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Basics
Information in this section is provided to assist in the formation of character links, and will be removed come game start. Metagamers who assume knowledge outside the listed portion will be strung up and flogged.
Public Knowledge: Jonothon is, to call up a rather apt analogy, like an ill-tempered housecat. Sullen and aloof, and prone to acts of vicious spite. He dabbles in kindred politics with an obviously halfhearted effort, just deep enough to give him ammunition for his razor-sharp and oft-tactless tongue. Seeming to be affected by very little, he quietly fosters the small resentments, jealousies and hurts until they're a stoked fire waiting to be unleashed, usually in a petty but nonetheless destructive manner.
The bulk of his attentions are wrapped up in his passion for his art; Jonothon is a mask-maker of no small amount of skill and vision. Gilded masks as a form wearable art jewelry seem to be his primary medium, especially when intended for recipients outside his covenant. Of course being the person he is, there's often a message to be conveyed by those given gifts, and in this realm his subtlety shines brightest.
In a somewhat stereotypical Daeva manner, he enjoys vicious-but-friendly banter, and a sure way to earn his respect is to be able to skillfully take part in such exchanges in the intended spirit. Being too stupid to keep up, or so snotty as to take undue offense, and one will find oneself on the receiving end of either hostilities or cast out of consideration behind a cold shoulder.
A sure way to piss him off -- probably forever -- is to ask if he'll make (or has made) an iron mask in that chillingly familiar fashion.
Crone Knowledge: Known to be openly distrustful (though deeply respectful) of those who practice Cruac regularly or at an advanced level; feels such open communion and brokering with Blood Gods on a level that is largely Theirs is simply asking for trouble. Claimed his hands were clean of murder when he entered the city, and no proof of such an event taking place since his arrival are publicly known; he fills quite readily the traditional role of Fool, though he prefers the title of Trickster, if such "titles" are being thrown around.
History
Mortality
1966 - 1980
Born in 1966, he was born Matthew Weatherby, the son a Washington, D.C. prostitute named Mary Weatherby, and one of her clients. Mary attempted to go straight after his birth for the sake of her son; the life of a whore was not one she felt proper for a new mother. She worked many brief, low-paying pink collar jobs, and depended heavily upon the dual charity and scorn of the local Catholic parish.
Mary found herself in various unhealthy relationships; some were abusive, and some were little more than an extended act of prostitution. She agonized over every failure, fighting with the kind of self-hatred that only drove her time and time again to make the same mistakes. She began drinking heavily once Matthew began school, and by 1978, she married a man by the name of Lyle Kirkland after becoming pregnant with his child.
Matthew found solace in religion; members of the parish the Weatherby family was a part of took it upon themselves to try to guide him away from the "sins of his mother." While he was not able to attend a parochial school, he attended catechism classes thrice per week, in addition to Sunday Schooling and at least two masses per week. He served as an altar boy, and through his religious devotion and unerring, polite charm, many forgot the indiscretions of Mary, bringing some small measure of absolution to the troubled home.
His mother was unable to carry the child of her new husband to term, and suffered a catastrophic, early stillbirth. Kirkland began filing for an annulment while Mary was still recovering in the hospital, and the aftermath saw her sunk into a deep, near-irretrievable depression. She no longer went to work, and the Weatherby family subsisted on nothing more than government assistance by the time Matthew reached his fifteenth birthday.
1980-1983
Matthew turned more heavily to his faith as he entered his teens. He did passably well with his public education, though he found the experience less than edifying; nasty rumors about his mother hung heavily about him, lending ammunition to tormentors when he wasn't being mocked for his orthodox religious preferences which put him firmly out of touch with his peers.
He had always felt that the church was where he needed to devote his life, and from a young age he knew he wanted to be a man of the cloth. The formal decision was placed after his Confirmation and the end of his Sophomore year of high school to join the Seminary. The little pay he received from charitable work was squirreled away for his tuition, but the big break came when his parish bestowed upon him a sizable scholarship. Following his graduation in 1963, he was enrolled to begin at the Washington Theological Union the following autumn.
Fate had a different plan for Matthew. Or at least, a man named Isaiah thought so.
1984
Isaiah was a charming, intelligent and worldly man who was quite persistent in becoming Matthew's friend. The priest-almost-in-training of course gave to the utmost respect, but the man was a stranger; Matthew kept his worldview small, and well-enclosed by the invisible walls of the parish.
Still he persisted, and against his better judgment, the younger man succumbed. Isaiah took him out to restaurants wherein he led them through thorough debates, discussing and arguing everything from art to which Matthew plead ignorance, to religion which he quickly came to realize he also knew precious little. The man he was coming to view as a close friend in a dizzyingly short span of time refused to allow Matthew to dwell in close minded naivety, and for the first time ever, he felt true doubt about his faith.
Isaiah saw those cracks and attacked them viciously, quickly turning their heated but polite restaurant debates into motel room screaming matches which always saw Matthew the loser. Isaiah was simply more intelligent, persuasive, forceful; he felt stupid, plain, and constantly and completely wrong. By August, he lived his life in a daze, dropping out of his charity work, sleeping the days away until Isaiah came and took him away for another round of so-called conversation.
It was shortly before labor day that Matthew finally broke. Sobbing, screaming, tearing at himself with guilt and heartbroken confusion, the divide Isaiah drove into his mind was just too much. He could argue no more of his points, and his faith felt like a handful of water slipped from his fingers. Isaiah gathered up his "friend" into his arms, finalized the full, horrible vinculum and began the process of building Matthew a new existence atop the skillfully-wrought ruins of the young mortal's will.
1985
Matthew was not ready for embrace by Walpurgis Night 1965, and he unknowingly suffered for this accidental failing. He was coming along beautifully, though; the scalding fires of guilt and recrimination over his fall from grace drove him to dive headlong into his new faith and utter fixation upon Isaiah. A dutiful member of the Chorus, Matthew found his new life just the tiniest bit at odds with his last; he surprised Isaiah by requesting a new identity, both to gain distance from the well-meaning Catholics of his past, but to also ritualistically bury the mortal he once was.
He chose the name Jonothon, and was given permission to use the surname Western by the originator of the name among their lineage, his great-great-grandsire-to-be, Marla Pomeroy, a terrifying and entrancing woman he hopes to speak with again, even over the phone. Isaiah took particular glee in seizing upon his slip-of-the-tongue in calling himself "newly christened."
At last, Isaiah secured embrace rights for Jonothon (at no small cost, a fact he would constantly hold over his new childe), and on All Hallow's Eve 1965, the life of a man once a devout Catholic known as Matthew Weatherby drew to a close.
Requiem
1986 - 1988
The new year saw the bloom beginning to fall quite quickly from the rose.
Jonothon was a quick study to his new unlife, something that at first delighted his sire. But as the neonate began to come into his own, Isaiah grew bored. The thrill of the chase, of the perversion, destruction and rebuilding were over; the passion as he saw and felt it was over, and now all that was left was the duty of raising a childe.
Desperate to maintain his sire's attention, drawing upon his experience of his mortal mother and the cold of her later neglect, he began acting out, hoping the dual tribulations of his punishment and Isaiah's embarrassment would be enough to keep things alive where his own worth, or his desperate attempts to gain proficiency in the charm of his family, had failed.
At first, it seemed these efforts would succeed. But the city was not one to play easy host to such displays, and the attention he received quickly proved itself to be not what he desired. When Isaiah set to slicing off his face in punishment for the boons he'd been force to give out in acts of forgiveness, he didn't even have the decency to do more than half before he abandoned Jonothon to instead wine and dine his next prospective ghoul.
Jonothon, miserable, grew quiet and bitter, learning what lessons he needed to force Isaiah's hand and be declared fit for Release. He was successful in this endeavor by Christmastime 1988, and Isaiah couldn't even feign the least amount of sorrow when he declared he was leaving DC. He chose the dingy glass of troubled Carcosa in an act akin to self-flagellation, and was praised for this high act of tribulation.
No one in DC expected to see him again, and Jonothon was more than willing to live up to that expectation.
1989 - Current
Faith
Under construction.
Ishtar/Ianna.
The Rabisu. Janus. Unlife: the in-between places, life/death and doorways, beginning/ending. Labyrinths and mazes. Masks, possession, avatars.
Lineage
- Badr, beleived torpid somewhere in the Middle East.
- Marla Pomeroy, Circle of the Crone, whereabouts unknown.
- Siryn Evans-Pomeroy, deceased.
- Isaiah Pomeroy, Circle of the Crone, Washington, D.C.
- Jonothon Pomeroy, Circle of the Crone, Carcosa, VA.
- Isaiah Pomeroy, Circle of the Crone, Washington, D.C.
- Siryn Evans-Pomeroy, deceased.
- Marla Pomeroy, Circle of the Crone, whereabouts unknown.