugdunum (Lyon) itself.

The Gaulish population thrived, even if, around the third century, barbarians started to raid the area. To counter the raids, Germanic people were welcomed to defend it. Then came the fall of Rome and the rise of the Frankish.

Before being called Normandie, the area was known as Neustrie in the Latin chronicles, from 486 to 987. This was corresponding of the old Frankish Syagrius' kingdom in the north-west part of France, and then part of the Frankish Empire. The barbarians raids continue.

Dark Ages[]

In 911 BCE, the French king Charles III gave the north part of the area to the viking leader Hrolfr Rögnvaldrsson, better known as Rollon (Rollo in English ), to protect the area and prevent other viking raids on the Seine and then to Paris. In return, Rollon agreed to convert to Christianity. The area granted to Rollon was then given the name of Normandie. Rollon ended by conquering the rest of the actual Normandie along the years. But more than a powerful fighter, Rollo was a cunning leader, allying himself to the Church and creating the "Échiquier Normand" (Exchequer of Normandy in English) to rule and administrate the duchy. This tool would be used and copied later by Cainites.

Then came William II, a man who rose to became a duke as powerful as the king of France. Enforcing a powerful administration in the Duchy, he created the city of Caen to become his new capital. In 1066, he managed to conquer England. From then on, his heirs would be French dukes and kings of England - the perfect recipe to create trouble between the duke of Normandy and the kings of France.

On the 25th of November, 1120, the Blanche Nef ("White Ship" or "White Lymphad") shipwrecked along the coast of Normandie, after its departure from Barfleur, a harbour near Cherbourg. On board were more than 150 English barons, their ladies, and the heir to the English throne. All of them died. This incident put even more turmoil in the now nebulous chain of succession to the throne and led a period of civil war in England; at the same time, it weakened the power of France by strengthening the size of the domain of the king of England and duke of Normandy. A time of battle came from this situation until the rise of Phillipe II, new king of France, in 1180. From a small royal domain, this political genius managed to slowly come back as one of the most powerful lords of France.

While in 1192, Richard Lionheart was held prisoner by the Holy Roman emperor, Philippe helped Richard's brother, John Lackland, to take the crown of England. In return, the king of France was given back a part of the duchy of Normandy. Richard died before managing to reconquer his lost domains. Meanwhile in 1194, to prove his loyalty, John Lackland, in Evreux, invited to a large banquet 300 French knights loyal to the king of France. It is a trap, however, and the knights are murdered. Then would follow a period of many battles between the French and English armies in the area. For ten years, Normandy is ravaged by armies and multiples cities are burned to the ground. At the end of 1205, forced to choose their allegiance, half of the great barons of Normandie exiled themselves to England.

In the end, Philippe II wins, becoming one of the powerful of Europe. In Normandie, he let the mortal administration of the Échiquier Normand rule as he sent baillis as royal administrators to gather taxes, administrate justice and survey the duchy. By political maneuvers and wars, Philippe managed to legally take back Normandy, as well as many other parts of France, to the king of England.

WoD History[]

The Supernatural Normandie[]

The Gangrel and Nosferatu were the first Cainite inhabitants of France, trying to survive against the werewolves. The oldest Cainite conflict to have influenced the history of the region dates back to the time of the first Viking settlers. When the Northmen sailed up the Seine and attacked Paris, the Ventrue who ruled the city discovered that the Danish raiders were in fact under the influence of a powerful coterie of Brujah After tough negotiations, the Ventrue of France ceded the County of Rouen to their enemies, but the Brujah realized that they had been duped, the region being literally infested with Garou belonging to the Get of Fenris Tribe, whose presence dated back to the Norman invasions. Determined not to lose face, the Brujah engaged in a merciless war against the Get of Fenris, without understanding that they were thus serving the interests of the Ventrue, the latter being determined to regain control of the region once it had been pacified by those they had duped.[1]

In order to fight the Garou on their own turf, the Brujah Prince Ivar Rufus made an alliance with Gangrel from what is now Norway, offering them the wildest part of his fiefdom (now the Cotentin Peninsula) in exchange for their help against the Get of Fenris, their old enemies. Meanwhile, the Ventrue patiently advanced their pieces on the chessboard, expanding their influence among the young nobility and the Norman church. Victorious over the Garou but hopelessly weakened, the Brujah soon lost control of the Duchy of Normandy to a powerful Ventrue named Renaud, a direct descendant of Methuselah Alexander. Defeated and dispossessed, the last Brujah tied to the Norman nobility and their mortal servants fled to Sicily where they were defeated by Clan Lasombra.[2]

Around 800 BCE a war, the War of Silver and Iron, erupted between Celtic werewolves (mostly Fianna and White Howlers) and the Faerie in an area which included Ireland, Normandie, and Bretagne. This war deeply wounded the two peoples. This was followed by conflict with Rome. The Roman army was supported by powerful Cainites, including Ventrue (such as Antiorix, a mighty Methuselah), Lasombra and Malkavians, but also Silver Fangs. The Gaulish people were supported by Gangrel, Nosferatu, and Red Talon tribe, but they lacked cohesion. The region most resistant to Rome was the Armorican Gaul where the Fianna and the White Howlers dwelled; in the end, however, even they fell to the Roman onslaught.

When barbarians began to raid Rome, the Brujah and Gangrel forces, alongside the Get of Fenris, came to take revenge on their Roman enemies, among them the Ventrue, Malkavians, Lasombra, and Toreador. With the rise of the Frankish people, the secret hand of the Ventrue methuselah Alexandre is felt in the shadow, especially as he is fighting for the control of the Merovingian dynasty against the Celestial Chorus.

Eventually, the Ventrue won against their enemy, especially with the rise of Christianity. In 508, Alexandre created his Grande Cour in Paris, where he gathered all the most influential Cainites of this part of the Frankish Empire. Around the same time, a war emerged between the Silver Fang and the Get of Fenris, the latter losing the battle in the long term. But with the viking raids on France Brujah, Gangrel, and Get of Fenris arrived to take their revenge too.

Then in 911, Rollo is given the area of eastern Normandy to help against these raids. The Brujah thought they were winning, as they were behind it, but secretly the Triumvirat Ventrue managed to pull the strings, such that the Brujah warlords were set head to head against the powerful Grande Cour of Alexander. In the same time the Lasombra and Toreador infiltrated the rising Church in France, helping to the fall of the northerner Brujah. As Alexander was mourning the death of Lorraine, the Triumvirat Ventrue rose to power in Normandie.

With the rise of Saviarre d’Auvergne in Paris, Alexander came back on the political chessboard and started to look back at Normandie. The Methuselah was fascinated by the young duke of Normandie, Guillaume II (the future William the Conqueror), but the Ventrue did not act against the triumvirate, waiting for them to make a fatal mistake. This mistake came in 1069. Following William's conquest, the Ventrue triumvirate awoke the powerful Mithras and the Normand Ventrue leaders disappeared in the years to come.

With Mithras, the Baronies of Avalon rose, and in the same time the Grand Court took over the domain of the Triumvirat. Conflicts expanded between now English Ventrue and French Ventrue, and clan of the king loses a great deal of influence in Normandie, supposedly a part of the Barony of Avalon. During this time, the Toreador Court of Love rose in France, but fail to gain power in Normandie, mainly because of the Ventrue presence and the instability of the area. Of the Toreador, only the more warlike came in the duchy, wishing to fight against Brujah, Gangrel and werewolves.

Meanwhile, the Ventrue Renaud launched Duke William into the conquest of England. He was unaware that this act was actually dictated by the Methuselah Mithras, eager to use Norman power to defeat those who had seized his island during his long torpor. After their victory, Renaud and his followers fell completely under Mithras's sway, escaping Alexander's control. This shift in allegiance was reflected, in the mortal world, by a growing rivalry between the Anglo-Normans and the French, an antagonism that would reach its peak with the Hundred Years' War.[3]

In 1120 the shipwreck of the Blanche Nef near Cherbourg took many Kindred by surprise. A few suspected the hand of Saviarre, unhappy with the relation between the Grand Court and the Barony of Avalon at the time. Most suspected Salianna's hand in destabilizing the relationship between the two courts. Unknown to most, the ship transported an emissary from the Matriarch of Paris. He was supposed to introduce a secret alliance between Mithras and the Toreador for the purpose of evicting an increasingly-unstable Alexander, as with his counselor Saviarre. The coup was just delayed of a century. In truth, the Nosferatu Mnemach wanted to maintain the status quo between the most powerful Cainites of France.

In 1160, during a resurgence of the Baronies of Avalon in Normandie, Mithras sends to Caen, as the new Baron of Normandy his own grand-childe Aethelbert, displaying his dominance to the Normands' Ventrue. When Aethelbert came to pay tribute and carry a message from Mithras to Alexander, the Prince of Paris declined to received it. Saviarre tried to save the situation but the Aethelbert refused to talk to a "simple counselor". Meanwhile, the Baron met Salianna who enforced an alliance between herself and Mithras, aiming for the silent support of the Prince of London during the Matriarch's move against Alexander.

During the 12th century, the capital of Rouen was, as it had been for a long time, still a battlefield between Ventrue and Silver Fangs against Gangrel, Brujah and Get of Fenris barbarians. Due to Normandy's strategic location and Aethelbert's refusal to intervene in the quarrels, Goratrix wanted to make an alliance with the Ventrue. In the middle of the 12th century, the creation of the Rouen Tremere chapter allowed to help the Ventrue repel the Silver Fangs.

Even if they were more than happy by the result, the Ventrue had to share power with the powerful Tremere newcomer. The Échiquier de Rouen was created to rule the city of Rouen, and from there, to a certain extent, the entire duchy. The Tremere very quickly took a very important position of power, acting in the shadows to facilitate the fall of the Baron and even, with some magical intervention, driving the death of Richard the Lionheart.

With the rise in 1180 of the French king Philippe II, later known as "Philippe-Auguste", Alexander regained interest in the political field, especially in Normandie. Pulling strings, he managed the fall of the Normandy's Barony of Avalon. Saviarre was especially pleased by that, as war began again between the English and French Ventrue of Normandy.

In 1204, the Baron Aethelbert had to flee Caen to Chateau Gaillard, a mighty English fortress. It was a disastrous decision, especially with the implication of the Tremere Goratrix and his forces. Aethelbert was destroyed in the castle, with Thomas de Cherbourg forced to take his blood. With the fall of the Baron, the French army took back Caen and Rouen, but in the same time a terrible attack destroyed the Ventrue of the two camps and their allies. The Brujah Arngrim le Fier and the Gangrel Runi, the Grey She-Wolf, now at the head of the Alliance de l'Orme had used the battle between Ventrue to strike fast and strong. Due to the perfect coordination of the attack, the Nosferatu were suspected to have aided them. It is still considered one of the bloodiest nights for France's Kindred, until the Albigensian Crusade. From then Caen was the exclusive domain of the Alliance de l'Orme. The Gangrel and Brujah had taken their revenge on their enemy, and now were looking to the city of Bayeux.

During the same war, Philippe's army destroyed Evreux, remembering the massacre of the French knight in 1194. The Cainite population was severely wounded by the attack. Many Ventrue knights, allies of the Grand Court who supported John Lackland's Ventrue, are destroyed. This event was known as Évreux' Treason and helped shape the hatred between the French and the English Ventrue for centuries to come.

Facing the menace of the Alliance de l'Orme, the Tremere and Ventrue of the Échiquier de Rouen were attempting to gain back the control of the situation but the victory of Philippe had given back the power in the hands of the Grande Cour as a new bailli arrived in Rouen.

Dark Age Politics[]

Normandie was for a long time the domain of Ventrue but with the viking era, the rise of William the Conqueror and the war against Philippe-Auguste , a lot has changed in the balance of power of the area.

  • Le Triumvirat Ventrue(The "Triumvirate" or "Ventrue Triumvirate" in English )

(...)

  • Les Baronies of Avalon

(...)

  • L'Échiquier de RouenMore known as the Échiquier or Échiquier Normand by the Kindred. (The "Rouen's Chessboard" or "Exchequer of Rouen" in English )

(...)

  • L'Alliance de l'Orme(The "Elm Alliance" in English )

(...)

  • La Grand Cour(The "Grand Court" in English )

(...)

Le Monde des Ténèbres: France History[]

The canonicity of this article, or a portion of it, is unconfirmed.

This article contains information from sources that are considered semi-official within the White Wolf universe. While not established as non-canonical, the canonicity of the content described in this article is currently unknown.

Dark Fantastic[]

At the beginning of the 15th century, Renaud, then Prince of Normandy, was annihilated during the reconquest of the region by the forces of the French King Charles VII. Alexander installed in his place Renaud's own descendant, D'Harcourt (an Ancilla whom Methuselah could easily manipulate). Alexander's premature end and the ensuing chaos left D'Harcourt the sole master of his Fiefdom. While the Toreadors[4] increased their influence within the Court of France, D'Harcourt consolidated his ties with the English, former allies of his relative, preferring to place himself under the authority of Mithras rather than that of the Prince of Paris. When many Ventrues rose up against the Toreador power during the Fronde, D'Harcourt decided to take part in the conflict in order to restore the prestige of his Fief. For having plotted against Beatrix, now sole and legitimate Prince of Paris. D'Harcourt will be condemned to be plunged into torpor until further notice.

Control of the fief then passes into the hands of a Ventrue named Quentin, regent devoted and bound by blood to one of Beatrix's main advisors, the Toreador François Villon. Little by little, Normandy becomes a simple backyard of the fief of Paris; It was Quentin himself who facilitated the escape of Villon and his clique to Great Britain during the Terror. After returning from exile and proclaiming himself Prince of Paris, Villon decided to restore D'Harcourt to his former prerogatives as Marquis, in order to mask the actions of his faithful servant Quentin, who now controlled the entire Norman fiefdom for the Toreador of Paris. D'Harcourt thus regained his title in the 1820s, after almost two centuries of torpor. His supporters soon realized that their lord's mind had been greatly disturbed by his long lethargy, and that the Marquis was now incapable of adapting to the great upheavals of the century... Half-mad, blinded by his fantasies, D'Harcourt became a pathetic puppet, while Quentin (still the reigning Regent and at the beck and call of the Prince) continued to manage the affairs of the Fief as if nothing had changed.[5]

Modern Nights[]

Realizing from then on that the game was definitively lost, the Marquis's supporters gave up on the idea of restoring his authority and most went into exile in England. Those who remained ended up allying themselves with Quentin and the Parisians. Since that time, only one major event has come to disturb the dreary existence of the Norman Fief. Always loyal to the line of Mithras. D'Harcourt has decided to extend the war being waged by the British branch of his Clan against the Tremere to his fiefdom. Although he is discreetly trying to resolve this problem, Quentin prefers not to oppose the Marquis on this point. As long as D'Harcourt is busy battling the Enemy, he lets Quentin rule the Fiefdom as he sees fit and is unlikely to notice the real situation...[6]

Modern Night Politics[]

The Fiefdom of Normandy has lost all independence and is currently dependent on two external entities: Paris and England. The true leader, Quentin, primarily serves the interests of the Prince of Paris. At the same time, the Marquis D'Harcourt is playing into the hands of the English Ventrue by participating in a war that goes against the policy of European union supported by many French Ventrue. This constant interference from foreign interests has caused the departure of many Cainites. In order To counterbalance this depopulation, the Marquis recently granted the right to Embrace to several of his subjects. He also welcomed several English Ventrue into his Fiefdom. Their presence has, of course, only fueled the conflict with the Tremere. The only real opposing force in this domain is the Brujah of Le Havre, whose avowed goal remains to transform the city into an independent Anarch Fiefdom.

  • Le Havre, port city.

Locations[]

Medieval Locations[]

Inhabitance[]

Medieval Residents[]

Kindred[]

References[]

  1. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 36
  2. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 36
  3. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 36
  4. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 36
  5. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 37
  6. ↑ WOD: Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, p. 37
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