| “ | The truth cannot serve only itself | ” |
| — Opal St. Claire | ||
Opal St. Claire is Tremere member of the Praesidium.
History[]
Mortal Days: Madness or Providence?[]
Opal was a minor player in the spiritualism movement in her youth. She had grown up experiencing strange dreams which had the uncanny knack of coming to pass, although her audience members had to bend their minds around the images she described to find the reality behind her predictions. During the spiritualism movement’s heyday, she was regularly wheeled out at high society parties, accompanied by burning incense and Ouija boards adorned with mystical symbols to impress her parents’ patrons.
Her skills caught the attention of Kindred in Oxford, and she was spirited away from her family by Tremere agents under the guise of attending a reading at a meeting of an occult society. The Warlocks wished to study the source of her ability and exploit it for their own ends. For their part, her parents were happy to go along with the scheme. Having a daughter who woke screaming several times a night and often gibbered nonsensically to herself during the day was lucrative, at points, but also exhausting. They exchanged her for a tidy sum of money and to her knowledge, they never saw her again.
Conversely, Opal’s predictions were deemed so useful to the Tremere who took her that they simply could not bear the thought of ever losing access to them, and so the Regent of Oxford’s Chantry embraced her.
Kindred Nights: Returning Sight[]
Opal’s Embrace achieved the opposite effect of what the Tremere Regent intended. Following her initiation, her dreams ceased. During the day, she slept more soundly than she ever had in life. No visions of strange figures looming out of the darkness or portents of creeping doom came to her. There was only the eternal silence and solace of deathly darkness.
Opal enjoyed this clarity for a brief time, but her sire did not. After all, there had been only one reason for Cassandra Lee to bring this new childe into the fold. It would not do to admit that the Embrace had unforeseen consequences and call her judgement into question. There had to be something wrong with Opal. Lee would spend as much time as needed to discover what that was and how to remedy it.
Each night, she dissected, studied, and questioned her childe. In her pursuit to exhaust every possibility, Lee drained St. Claire of blood, fed her to bursting, and placed her in ritual circles among chanting Warlocks. All manner of horrors were laid upon her in the name of helping her return to the half-mad, sleepless state Opal had lived in her whole life.
Shut in from the outside world, Opal was barely aware of the Chantry’s fall or her own rescue at the hands of Kindred loyal to Lilith, known as the Bahari. However, they offered her fellowship, a purpose like she had never felt before, and a fresh start away from her clan’s abuse.
Opal’s transition back to the outside world invigorated her. She quickly rose in the ranks of the Bahari and travelled to spread the word of their unholy gospel. Her preaching took her all over Europe and finally to Poland, where something happened that she could not explain. On her first day sleeping in the new country, she was confronted by visions much like those she had experienced in her youth. These were clearer, however, and showed a blood-soaked woman reaching out to her, calling her to her side, repeating the phrase, “Return to your Blood and you will find me.” The priestesses rejoiced that Opal had been touched by Lilith herself, but this explanation did not ring true to Opal. She felt a different calling, one that urged her to return to her clan. She slipped through the fingers of the Bahari delegation and set out in search of Kindred scholars who might identify the mysterious figure.
She found the waiting arms of the Praesidium. Operating under an assumed identity and falsified age (she claims to be a neonate named Claire Slate, whose sire was destroyed in the Vienna attack), she has cleaved her way into their ranks. Her admittance into the cult came by way of her sharing the visions she had of the bloody woman, who others among the cult believe to be Meerlinda. Something of this rings true with Opal, who now suspects she’s to be integral in the elder Tremere’s awakening
Character Sheet[]
Opal St. Claire
Sire: Cassandra Lee
Embraced: 1850 (Born 1831)
Generation: 10th
Blood Potency: 3
Ambition: I will find the bloody woman’s identity
Convictions: Die before succumbing to captivity
Touchstones: Vlas Kosior, one of the mortals assigned with watching over Opal as she sleeps
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 1; Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 3; Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 4;
Skills: Brawl (Kindred) 1, Stealth 3, Survival 2; Animal Ken 1, Etiquette 2, Insight 3, Performance (Clairvoyant) 3, Persuasion 2, Subterfuge (False Identity) 3; Awareness 2, Investigation 1, Occult (Bahari) 3
Disciplines: Auspex 3, Blood Sorcery 3, Dominate 2, Protean 1
Health: 4
Humanity: 5
Willpower: 7
References[]
- VTM: Forbidden Religions, p. 26-28
