Nigel Porter
- New Orleans -NOLA- Camarilla -NOLA- Tremere
Sobriquet: Mister Porter (most Kindred), Nigel (for friends and family), Master (for apprentices)
Appearance: Of average build, though a bit tall, Nigel has graying black hair, a mustache and trimmed beard. He has light brown eyes and tends to dress a bit conservatively.
Behavior: Nigel answers all questions directly, but offers no more information than is requested. He tends to refuse any request for help beyond the answering of a few simple questions. Most of his time is spent looking after his childe Sebastien and doing alchemical research.
History: Nigel Porter was born in England in 1712 to an upper-middle-class family. Though provided with a very liberal education, the sciences drew most of his attention. Rather than turn his studies to more credible sciences like astronomy or medicine, Nigel found his interest captivated by alchemy and the search for immortality. Though he managed to become a formidable alchemist, immortality continues to elude him.
As Nigel aged, he devoted more and more of his time to search for eternal life. He traveled across Europe, listening o charlatans and fools of all types. He heard stories of ancient sorcerers who had discovered the secret of immortality, tales of demons who granted it to mortals for a price, and the ever-recurring legends of vampires. Over and over Nigel hear tales of vampires. While other legends were strictly regional, those involving vampires were ubiquitous. So Nigel began to seek out the Damned, hunting for them across the continent. Finally, his journeys brought him to Vienna.
There, he found himself dragged from his bed and brought before the Council of Seven. Stating his case to the Council, Nigel told the Tremere of his travels and inquiries into the legends of immortality. He told them of his research, of the journals he had kept, and of the seemingly ever-present stories of vampires.
The council patiently listened to the mortal, letting him reveal all that he knew of them. When he was finished, Nigel offered to share all of his skills and knowledge with the Tremere in exchange for immortality. The Seven Elers merely laughed at the alchemist. They told him that they had nothing of value in his monologue. Rather than having found immortality, they mockingly whispered, he had in fact found his death.
Before any of the Seven Elders could act, however, a thick black smoke filled the room. Nigel felt himself grabbed from behind, hurled out of the building and pulled into the street. Scrambling to his feet, he tried to run but found himself grabbed and dragged into a side alley. A hand clamped over his mouth and another held him pinned to the wall.
His attacker told Nigel that he was a Tremere, a member of the clan whose elders now sought to kill him. H said he had listened to what Nigel had told the Seven Elders, and that they were fools no to see the benefits of Embracing Nigel. Realizing the council members meant to kill Nigel, Antonio Calbullarshi had worked a simple spell to give himself some cover and had pulled Nigel from the council chambers and out of the building.
The two spent the rest of the night in a small cave outside the city. The following night the young Tremere Embraced Nigel. The pair headed for England, fearing the Council of Seven's wrath. For the next several decades the two traveled about England. Despite being the childe, Nigel soon became the pair's guardian. He made most of their decisions, including when and where they would go and for how long they would settle in one place.
In the late 1700s, Nigel and his sire temporarily parted company. Antonio went to North America to make arrangements for them to settle there, while Nigel made arrangements for their finances and belongings. In the course of his preparations, Nigel Embraced his nephew, Sebastian Walcott. who also studied the occult and showed signs of promise.
When Nigel and Sebastian arrived in Massachusetts, Nigel quickly began to search for his sire. He managed to follow his path as far south as Virginia, but there lost all trace of Antonio. Not knowing what else to do, Nigel returned with Sebastian to Massachusets, hoping Antonio would come there looking for him. For several decades they remained in Boston, taking part in the Tremere Wars in New England, but headed west in the early 19th century.
Nigel himself is still not accepted by the clan. He has tried to win its acceptance, without success. Indeed, younger Tremere have tried to make their names by destroying him, and he has barely survived several attempts on his unlife.
In the 1940s Nigel became aware that no official Tremere chantry existed in New Orleans and saw his chance to make his mark. He and Sebastian headed to the city, where they immediately encountered sorcerer intent on their destruction. Only the most desperate actions on their par, as well as a surprise Lupine attack against the magicians they were fighting left them victorious.
Since then Nigel has spent almost all his time trying to placate the city's magical population, and has remained in the background while Sebastian has established the city's chantry. Now Nigel lives just down the street from his nephew, in an apartment on Royal Street in the French Quarter.
Over the decades Nigel has seen his nephew suffer from dark and sinister moods. During these moods Sebastian's behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, threatening not just himself but those around him. Their present arrangement allows for Nigel to take custody of Sebastian during these times and restrain him in the chantry until the spell has ended.
In trying to offset the occurrences of the moods, Nigel does what he can to engage Sebastian in activities he seems to enjoy especially cribbage. Sbastian has often told his caretaker that their games are more a reckoning than a game. When a certain point spread is reached, Sebastian claims, he intends to kill himself. Not knowing whether Sebastian is truly serious, but being an excellent manipulator of cards, Nigel has seen to it that Sebastian never reaches that spread.
Recent Events: Since 1998, Nigel has been reunited with his sire Antonio, and it has been a bitter-sweet reunion. Most of Nigel's anger with his sire lay in the fact that Antonio abandoned him two centuries ago, with the burden of a suicidal childe while the Tremere hunted them all. Nigel sees his sire as inexcusably selfish and immature, both of which are true. Despite his deep-seated anger, he is beginning to see the efforts that Antonio is going through to establish a place of safety for them all. Secretly, Nigel is relieved that Antonio has taken the burden of watching Sebastien from him, allowing him to finally return to his beloved study of alchemy. But, he finds himself uncharacteristically jealous of Antonio's newest childe Marie, who Antonio has begged him to awaken from torpor with his alchemists' skill. In this one ploy, Antonio shows himself the elder, for both of them know that Nigel cannot resist the challenge of curing Marie with his concoctions and elixirs. To date, he has little success in thwarting the Setite curse set on Marie with his alchemy, but he recently received an ancient manual of Egyptian alchemy from an unidentified source. Though suitably suspicious, he has found no evidence of Setite involvement and has plunged deeply into the ancient treatise with his long lost fervor for the arcane.
- -- <<Nigel Porter's Statistics>>
