Persephone (née Linda) Moore is a Ventrue involved in Chicago's Invictus.
Overview[]
Moore is the childe of Prince Maxwell of Chicago. He Embraced her in the heat of passion, and she came into contact with some other vampires before he had a chance to clean up his mistake. Now he tolerates her, but many think he wishes he had killed her to be free from the liability and shame. Some even whisper that she has blackmailed him somehow.
Many of Chicago's other vampires scoff at her for hanging on her sire's coattails (or for having the temerity to be Embraced as she was). A member of the Invictus, she enjoys the comforts the First Estate gives her, but she is also a young vampire, one for whom feudalism is an unnatural concept. Her rebellious streak manifests in the form of some sympathies among those Kindred who don't play the game of covenant and servility. She walks a careful line keeping these dealings hidden from the Prince.
WOD: Chicago Biography[]
Persephone is the childe of the Prince - the Prince who forbade childer.
Before she was Persephone, she was Linda Moore, a real-estate lawyer who moved to the big city from Indiana and was living a hip, remixed version of the Mary Tyler Moore story when she met this fascinating consultant named Maxwell Drake (whom she now knows as Maxwell Polermo, and Maxwell Smither, and Maxwell Faban and "sire"). Things were going great until he killed her.
Now Linda finds herself divided between keeping up the facade of her mortal life, and coming to terms with a new existence as a predator from the darkness. She has coped by re-inventing herself as "Persephone" - a glamorous sybarite Id with the wardrobe of a goth-themed prostitute - but when she needs to, she can still be Superego Linda, strait-laced and prim and all business. When she's alone in her apartment, she usually still thinks of herself as Linda, with Persephone as a role she plays to keep herself insulated from other Kindred, and from the acts she herself must perform. But when the Beast calls, more and more she finds it's Persephone's voice that answers.
Persephone isn't crazy. She has a decent sense of her own identity, she knows the difference between pretending to be a gaudy club-tramp and truly being an urban lawyer with smarts and self-respect. She doesn't suffer lost time, she doesn't have multiple personalities, she doesn't change between being two different persons named Linda and Persephone. Furthermore, she won't start.
If Persephone goes crazy, it'll be some kind of border-line personality or dissociation disorder in which she feels herself to have no true identity whatsoever - no beliefs, no feelings, no real drive. Her every action will seem hollow, as if she's on the outside watching herself act. Once she becomes empty of any volition, she will truly become a monster, a slave to the appetites of the Beast.
But that's a long way off, yet. For now, she's hanging on just fine, trying to figure out exactly what her position is in the court. On one hand, she's under Prince Maxwell's wing, and that counts for a hell of a lot. On the other hand, she's the visible consequence of him breaking his own law. The best way she can help him, as often as not, is to stay quiet and hope people forget she exists.
Already, she's sliding crazily between "outcast" and "power-player," but, on an entirely different axis, there's her own politics. She's nominally Invictus, but her true sympathies lie a lot closer to the Carthian end of the street - if not actually among the unbound. Equality and democracy sound much better in her ears than fealty and obedience. On the other hand, she's a Chicagoan, which means she's had plenty of chances to see just how the sausage of democracy can get ground up. She's used to being elite; she went to law school. So she's not quite ready to kiss off the Invictus and go Carthian, much as they'd love it if she did. (What, are you kidding? Prince's illegal get scorns his old-boy network and comes out on behalf of freedom and brotherhood? It'd be huge!)
Mainly, Persephone wants to get the personal settled before plunging any deeper into the political. She's been Kindred for a short time, and she killed her first human only three months after he Embrace. She didn't mean to, but he was just some jerk from a club and, in the passion of the moment, she got carried away.
Since then, she's been far more careful. She no longer feeds from men who repel her, because she knows that can tempt her to treat them as if their lives are disposable. Instead she looks for nice men, sweet guys, kind and shy and not overbearing. She tries hard to like them before she bites their necks open. That way, it's a lot easier to back off, take it down a notch - let them live.
Goal: Find Equilibrium, or Commit[]
Typically, Persephone is of two minds about her long-term goals. When things are going well, she hopes to find a balance between her personae - Linda for managing the every day tasks that she confronted as a human, such as laundry and shelter and interacting with her living friends and Persephone for hunting and politicking and dealing with the Kindred. But more and more, she finds herself pressured to give up on the human side of her existence, abandon the memory of life for the reality of the Requiem, and sever her ties to the mortal world. Linda is smart, willful and strongly motivated. If anyone can find a middle path between woman and monster, it's her. At least, that's what she tells herself. But she finds herself spending more time as Persephone, and her old friends and behaviors feel like the lie, with her vampire act the reality.
Did Linda really create Persephone? Or was Persephone there all along, just waiting to be needed and released? That's a question that haunts her when she lies down for daylight, regardless of who she's pretending to be.
What's She's Got[]
Brains, looks and an excellent education in Disciplines. Moreover, as the Prince's get she's protected by his reputation, and it casts a very long shadow indeed. On top of that, she was a lawyer - a good on, if not one who had the chance to be great. She's rusty with anything outside of real-estate (say, evidentiary procedure or contract negotiation) but she'd at least know where to start.. She's also made some Carthian friends, primarily by playing the willful role of "rebellious childe of the Prince."
What She Needs[]
Protection that stems from herself, not from her sire. Being Maxwell's offspring has made her more enemies than friends, and for every 10 Kindred who fear the Prince's revenge, there's one who can't help but see her as a weak spot in his armor. So far, she's been shielded from the Prince's rivals, but he cannot protect her forever nor does he even want to do so. Solomon Birch, in particular, would like to see this evidence of the Prince's poor judgment swept under the rug, willing or not.
Project: Paper Chase[]
Persephone recognizes the value of a vampire's haven. Her attitude (modern) and training (property law) give her a specialized ability to see the vulnerabilities as well.
She started out casually, finding the locations of various Kindred havens and researching any liens, mortgages and outstanding claims on them. What she found surprised her. A few were rock solid, administrated by mortals (in some cases, a couple of generations of mortals). Others, however, were tissues of fabrications that only stood because they were unexamined. Guessing that many Kindred are relying on mind tricks to conceal years of unpaid back taxes, Persephone is quietly building the case files she'd need to get several havens condemned, reclaimed or auctioned off. Granted, the vulnerable havens aren't held by prominent Kindred, but a lever is a lever....
She'd like to step up this project, but she lacks the stealth and the survivability to access really confidential info. So she needs an agent (or better, agents). Ideally, the agent would be someone with a vulnerable haven, which she could use her expertise to "fix" in return for the dirt on others....
Stats[]
Clan: Ventrue
Covenant: Invictus
Embrace: 2003
Apparent Age: 29
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 2, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 2, Composure 2
Mental Skills: Academics (Law) 4, Computer 1, Investigation (Legal Matters) 3, Politics 3
Physical Skills: Athletics 1, Drive 2, Stealth 1
Social Skills: Empathy 1, Persuasion 2, Socialize (The Pickup) 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 1
Merits: Allies 4, Mentor (Bella) 4, Resources 3, Striking Looks 1
Willpower: 4
Humanity: 6
Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Pride
Health: 7
Initiative: 4
Defense: 2
Speed: 9
Blood Potency: 1
Disciplines: Dominate 3, Resilience 1
Vitae/per Turn: 10/1
References[]
- VTR: Vampire 1: A Hunger Like Fire
[citation needed] - VTR: Vampire 2: Blood In, Blood Out [citation needed]
- VTR/WTF/MTAw/CofD: World of Darkness: Chicago, p. 128-130
- CofD: World of Darkness: Chicago - Three Shades of Night, p. The Murder of Crows: 14-15, 52, 60