Joachim von Neumann
Sobriquet: Sir Joachim(Former Master of Elysium)
Nomenclature: Joachim von Neumann (Jo-a-keem fun New-e-mun)
Appearance:
Behavior: Although Joachim von Neumann places a great deal of emphasis on control, as many Ventrue do, he in truth has very little of it. Nothing of his known unlife reveals this, however. Despite the Toreador stranglehold on France, Joachim has managed to survive and flourish in the courts of Paris and Versailles. He has amassed a significant fortune and a prestigious political power-base in the land of the Enlightenment, and he enjoys the status and influence his position brings.
History: However, his secrets gnaw at him every night. His family, a line of ghouls and retainers for many powerful Ventrue down the years, is overshadowed by many dark promises. In reality, Joachim knows little about those promises; his great-grandfather, who is also his sire, has never seen fit to tell him, and Joachim has not seen him for over three centuries. All that he knows is that his sire, or his grand-sire, or one of his vampiric ancestors made an oath long ago to a very old and very powerful Nosferatu. The boon has passed to him and his entire family, and he only knows a small part of what it entails -- he must protect certain Nosferatu when they ask him in the correct way, and he must safeguard several ancient arcane tomes and tablets. For centuries he was unable to even decipher them, regardless, he is expected to protect them with his unlife.
Two centuries ago, the young son of one of his descendants accidentally lost some of the tomes! Unfortunately, the boy publicly killed a man in his haste to escape familial justice and ended up in the Bastille during the riots. Though he eventually found the boy, the tomes were long gone and he has spent the last three hundred years tracking them down and returning them to the family crypt, so that when his secret masters call for them, he can turn them over as the oath demands. Sadly, there is just one problem, one of the tomes still remains beyond Joachim's grasp and he has no idea how he is ever going to recover it...
When Villon became Prince he removed Joachim from the seat of Master of Elysium. That honor was deemed best in the hands of a Toreador. Joachim was very angry about that, and has always looked for a way to hurt Villon and take down the Toreador hegemony. He likes to rail and complain to Quinten La Nerf and Labienus, but neither have been willing to make a public move. Joachim has been spending time talking with St. Just...the two seem to have much in common these days. Von Neuman also has spent time wooing the Tremere, though the warlocks have kept him at arms length.
During the summer solstice of 2029, he he hosted a large gathering of Paris' night society to honor the return of the now deceased Toreador singer L'Epuisette. Her sire, Audric St.Thierry, having recovered the body of his beloved childe, has fled the gathering in his grief. As the gathering was instituted by the prince at the behest of his favored great-grand-childe, Audric, to honor L'Epuisette, the purpose of the gathering had come to an end. Sensing the mood of his fellow nocturnal Parisians, he volunteers to host a celebration in honor of the city's new arrivals at his country estate to the south of Paris. The collected Kindred sigh in relief and there is a clear sense of jubilation from the crowd. Joachim quickly suggests a scavenger hunt in the interim, giving everyone the chance to change from their mourning black colors to something more vibrant. He quickly creates a list of seven things the teams of Kindred will need in order to win the hunt: a mortal octogenarian (either sex and still in good health...), a famous mortal (in good health of either sex), a photograph of the entire team at the top of the Eiffel Tower (an extra point for a good background shot of the city...of course), an on-duty police officer (in good health, an extra point if the officer is from somewhere other than Paris), a photo of the entire team behind a display window of a popular retail store pretending to be the mannikins (an extra point if the team arrives dressed as the mannikins, but with style), a photo of the entire team staging a Kung-Fu battle on the sidewalk outside a prestigious hotel (an extra point if the hotel is in another city), a music video of the team performing with a popular mortal music group (an extra point to the team if they bring the mortal group with them to the estate).
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