From SuspireWiki

Well Known Character Facts (at game start)

• She was originally targeted for embrace by Damien Costello before embraced instead by Colby Ryall, nonetheless Damien continued to pursue her until at a party in October 1976 at which she publicly derided him. This seemed to start a blood feud between the two. Many speculate that neither kills the other off just because they like fighting each other too damn much.
• Around 1986 there was a cold war between Josephine and Kien Zhao consisting mostly of glares and small slights that lasted until Zhao's childe Silvia Bancroft was manumitted in 1988. Afterwards it seemed as if both parties decided to mutually ignore the whole prior situation.
• Josephine's childe Marco Belmonte is a mortal relation of Damien Costello and a victim of, as well as a participant in, the feud.
• She's served several times as the official Invictus liaison as necessary and most know that if they want the Invictus to know something they can drop it in her hearing and it'll get back.
  • Crone Knowledge: During the discussion revolving around the appointment of a new Prince, the older Quentin Ainsworth seemed to give over negotiations to Josephine. However it's Ainsworth who actually suggests Zhao.
• There have been rumors lately of Josephine taking on students in etiquette and negotiations. So far no one knows if any one has taken her up on it.
• The entire Arundell line uses the estoile symbol to mark their domain and seal their formal letters.
• The Arundell line also keeps a family estate in Greendale but Josephine prefers to conduct informal meetings (and affairs) at her more modern Hive Ward penthouse.
• Josephine is an avid gardener, something the other Invictus look on in tolerable amusement - especially as she willingly supplies them with all the flowers they want for their various codes. She often gives bouquets or potted plants from her own garden as gifts and has been known at times to supply more hardy plants to Mandragora growers.

(More to come maybe...)

Lineage

Madam Josephine, Protege of House Aedelred, of the line Arundell, Viscountess of Starkhorn Heights, Councilor and Regent of North Hawthorn Point, childe of the deceased Mister Colby Ryall, Soldier, childe of the eclipsed Mister Sebastian Fawkner, Soldier, childe of presumed eclipsed Alder Behenna Rashleigh, Speaker, childe of The Right Honorable Alder Warren Keast, Marquis of Cornwall and Councilor, childe of The Honorable Alder Conner Arundell, Earl of Devon and Advisor.

Background

Before Embrace

September 1949

William Blackwell had always considered himself a self-made man. He smiled at that thought as he sat across from Henry Finch in a well appointed office on god-knows-what story of a building of Blackwell’s own making. Finch was going on about legacies again. He wasn’t speaking of the buildings Blackwell loved building so much as he was speaking about flesh and blood legacies.

Blackwell’s mind wandered, until Finch mentioned “the new aristocracy.” With the same attention and ambition that built his empire, he focused on what Finch said. It struck a cord. Blackwell smiled again. New Aristocracy, he liked the sound of that.

December 1949

Madeline Finch admired the diamond encircled by more diamonds on her finger. It was beautiful, just like her. It was cold, just like her – but she’d slap you if you said it. The be-ringed hand moved to cradle the small swelling of her stomach. Inside, she thought to herself, begins the new class.

August 1950

No one told Blackwell that babies were so goddamn noisy. He resented this intrusion on his peace. Furthermore, he resented the fact that his first goddamn noisy thing would be a girl. At least it’d keep Madeline from running around and spending what money she could as fast as she could.

No one told Madeline that babies were so ever-living ugly. The little girl she held squirming against her breast wasn’t a miracle. It was a monster. It’s head was misshapen, it’s face was all splotchy. She looked over into the mirror. She couldn’t believe her, beautiful her, had birthed this ugly thing.

November 1951

Blackwell sat in his study, drinking a glass of what he considered to be excellent port. Finch was across from him, as was his habit these days, bouncing his grand daughter on his knee. A scream rose from upstairs, then the wail of a child. The second brat was born and Blackwell found he was much too drunk to care.

Madeline was exhausted. She always seemed to be exhausted these days. It was done though, this one was born. A boy, Blackwell would be happy. Maybe he would buy her that new jewelry set she’d been admiring. She deserved it. She damn well deserved it.

February 1956

Josephine Blackwell-Finch sat at the window, longingly looking out. There was snow. It was dirty but it was snow and she wanted to be outside playing in it. She could hear her siblings behind her – both boys were bickering over toy soldiers. She sighed. Soon enough it’d be time to go change dresses and visit her parents. She hoped her grandfather would be there, he was always good for a piece of candy or something.

June 1960

Madeline eyed her figure in the middle despairingly. She’d never get back the hourglass of her youth. It was gone, washed away by four pregnancies. The last one wasn’t even worth any thing. She thought with resentment of the still-born child. Blackwell had shouted at her. He’d said it was her fault. He said she drank the baby to death. What would he know about drinking? When was the man without his port, or brandy, or whiskey or whatever it is he drank.

January 1962

It was snowing again. Josephine sighed. Nurse said the snow was dirty and filthy and only filthy little street urchins played in it. Josephine wished she was a street urchin. At the grand old age of twelve she felt trapped. Her brothers were annoyances, always following her around, always getting into her business. Her mother and father were distant. Sometimes she heard raised voices, quickly muffled. Sometimes she wasn’t allowed to go into her mother’s room because someone would be cleaning up broken glass. Josephine knew her mother was sad.

Madeline wasn’t sad. She was angry. She was pissed. Another wasted pregnancy. When would Blackwell be happy? When he’d driven her into an early grave with his ridiculous desire for a flesh and blood empire? There were lines around her eyes that even her expert theatrical hand couldn’t hide with paints and powders. She looked old. Old at thirty five, it depressed her. It angered her.

March 1962

Josephine sat on the edge of her mother’s bed, watching her carefully apply make-up. Her mother was so beautiful. Josephine thought she had to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Her gaze drifted dreamily to the jewelry boxes, to the powders, to the perfume in glittering cut glass. “Josephine!” Her attention snapped back to her mother, a blush rose on her cheeks when she realized she’d been daydreaming. Her mother was telling her again about why she mustn’t gallivant around with the boys. Josephine sighed. These lectures were getting common place. She wished she could tell her mother about her dreams to be a sea captain. She knew she couldn’t. Josephine was to be a lady. Her mother said it very specifically. Josephine was part of the new class, whatever that meant.

August 1968

Josephine was annoyed. It was supposed to be her birthday. They were supposed to go out and celebrate. Instead her mother had locked herself in her room and her father was threatening to break the door down. It was exhausting, this constant fighting. Her mother drank too much. Every one knew it. How were they to present a collected, dignified front, if her mother was always slurring and falling over things? Josephine sighed then rose from the couch and went to find Will. Perhaps she could torment him more over that scraggly thing he liked to call a beard.

December 1970

Blackwell was worried. The three of his newest building ventures lay empty, still. It’d been two years. Surely they could have filled them with tenants or sold them or something. But no, they sat there empty, sucking money from his bank account. He tossed down the financial reports and rose to pour himself a drink. It was time to have a meeting with Finch.

February 1971

Henry Finch smiled at the thought of his son-in-law; the younger man was starting to be creative. Finch may have arranged for Blackwell to meet the world of white collar crime, but Blackwell seemed to be taking to it like a duck takes to water. Finch had watched earlier in the evening when Blackwell negotiated an arrangement to use a few abandoned buildings as drop points for transports through Carcosa.

Blackwell loosened his tie slowly as he watched Madeline get dressed for the party in the mirror. This party would make the contacts he needed for the second part of his scheme. Empty buildings would only go so long for housing drugs or guns or whatever it is - he didn't want to know. Afterward though, the insurance money would come in and his new friends would make sure that he was never accused of fraud.

After Embrace

April 1972

Josephine thought the phrase “not every thing glitters is gold” was apt for the gathering. It looked, on the surface, like any high society function. Josephine new better. She knew that half of the people in the room weren’t quality at all. They were the new aristocracy. Her lips twisted upwards in a mockery of a smile. So much for all of father’s big dreams, his new aristocracy was riddled with mobsters and union bosses. She drifted through the glittering crowd of pyrite with the disinterest of the young.

Damien Costello was entranced. He watched the emotions cross her features like a dying man watching an oasis shimmer in front of him. She was beautiful. No, she was more than beautiful. She was a goddess; a goddess in form and in manner both. Damien Costello, for a single instant, believed in fate and goodness and blessings. Damien Costello liked to think himself a poet.

Colby Ryall patiently listened to Damien Costello explain exactly why he should be given the clan's permission to embrace this woman he was sure would be compared to Aphrodite at any minute. It was around the second recitation of her charms that Colby Ryall decided it was time to take revenge on Costello for his past insults. He'd be the one embracing Aphrodite, not the Carthian wannabe Crone.

May 1972

Josephine sat in front of her mirror and reflected. Not on the blurry woman staring back at her, she was used to that now, but on life. She thought of her mother, already aged at forty five. She looked into the blurry reflection, willing it for a moment to stand still. She smile and that glorious smile was reflected back at her. Josephine liked to think of the fact that at twenty two she was preserved indefinitely. Every thing she had was preserved indefinitely: her beauty, her family, her fortunes, and her dreams.

Blackwell didn’t mourn his daughter. She was dead, yes, but she wasn’t. Oh, sure, most people didn’t want to believe in vampires but they just made so much sense. He trusted her; he loved her despite her cold hands and icy eyes. Maybe even, to a degree, he lusted after her. He shied away from that thought, it bothered him. A man shouldn’t lust after his daughter.

Madeline was relieved. The task of this dynasty making had finally fallen into other hands. Josephine would handle it. Josephine would see that their family rose, like the cream it was, to the top. It was Josephine’s dynasty now and Madeline was proud.

August 1972

Damien Costello was angry. He wanted her for himself and now Colby Ryall had her. It was obvious to any one with half a brain that Colby Ryall took her just to be a dick. Damien liked to think he had at least half a brain.

Colby Ryall always considered himself a good soldier as well as a budding socialite - always budding though, never flowering. He intended better for Josephine. He intended to see her blossom; the diamond was already there, he just had to polish it.

March 1973

Josephine sighed. Sighing was a rarer habit now than before but this warranted it. Damien Costello was sniffing around again. It didn’t take her long to figure out the story of her embrace. If she looked at it one way, it was insulting. If she looked at it another, it was flattering. She preferred the latter.

Damien Costello was resolved. It would be a remarkable stroke of revenge and cunning if he could not only take back Josephine but wrest her from Colby Ryall and the Invictus together. A remarkable stroke of revenge.

September 1973

Josephine was toying with him. She recognized it. Colby Ryall recognized it. Every one but Damien realized it. Oh, but it was a wonderful thing to be so flattered, so pursued. To be wanted.

March 1975

Josephine was growing tired of Damien. His arguments were growing dull. He talks of gods and goddesses while she exists firmly in the material world. He continued cavorting around with his mortal friends, as if he were one of them still. He continued shady deals with crumbling gangs and fallen politicians. He even found her devotion to her dynasty distasteful. What could Damien understand? She sighed. She adjusted the shackles around her wrists with distaste. It wasn’t her usual fashion statement.

Colby Ryall was nervous. It wasn't that he thought she may not succeed. Ryall knew beyond a doubt that he had trained her well, or at least as well as he could. He intended to do better for her though. He'd already secured a mentor for her - a manumission gift that keeps giving, so to say.

October 1976

Josephine tugged loose the flower from her hair; the flower petals rained over her shoulders at the rough tug. Immediately she regretted the action; the flower had been beautiful and she had been careless. Carelessness doesn't create blooming gardens and if you discounted the Crone (really, why should they count?) Josephine's garden was the best there was. Her thoughts strayed back to the evening before the dismantlement of her flower.

She considered tonight a success at least. Sometimes it just felt good to be mean, and mean she was. The party, of course, was splendid. Josephine was convinced she had a knack for planning parties. If only Damien knew he was the guest of honor! Josephine giggled, just a little. She was certain he was going to frenzy, especially at that “two-bit thug” line. It was beautiful, really. He’d certainly be leaving her alone now.

June 1978

The scream was loud enough to be heard in every corner of the Blackwell mansion. It was a sound of anguish and it brought the ghouls and staff running. Josephine let out another hoarse scream before she stumbled backwards against the wall. The pain was awful. It was hideous. It was worst than any thing she'd ever felt before. Then it was over, just like that. Instinctively, she knew what had happened. She knew that Colby was dead. She felt how he died. She even had a good idea of who. For the first time in her life, Josephine felt helpless. She felt lost and alone.

It was then that Quentin Ainsworth took an interest in her. He provided her with his personal stable; he offered her haven. While it may have just been charity to Ainsworth to Josephine it was a life line. More than that, it seamlessly replaced her male father figure. Responsibility that had once been her father's, then her sire's mentally was shifted to Quentin.

December 1979

Josephine felt panic beating at her still heart. They were coming. Every one knew who they were and at the same time, no one had a clue. But they were coming and Josephine had this dire thought that they were coming for her. She didn’t want to die and she especially didn’t want to die like that. In her panic she again turned to Quentin, cementing what would become a very workable patron-client exchange. Some of the Invictus even speculated that Ainsworth was quietly grooming her as his protege.

March 1980

Josephine clasped a piece of too large jewelry around her slender, youthful neck with trembling hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she didn’t awake with a sense of dread. Had it really only been a year? You’d think years would go fast for the dead; this one had dragged on for centuries it seemed. She just hoped this desperate plan; this betrayal of betrayal would work. Her fingertips slid away from her neck reluctantly. Josephine liked her neck.

October 1981

Josephine slowly stretched her arms over her head and rolled on her side to look at Vander. The warmth from her body was starting to fade but dawn was a while off still. In this moment, this glow of infatuation, this man understood her like no other. He understood her dreams, her destiny, and most of all her dynasty. Little did she know that a year later the two would hardly even talk. Candles lit from both ends may burn bright but they still burn out. At least there would be one long lasting benefit from the arrangement: from watching Vander's doings (and covertly going through his papers) she was able to gather a small grasp of how to manage her own money. After all, her father wouldn't live forever and it'd take time to transfer things to the boys.

May 1985

Canceled parties never spelled any thing good. Tonight it was Rebecca Wilson's party that was canceled. Another Paige gone, the fifth since this all started. Josephine looked into the mirror as she took off the necklace and placed it carefully into the box. Their numbers were slowly shrinking. Josephine imagined she took each death harder than the others. After all, she was the Advocate; she was the one who recruited these young Kindred to their deaths. Charmed with the idea of power, with the easy path to wealth and standing, they flocked to the Invictus. The Lancea Sanctum then picked them off, one by one.

February 1986

Josephine glared at Kien Zhao from across the room. It was a makeshift place, a small Elysium where those brave enough to go out would gather every few months to be updated on news. She was displeased, no, she was pissed - the sort of pissed that comes from worry. He had done it. He'd gone and embraced. Didn't he learn any thing from others' mistakes? Hadn't he seen the childer dying? The new recruits "disappearing?" Oh, no, of course not. The young always know best - she paused at that thought, when had she gone from young to old? It wasn't right. No one not even fifteen years dead should be old, especially in the Invictus. It's just an example of that wrongness that demonstrates why this childe shouldn't have been embraced.

April 1987

Josephine dabbed at an ink splotch on her journal. She was writing about the night’s events and just thinking about them makes her nervous. The night had started off great, the Elysium chatter was in full swing and she was the center of it - just where she wanted to be. Then it happened. It was the appearance of the mask from no where that set her hands to trembling. The move forced by the Consilium didn’t bother her as much as others, after all she already lived on Hawthorne Point. Would they just live under a different threat now? What had they done?

July 1987

It didn't take long for Josephine to find out why she hadn't seen Ainsworth in the last handful of months. The man was virtually homeless. She quietly imagined it was pride that kept him from asking for help, or maybe he just felt it was his responsibility to be the strong one. Not wanting to injure his pride if that was the case, or disabuse him of the second notion, she quietly pulled some strings to see that a couple of his old havens were sold quickly. In the meantime she asked him to come stay with her, citing that she heard the Sanctified may be planning an attack and wished his protection.

March 1993

Josephine stood at the window overlooking the city, the murmur of her parents' voices behind her were just distractions. They spoke quietly and Josephine would like to think it was because they didn't wish to disturb her but the truth was, they had always spoken quietly. There were papers on the coffee table - a prospectus; her father was trying to tell her about his desire to invest. She just wasn't in the mood. There were other things on her mind. Josephine wanted to embrace. She was 23 years old. She felt she was old enough; she was old enough. It wasn't fair. Her father spoke up again, trying to get her attention. She turned from the window and snatched up the papers, ripping them up in a fit of pique. If she couldn't have her childe, then Blackwell couldn't have his project.

November 1998

Josephine stepped back and smiled as she watched the man start to move on the tile floor of her bathroom. Her first childe; her beautiful, beautiful childe. It had been four years since the last Invictus Paige died. Josephine was certain it was safe to embrace again. She wished she could ask Colby for his advice but he was gone and there was peace now and Quentin so rarely told her no to any thing. She wished she could wreck revenge for his death - for all of their deaths - but logic prevailed, as it must. The dynasty is far more important than any momentary pleasure.

September 1999

The vase of flowers she was about to sit on the table crashed to the floor. Water, stems and glass showered Josephine's feet but it didn’t matter. She gasped at the sudden feeling of pain; more than that, the knowledge of pain. She didn't scream, not this time. She knew this feeling. This awful, awful feeling. It was a feeling of death. It was the feeling of her childe’s death. The purges had begun again.

March 2002

Josephine sat at the head of long table, to the right of Quentin Ainsworth. The position as Councilor was new, to some extent Josephine was convinced it was improper as well; it was probably that guilty feeling that prompted her offer to swear Service to Ainsworth two years ago - just three more years to go. There should have been others nonetheless. She had recruited them herself. Out of all the recruits of the last 15 years, only a handful made it through.

With Margaret Norman, the last of the loose council ruling Carcosa, having disappeared the Invictus was having to step forward and do something again. Josephine sighed; sighing was one of those little mortal ticks she liked to keep around. The discussion went, as these things do, with posturing and negotiations, with meaningless concessions and little understandings to protect every one's pride. Ainsworth liked to leave that part to her. It was only after half a dozen names for Prince had been bandied about without real support that Ainsworth spoke up with a suggestion: Kien Zhao.

Josephine gave a mental nod to her mother's lessons that kept her surprise from reflecting on her face. Kien Zhao wasn't the first person she'd select for Prince, especially giving his propensity to ignore the advice of others and go on his own way. Nonetheless, Ainsworth obviously had a plan. Josephine hoped his plan wasn't along the lines of "no one will miss him if he dies" but pragmatism insisted that was probably it indeed. She sighed again. That'd be one less recruit in her portfolio.

July 2003

Josephine slowly unzipped her dress, letting it fall in a puddle of raw silk around her feet. The smile she'd been holding to a small curve of the lips finally stretched across her face. It had gone perfectly. Oh, not the party itself. It was the afterward that went perfectly. Marco Belmonte was embraced; it was successful. And he would live if she had any thing to say about it. He was her second embrace, yes, but definitely not her last. Now that it was safe, yes, now that it was safe she had twenty years to make up for.

She stepped out of the puddle and moved to the mirror to remove the pins from her hair. She mentally recounted her successes of the year - what a wonderful year it had been too, and only half gone. Kien Zhao had solidified his Praxis with actual laws albeit not without some nudging, she'd taken control of Starkhorn Heights (as if she'd let any one else have it), accepted a position as Court Harpy (which she figured she was already doing), and started making preliminary plans to open a guild.

March 2005

She taps her nails on the table top absently, waiting for the others to settle down. Prince Kien Zhao was a success so far (although just him living was a pleasant surprise in and of itself), a situation that put the Invictus marginally ahead of the Circle of the Crone in influence, thus it was time for a renegotiation of alliance. Finally Landon Merrick took his seat and the discussions began.

January 2006

Josephine stood in the dark corner of the bedroom; she didn’t consider herself spying but more monitoring her machinations. The door opened silently and two figures stepped inside; man and woman were wrapped up in each other. The man’s lips went to the woman’s neck and in that instant history was made. The woman stilled completely; she went limp in his arms. Minutes passed in tense silence before she was lowered to the floor. It was a tableau seen time and again throughout history: the lover and his victim.

Josephine shook her head slightly at her whimsy and returned her attention to watching Marco embrace his childe, her grandchilde. He was so good, so obedient. Just look at this handpicked continuance. Josephine admired the beauty of getting rid of a problem and creating an ally in one step.

Josephine's Junk

Ferrari 575 GTZ

Pebl

Majesty Bracelet

Party Invitations

Circus Party

Formal Ball