Merit-neferu, true name An-merit-nefer-katseru, was a merchant in the 4th century BCE. She joined the ranks of the Reborn, the Shemsu-Heru, when it was offered to her by the Cult of Isis in 340 BCE. Now known as Michaela Neff in the modern day, she lives in Hong Kong and is the Vizier of Asia.
Sakura ab-Neferu, born Yoshimuro Sakura in her Second Life, was a young, idle Japanese woman who was killed by a frenzied vampire. She became a nehem-sen when she was saved by the tem-akh of Merit-neferu. In her Third Life she became an Amenti.
Original History[]
Merit-neferu was born in the days when Egypt's power was spreading beyond its own borders. She married young, to wealthy merchant Horem-rebkt. The two headed a business of lucrative caravans and sailing expeditions of rare spices, precious wood, fine dyes and other precious commodities. They gave generously and numerously to the pharaoh and his ministers and when Horem-rebkt suddenly died the result was a great funerary honor usually only bestowed upon members of the Royal Court of Egypt.
After her husband's death, Merit-neferu refused several offers of marriage and instead vowed to continue her husband's business as though he were still alive. She doubled her enterprise's profits with shrewd intuition and quick intelligence. This allowed her to continue her practice of making large donations to the Pharaoh, over and above the regular taxes.
The Cult of Isis saw the devotion that Merit-neferu had for her husband and her Pharaoh and offered her immortality. In return for her services to their cause, of course. Merit-neferu decided to accept the Priestesses offer. She believed it would give her the chance to search for her beloved husband in both the lands of the living and dead. And thus a simple yet extravagantly rich woman joined the ranks of the Shemsu-Heru and became one of the Reborn.
Throughout all her lives, Merit-neferu has used her skills to ply her trade, even when that defied social convention. She amassed great wealth in which she has been able to access each time she returns from the Land of the dead.
When the British acquired the island of Hong Kong and established it as a center for world trade in the East, the appointment of Merit-neferu as Asia's vizier seemed particularly appropriate. She has lived on the island since 1901.
Since the change over, Michaela Neff, as Merit-neferu has recently started to call herself, has navigated the waters of both mortal and supernatural politics as best she can without taking sides and without revealing herself. Just before the turn of the 21st century, she uncovered writings that hint of the existence of uniquely Asian mummies, whose immortality derives from a similar process to the Great Rite that creates the Shemsu-heru. She has been searching ever since for proof to this discovery.
New History[]
Born in Egypt in 380 BC, Merit-Neferu had no idea she would serve the son of Osiris for millennia to come. Refusing to remarry after her husband’s unexpected death, Merit-Neferu instead devoted herself to continuing his business and giving generously to the Pharaoh. Her piety and devotion caught the eye of the Cult of Isis, who offered her immortality in exchange for service to their cause, a burden and honor Merit-Neferu accepted to become one of the Shemsu-heru.
Merit-Neferu has endured the ages since through innumerable lifetimes, plying her trade as a merchant clandestinely or openly — but always successfully — until receiving appointment as the vizier of Asia by Horus himself in 1901. From her modest home in Hong Kong, the Vizier dutifully monitored the region’s changing political climate and the petty squabbles of its mortals and monsters, but remained aloof until her discovery of cryptic writings hinting at the existence of native Asian mummies. Michaela Neff (as Merit-Neferu called herself in the modern world) was on the verge of discovering such a being when the Dja-akh struck the underworld like a wrathful dragon. Unfortunately, Merit-Neferu had entered a death cycle just before and her soul shattered in the force of the ghost-storm. Only Merit-Neferu’s ba remained, torn and confused as she circled like a bird seeking refuge. When a victim of a frenzied vampire materialized across the Shroud, Michaela appeared to the frightened young woman and offered to help her escape the terrible storm threatening them both. Grabbing onto her savior fiercely, the woman agreed and the two souls leaped across the Shroud together in a flash of light.
Yoshimuro Sakura, daughter of the wealthy Japanese financier Yoshimuro Hideo, never really chose anything for herself in her life. An obedient child eager to please her doting parents, Sakura’s adolescent rebelliousness was not a result of a growing sense of independence so much as her succumbing to peer pressure. After her mother died of cancer, the 15-year-old honor student allowed herself to be swept up in the club scene as an escape from her grief. She moved to Hong Kong at 18 because her father wanted her company. He hoped that seeing his promotion and success at the investment firm would inspire his daughter to take interest in school again and pursue college. Still listless and without a sense of direction, Sakura’s altogether unexpected death at the hands of a berserk man she later discovered to be a vampire left her understandably traumatized and confused. Desperate for an escape — any escape — Sakura grabbed the angel that swept down to her on wings of light and promised help. She saw a flash of light and then nothing.
Sakura awoke again in a strange temple surrounded by robed figures chanting in a language she didn’t understand. She felt different, more alive somehow, certainly more confident. Scared and oddly unafraid at the same time, the new Amenti adjusted to her new state amazingly quickly. She returned to Hong Kong within weeks as Sakura ab-Neferu, though she alone knew that. Her father thought she had run away or been kidnapped, and he was overjoyed to receive her home again. Yet for all that she now appreciated his ambition and abiding love with new understanding, Sakura had other memories, fragmented though they were, of places and lives stretching back through nearly 24 centuries of life. She remembered searching for other immortals at the very end and then death. Unsure of how or where to look, Sakura watched and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.
Three months after beginning her Third Life, she found a young man sitting in lotus position in her locked apartment. He addressed her by her new name, introduced himself as the immortal Kun Li, and proceeded to give her a message he claimed was from the Eight Immortals of Taoist legend. Awed, Sakura returned to Egypt to seek counsel with a friend among the Imkhu, telling her of the self-proclaimed Wu T’ian who had sought her as a messenger and his gentle insistence that the Children of Heaven were the rightful shepherds of the Middle Kingdom. His advice that the Children of the Nile should tend the concerns of their own lands and not involve themselves in the affairs of others was met with skepticism and alarm. Sakura returned to Hong Kong with orders to make contact with these so-called Wu T’ian and learn all she could about them. Although Kun Li has appeared several times in the months since (usually where and when she least expects him), his answers to her queries have been cryptic and deliberately vague. She still has yet to meet any others of his kind, and she knows little more about the Wu T’ian than when she started her assignment.
Image[]
Michaela is an attractive woman in her mid-40s, with olive-coloured skin and lustrous dark hair. Her features are Middle Eastern, though not obviously Egyptian. She wears modern dress, although she adorns herself with antique jewelry occasionally.
Character Sheet[]
Roleplaying Hints: Despite no success in your searching, you refuse to give up the hope of locating some vestige of your husband’s soul — either in some reincarnation or as a shade in the lands of the dead. You keep busy in the meantime with the task of serving as one of Horus’ surrogate eyes. Stay in the background, lest you draw unwanted attention to yourself. Rely on your retainers, servants, and various news services and local information sources to alert you to anything of true importance.
Secrets: Michaela has reason to believe that one of her Asian counterparts dwells on one of the many islands — possibly Lantau — that make up Hong Kong. Influence: Her investments give her some influence over Hong Kong’s finances.
References[]
- WOD: World of Darkness: Hong Kong, p. 120-121
- MTR: Mummy Players Guide, p. 219
